After nearly five years of hosting my portfolio website with Wix, I finally decided it was time to switch domain provider. Not because it didn’t work – but because it simply cost way too much for what I needed. When Wix announced that a business option of the website for the next year would cost me nearly $500 a year, it started to feel less like a digital home and more like a luxury rent for a space that brought in very few actual clients.

My website has always been a digital portfolio – something I could link to when a client wanted to see my past work. It wasn’t a high-traffic e-commerce store or a blog hub with loads of engagement. (Worpress is my blog of choice, loads of engagement is still on the way lol). It was more of a quiet gallery. And for that purpose, Wix felt like an overkill.

In all those years, I never managed to sell a print or a photo directly from my website. But interestingly, I did make sales through Instagram and blog posts here. Which made me realize: my website doesn’t need to be fancy – it just needs to be functional, presentable, and low-maintenance. Basically all I need is a high-quality gallery of images united by a decent menu and preferably on the white background. Sounds easy enough, right?

So I went looking for cheaper alternatives.

What I Found (and Didn’t Choose)

As you probably know if you’ve ever watched a single YouTube photography video, Squarespace is the go-to recommendation for portfolio sites. It’s clean, beautiful, and easy to use. But guess what? It’s just as expensive as Wix in the end. Once you factor in hosting, templates, and add-ons, the price creeps up fast. Not exactly the budget-friendly option I was hoping for.

The Solution That You Are Probably Already Paying For

Then I remembered something: Adobe Portfolio is included in my Creative Cloud subscription. And since I already pay for Adobe every month for Lightroom and Photoshop, I thought, well, let me give it a try.

Here’s what I ended up doing:

– Transferred my domain name to a new, cheaper domain registrar – I took Namecheap for just 11 bucks per year. It does take about 7-8 days to trasfer though.

– Set up my site with Adobe Portfolio, which has built-in templates made specifically for showcasing creative work.

– Added an SSL certificate (also using Namecheap) and a few other basic security tools.

– Connected the domain, and boom – new portfolio site up and running for a fraction of the cost.

Now the only things I’m paying for are the domain name and a few optional extras. No more additional fees for features I never used.

Conclusion

Perhaps, you really love your Wix or Squarespace website and it really does what is supposed to do for you and you are happy to pay – no hard feelings. But if you’re a photographer, designer, artist, or anyone who just needs a simple, clean online portfolio, Adobe Portfolio is seriously underrated. 

It’s not a full website builder like Wix or Squarespace, but if your main goal is to show your work and not run an online store or blog, it’s more than enough.

And most importantly? I’m no longer paying $500 a year for something that doesn’t pay me back.

So if you’re in the same boat, looking to cut costs without cutting quality, maybe it’s time to rethink your setup too.

We are all just looking for something simple, functional, and cost-effective.