Portfoliobox – is a free website builder used to set up, manage, customize and promote professional portfolios for artists, photographers, musicians, architects and other representatives of creative professions. According to the official statistics, over 12,613 websites have already been built with the platform and many more are under construction now.
The software also makes it possible to create mobile-friendly small business projects while integrated eCommerce features might work great for those, who want to sell products or services online.
Portfoliobox comes with a simple editor, which contributes to a hassle-free building process with no coding. Users may customize their sites by choosing dozens of ready-made themes and styles and editing them in the real-time mode. The website builder has free and paid plans, which come with secure hosting opportunities.
If you are interested to find out more about the major Portfoliobox features (including design and technical capabilities), keep reading the review to learn all the essentials.
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Portfoliobox Features
The website builder initially specializes in creating professional portfolios. At the same time, it has a set of extra features that let users sell products/services online, create engaging blogs etc. The selection of instruments is quite extensive, considering narrowed down functionality and affordable pricing. Such an extensive variety of tools and features has made it possible for the system subscribers to set up over 1 million web projects. Many more are under development.
Dashboard
Building sites with Portfoliobox is a piece of cake even for a user, who has never worked with such a software before. The developers of the system have taken care of users’ convenience by making the dashboard simple, intuitive and logically-structured at a time. All the must-have tools and settings are available in the same place here. What you need to do is to make some editing, upload images to introduce your business, eventually, go online. The system is designed as a block-based editor for fast and simple customization.
To get access to the dashboard and to start working on your project, you initially have to register a personal account. The process is simple and fast for everyone. Just indicate your name, login credentials, age, the name of your business and its specialization. An opportunity to subscribe for the system using your social media or Google accounts is currently unavailable.
Oh, and don’t forget to verify your email address. There is no rush, as you may still access the dashboard without instant verification. Feel free to do it later. Once the stage has been completed, you will be directed to the dashboard where you may proceed to the building process.
The entire Portfoliobox web building concept is quite different if compared to other site builders alike. Here you will not find templates in their traditional way for their further customization. The system offers various types of ready-made layouts instead of building a new site from scratch. Such an approach might work out in case you are fed up with typical templates that all look the same. As soon as you are done with your layout choice and project creation, you may proceed to its further customization.
eCommerce
With Portfoliobox, setting up a web store is easy and hassle-free. The system allows running digital shops to sell your products/services both online and in the local storefronts. All you need to get started here is to launch a new shop, make up a name for it and start adding goods you intend to offer for sale.
Portfoliobox allows uploading, editing and managing different types of physical and digital goods. You can create product listings with detailed information, such as title, description, price, and images. You can also categorize and organize your products into different collections or categories. Advanced product settings provide additional info such as label, release date, or product category.
You will also be able to set shipping preferences. The website builder makes it possible to configure shipping options and set up shipping rates based on different regions or weight brackets. Additionally, you can define tax rules and rates to ensure accurate taxation during the checkout process.
The software includes a built-in shopping cart system that enables your customers to add products to their cart and proceed to checkout. The shopping cart keeps track of selected items and allows customers to review their order before completing the purchase. Even if the shopping cart is empty, it will still be displayed on the website.
Portfoliobox ensures a powerful yet simple order management process. You may change descriptions, prices, upload your own product images etc. The software will also provide an opportunity to make secure transactions and preserve the confidentiality of all the info submitted by users, who place their orders online.
The platform lets you set stock quantities for each item and automatically updates the inventory when a purchase is completed. This is needed to properly monitor your product inventory and track stock levels. For your convenience, a low inventory notice is sent when fewer than 5 products are in stock.
To adjust your eCommerce settings, reach the corresponding section to add all the required details. This is also the place where you can set currency and payment options. The section also makes it easy to indicate tax rates and shipping commissions, if any. By the way, the system won’t charge any commission fees for any sales you make here.
These are some of the key eCommerce features offered by Portfoliobox. The platform aims to provide a user-friendly and comprehensive solution for creating and managing an online store, allowing you to showcase and sell your products effectively.
Blogging
The software comes with a fully-integrated blogging engine. This allows users to set up and manage quality blogs to establish better communication with customers and to keep them aware of recent updates, news and events.
The system offers a set of pre-designed image-based blogging layouts suitable for complete customization. It’s up to you to select the layout structure – from plain blog pages to full or half screen headers.
To get started with a new blog, you initially have to give it a name. Once your blog is set up, you can start creating and managing blog posts. This is done in the custom content management system with the major blog settings, publishing tools, and other instruments to keep control over the posts. The CMS looks very simple. All you need is to type in the title, add text, upload a featured image and instantly publish a post.
Portfoliobox generally provides a user-friendly editor where you can write and format your blog content. You can add images, videos, and other media to enhance your blog posts.
The website builder lets you organize your blog posts using categories and tags. This helps visitors easily navigate and find content that interests them. You can create custom categories and assign tags to each blog post.
The system now makes it possible to go to the next or previous blog post using the icons available below each article. The left arrow will redirect you to the previous post in your blog, while the right arrow will lead you to the following post. The hamburger element will send you to the very first blog page.
Portfoliobox has a built-in commenting system that allows visitors to leave comments related to any blog post. This ensures simple communication and more effective interaction between users. Blog owners can moderate and manage comments to guarantee a positive blog environment.
Advanced post settings make it possible to configure SEO configurations for each published material. You will be able to add metadata, change URL to make it more search engine friendly, enable or disable comments as well as edit dates.
Exquisite Image Collections
Portfoliobox makes it possible to create and update impressive image collections to further integrate them into your website and other layouts you choose for customization. Likewise, users may independently view the projects they work on, protecting them from unauthorized access with safe passwords. Another way to secure your images is to apply watermark signs on them.
Digital Product & Digital Download
To make your portfolio website more interactive and full-featured, you can now upload, share, and sell various types of digital files.These include ebooks, audio files, tutorials, courses, Lightroom presets, character designs, Photoshop brushes, zip files and more.
Password-Protected Galleries
Portfoliobox developers have recently implemented password-protected galleries to secure and control access to the uploaded images/videos. Such galleries provide an added layer of privacy, ensuring that only authorized individuals can view the protected photos. With a password-protected gallery, you have control over who can view your photos. By sharing the password only with authorized individuals, you can restrict access to a selected group of people.
Icons Gallery
The company has added a library comprising over 2000 high-quality icons to enhance the visual presentation of your website. The icons cover a broad range of categories and each of them can be individually customized to match your website style. To find and pick the required icons, just reach the Add New Element section and then the Media field. You will be offered a set of icons to choose from for further editing.
Email Subscription Form
You now have the opportunity to collect email addresses of your clients via the new Email Subscription Form. It is available in the Add New Element section, where there is an extensive selection of online forms. When your client clicks the button, he/she will see a popup window. A confirmation email will further be sent to the provided address after a user submits the form. Having clicked the confirmation email during 12 hours, a visitor will be added to the mailing list.
Adobe Lightroom Integration
The website builder allows integrating Lightroom into your portfolio project to be able to conveniently upload images you work on to your/client galleries directly from the service. This feature streamlines the entire workflow process making it possible to focus more on current project development.
SSL Certificate Connection
All projects powered by Portfoliobox feature high level security protection due to the opportunity to connect the SSL Certificate. This guarantees more effective protection of websites you create with the software.
Marketing
The dashboard has extra tools to integrate your social accounts as well as track both orders and customers by date, status, or the total amount of orders. Users may also integrate Google Analytics to monitor traffic sources and other vital parameters. Google Tag Manager may be applied as well to manage and deploy various tracking tags and scripts on your website. This all ensures more effective promotion of your portfolio website.
SEO
Websites created with Portfoliobox are SEO-friendly. The platform lets you fill out the major meta tags for your portfolio pages, adjust SEO settings available in the sidebar, and add keywords in corresponding sections. You can now add alt-tag to product images (SEO title). This contributes to better positions of your project in the search engine results.
Find Creatives
If you need professional assistance, the website builder grants access to the Find Creatives page. This is the place where you can find, discover and hire creatives near you, who may help you with your project development or can design a brand new website from scratch.
Portfoliobox Design and Templates
Just like many other website builders, Portfoliobox has a quality template collection that now includes over 30 designs into the following categories: Gallery, Text, Cover, Store, Link Page, Sub Menu, Services, Team, Logos, CV, Testimonials. By customizing these themes, users can create a website that is unique, stylish, and professional.
To start working on your project, you should initially pick a template category that comes up to your niche specialization and requirements most of all. Currently, the website builder offers design sections for photographers, designers, artists, illustrators, makeup artists, stylists and models as well as students.
Users may also choose from layouts for CVS, blogs, text-based sites, music bands, design and architecture services etc. Moreover, you are not obliged to stick to one and only layout style. To get the most out of your project performance, you can combine several themes. For example, you may pick the online shop template and add a blogging section.
What’s interesting, you can now adjust template size settings with regard to your project needs. The selected size (small, medium or large) will be applied to all new pages on your website. Additionally, you can choose default animations and default hover effects for images. The feature matters a lot as it will affect hover transition and animations for images, padding of sections, overall font size (including that for logo and header), caption position for images, image margins and size in galleries etc. You can find and adjust template size settings in the Styles section.
With Portfoliobox, you can create websites that are fully responsive and dynamic by default, but you will also be able to individually adjust mobile parameters of your project. In other words, your website will be perfectly sized for any device despite the screen dimensions. The software will automatically adjust pages depending on the user’s device. There is an option to keep an eye on how your site looks on a smartphone or tablet. Likewise, there is a possibility to add a Mobile Logo for all Logo elements on your website.
Portfoliobox makes it easy to enable bright visual website representation. To make your site look more engaging, you can combine different gallery styles, upload videos, set slideshows, and more.
When it comes to design customization, Portfoliobox uses an intuitive visual editor. You will see the instrument panel in the right sidebar of the screen. Click the “New Page” button and choose the layout style that refers to your future site. Here we have galleries, product sections, or text blocks. Pick the one to unblock the rest of the themes. Now you may edit each section or add new ones. The system lets you upload images, change product descriptions or “About Me” sections, add galleries, playlists, etc.
With each section, you will have a separate control panel to make needed modifications. Users may change fonts and colors, text sizes, etc. here you may add animations and visual effects as well as delete the blocks.
You can use the smaller control panel to edit the entire section or some of its elements separately. This fact adds more flexibility in terms of customization. Nevertheless, dedicated and experienced users might feel a shortage of design tools.
The software developers have made it possible to add a footer to your website. This is where you can add contact info (copyright notices, navigation links, company data, social networks etc.) that will be displayed on all website pages. This will make it easier for customers to find this data. To add a footer, you just need to click the “Add a Footer” at the bottom of your site.
General settings contain specs and characteristics that might be vital for your site. For example, they let you link a domain, edit SEO settings, indicate the website time and contact info, integrate Google Analytics, etc.
You may also upload the Favicon, change the language for the sections you need, delete your site to start with the new one, and more. Experienced web design pros may customize the website by accessing CSS. There is a “Publish” button to share your website.
Customer Support
Portfoliobox customer support is quite extensive, offering several ways to stay in touch with the team of developers and to better explore the system capabilities. The prevailing amount of support options is available in the Help section you can find on the home page. This is where you may browse more categories based on the support type you are looking for.
The Learn section grants access to the extensive knowledge base of the service. The info available here covers the major system topics and problems users may encounter. These include Getting Started, Account & Billing, Pages & Content, Design & Styles, Domains and Email, Blog, Store, Client Pages, SEO & Analytics, Privacy & Security. There is also a search field here, where you can type the inquiry and find a response. This is a handy option for everyone.
One of the system highlights is the availability of the Video Guides section. This is where you can view video tutorials to get the visual presentation of the most popular processes you can complete with Portfoliobox.
The Contact Us section allows getting in touch with the support team to solve the issues you couldn’t handle on your own. Users may connect with the system experts via email or by filling out a contact form available on a page. Access to social network accounts of the system is available here as well. All in all, Portfolio customer support is informative and professional.
Portfoliobox Pricing
The system has a free plan that is more of a free trial to test all features and system tools. It will not let you go live with the project. To have the website tested and published, you will need to choose from three available plans:
- Light ($3.5/mo) – 10 pages, 50 images, 10 products, 10 client gallery images, powerful SEO tools, custom CSS editing, image protection, SSL security, unlimited bandwidth, mobile optimization;
- Pro ($9.5/mo) – 50 pages, 500 images, 10 products, advanced styling options, free custom domain, 24/7 support,
- Pro Plus ($12.5/mo) – 1000 images, 1000 pages, 1000 products, 5000 client gallery images, no system ad banner, Adobe Lightroom integration.
Portfoliobox website builder offers a refund policy, which lets you get your money back during 14 days since the moment of purchase.
Portfoliobox Alternatives and Competitors
Portfoliobox has all the required tools to set up, customize and promote photography/portfolio projects for creatives and entrepreneurs. The system, however, has a niche-specific nature, which makes its application somewhat limited for many users. This especially concerns business owners, who intend to present their products/services to the target audience by creating professional portfolios. They frequently crave for more flexibility and advanced functionality to get the most out of their projects. If you have the same aspirations, then switching to a more feature-rich system might be a good idea.
Squarespace is a worthy alternative to Portfoliobox. If we compare the systems, both are used for the same purpose – creating and configuring quality project portfolios. As opposed to Portfoliobox, however, Squarespace does not restrict its functionality to portfolio development only. This is the all-in-one website builder, which has a more extensive sphere of application and a wider toolset. Squarespace offers a separate collection of templates, abundance of high end design customization options, SEO and marketing solutions. It also has much to offer in terms of blog/web store creation. These are must-have features for users, who have serious portfolio creation/promotion aspirations.
Verdict
Portfoliobox is a professional portfolio website builder with extended features and functionality available in its affordable Pro package. Apart from baseline small business capabilities, it delivers streamline eCommerce options to let users not just represent their services but also sell them online. On the one hand, it cannot be used for a full-scale growing online shop. On the other hand, it will definitely meet artists’ needs to highlight and sell their works online.
A huge knowledge base, intuitive dashboard and simple setup will certainly meet newbies’ expectations. Bigger companies and enterprises looking to grow their business online might require a bit more extended functionality. However, the software might still be a good option for a start.
