While Snappr has copped a thrashing in recent online reviews, the cheap on-demand photography service continues to expand by launching a new high volume photography platform and a recent acquisition.
Snappr allows clients to book vetted photographers in as little as two hours, with a set price list that has drawn the ire of the professional photo industry. Clients can choose the photographer, who has a profile which includes reviews, a portfolio, and other information.
From its humble beginnings in 2016 out of a co-working space in Sydney, Snappr relocated to San Francisco after securing investment funding and has built a heavy presence in most Australian and US cities.
Snappr is controversial, with Inside Imaging speaking with both Snappr photographers and a client about the woes of using the platform. While the testimonies from a few contractors and one client is far from representing the full picture, the majority of reviews in ProductReview.com.au claim the photography platform fails to deliver.
Of 15 reviews published in the last 18 months, nine warned others against using Snappr while six recommend Snappr.
Almost all negative reviews occurred when the photographer cancelled or simply didn’t show up, and the client was let down by poor customer service and communication.
Snappr customer reviews
Ren from Perth said his photographer, Isabelle, cancelled an hour before the shoot. ‘We set up the location and took the morning off for the shoot. Tried to contact Snappr for advice and help [after the cancellation] – couldn’t reach them. Before booking they would send text/ email to urge you to make the booking, hence not reachable when it comes to issuing refund/ giving solution. Absolute disappointment. Stay away.’
This was the trend. ‘Photog cancelled the day of the event,’ wrote reviewer, Sybil, in August 2021. ‘Snappr never answered calls or emails for a replacement. They finally reached contacted me the day after the event, … [and] issued a refund’
Mohamed from Greater Melbourne penned a review in August 2021 highlighting how after a photographer cancelled, the replacement had inferior gear and a poor skillset.
‘The new photographer came without lights or ideas and it ended up with photos with bad colours and angles and the photos I am taking with my mobile are much, much better. Contacted snapper and sent them examples from the normal photos which I am taking.’
Despite Mohamed’s disappointment with the pictures, Snappr stated they passed its Editing and Design Team’s standards.
There have also been cases where it’s difficult to reschedule or organise refunds after a Snappr photographer cancels, as outlined by Insiya in a review from June 2021.
‘Booking process was smooth however the photographer cancelled upon me as he had to isolate which is understandable but the support team didn’t help to reschedule the appointment. Once product sold they are not interested at all in providing a service. They have taken full payment and haven’t refunded me yet. Wouldn’t recommend snappr, big company with various departments but poor customer service.’
The worst situations, however, are when the photographer is a no show at a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Nina in February, 2021:
‘Do not recommend to anyone. Paid for a Snappr photographer to attend my pre-wedding function and they didn’t show! Snappr didn’t bother organising a replacement for my special day. It was so embarrasing in front of guests not to mention a waste of what would have been amazing memories. On top of everything they refused to give me a refund for their mistake!! Book at your own risk,mine wasn’t worth it.
Michael from Mid North Coast in April, 2020:
‘The absolute worst!
This company is only focused on taking your money. When the photographer we booked did not turn up to our wedding we contacted Snappr a half hour before the ceremony. Their response was “we can’t get a hold of them”. That was all.
My wife and I are pretty understanding people and gave the company the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe the photographer got lost or may have been sick. What we found out weeks later is that the photographer was over seas and had notified Snappr that they were not available.
We were not angry at the photographer, but the fact that Snappr were told and didn’t bother to do anything about it was devastating. Once we notified Snappr that we knew what really happened, we were purely just ignored. They even ignored consumer affairs.This company really ruined our wedding without a care in the world as long as they have money coming in.
Again, please don’t make the same mistake that we did. Please book a professional.
Lastly, if you read this Snappr, please do not reply with one of your generic messages. It would be an insult as you neglected to reply to our emails and phone calls. You left my wife and I devastated on our most special day. But the worst part was, you just ignored us. I hope no one has to go through what we went through and books with a reliable company.
[Snappr came back to them… with a generic message]
It’s not all bad. Some clients had a great experience using Snappr, such as Dr Savio George from South Australia.
‘I was very fortunate to have John N (South Australia) as the photographer. John is a ‘mobile photo studio’ – he has all the equipment needed to click the right photographs. Most importantly, he is patient, friendly, and takes the time to ensure that he gets the right shot every time. Highly recommended!’
And sometimes Snappr’s customer service does, in fact, ‘come to the rescue’!
‘I couldn’t be happier with the photos taken by Hyunjun for my son’s 21st. Candid, natural photos without being intrusive when people mingling. He captured the best moments so I could relax & enjoy the party. Very reasonable pricing for amazing photos. I had originally booked another photographer with Snappr, but understandably, for Covid-19 reasons, had to pull out just a few days before. Snappr quickly came to the rescue giving me a few other photographers to choose from who were available! Photos were ready the next day.’
Click here to read ’em all.
Snappr’s new Enterprise
Snappr has introduced Snappr For Enterprise, a service with its sights set on high volume photography with companies that require ’30 or more photoshoots per month’.
Snappr plans for this service to be adopted in commercial, real estate, product, and corporate photography sector.
In its pitch, Snappr highlights professional photography ‘was the primary driver of Airbnb’s growth’, and how real estate photos shot on a DSLR sell properties faster.
Snappr claims its photographers are in ‘the top 5 percent’. It’s not clear how Snappr came up with this statistic, or what it even means. The top five percent of what – talent? Sales? Cancellations?
It’s difficult to understand how this new platform works, with the pitch mostly littered with corporate tech jargon. For instance, ‘Manage bookings at scale with a custom branded photography portal. Permission different teammates to create bookings and curate your photography, all from one interface’.
And the Snappr API, which can ‘programmatically manage your entire photo operation’ to ‘trigger bookings automatically and get updates on shoots as they happen with the Snappr API’.
‘If photography needs to fit into an existing company workflow, you may already have all of the details for a shoot in your software or CRM. Rather than having someone copying details manually, you can send this directly to the Snappr API for us to book shoots for you instantly.’
Inside Imaging will provide an update once we figure out what this all means!
Snappr acquires Pretty Instant
Lastly in Snappr news, the company has acquired Pretty Instant, a US-based on-demand photography platform called Pretty Instant. This is Snappr’s third acquisition, following Australian directory, Photographers.com.au, in 2018 and photo sharing platform, Eversnap, in 2020.
The commercial photos on the screen shot looks good.
How likely are corporate clients going to get photos like that on a consistent basis I wonder.
I can tell you from personal experience that working with business clients is very hands on. It’s a long process with many touch points. The bigger the shoot the more work needs to be done pre shoot.
Automating most of your contact can and will lead to more disappointment for the clients. Not good at all for the perception of the sector. Those reviews!
They’ll no doubt spend more millions on over priced PPC campaigns to squeeze every possible lead into their funnel.
The full timers will need to re-educate the companies that have been funnelled into an app they get frustrated with.
Rarely are corporate shoots the same same, or is that just with me?
Thankfully they didn’t get another link from this publication. Good one guys 🙂
A year or two ago after getting frustrated with the concept and horror stories I was hearing about Snappr I wrote a piece for my website just to be clear that my brand name of Wedding Snapper had nothing to do with Snappr. https://www.weddingsnapper.com.au/snappr/
I now receive a couple of calls a month with people finding me in the search results and confusing me with Snappr, complaining that they cannot contact their photographer or wondering why their booking has been cancelled.
I usually feel sorry for them but it does seem to confirm that you get what you pay for!
Never ever use Snaper
Purchased a gift voucher – but with Covid they failed to refund my money – claiming I paid in USA Dollars and they could not give me a refund?
I paid via Visa in AUS dollars for a photo shoot in Queensland
I have spoken with people “alleging” they work for Snaper in Asia, USA and who knows where else
don’t use this company unless you want to be scammed.
It would appear that their selling point is the price. I’m not sure how much attention you would get as a client. As a professional photographer myself, I can say that consultation and preparation for a shoot is a massive part of a successful session. Coming in at the lowest price possible has consequences. Most clients I shoot don’t like being in front of a camera so it is my job to put them at ease. I do this well because over a long period of time, I’ve learnt how to deal with different types of personalities and I am able to get them to relax and have a great time during the shoot. I would be interested to see how the automation of the process helps the client feel good about their session.
Dan
As a photographer that signed up with Snappr when they first showed up in my market but quickly cut ties. The support is absolute garbage on our side as well, but it makes sense.
I just noticed they have this new page on their site comparing the costs of average wedding photographers in the Seattle vs Snappr’s prices… and it’s absurd. They’re only charging $500 for an 8 hour wedding… then they keep 20% and demand turnaround (edits & delivery) within 96 hours. Can you imagine the type of photographer that would support this company? Like people have said before, you get what you get for.
Link to Snappr price page: https://www.snappr.com/how-much-does-a-photographer-cost/wedding/seattle-wa
Link to Snappr photographer guide: https://www.insideimaging.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/AU_Photographer_Info_Pack.pdf
They are the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. You’re looking into using them please don’t please just book a photographer and don’t go through snappr or use another platform.
For $500 for an 8 hour wedding, you’d expect the photographer to cancel their service without notice.
Wedding photography involved careful planning, such as meeting the clients, knowing their schedule of the day etc… not just show up for 8hrs and charge $500
I have done hundreds of enterprise shoots for Snappr and never had a complaint. Most complaints are from portraits and family shoots, which I will no longer do. The complaints are always about customer service and very rarely about photo quality. Sometimes I do a last minute job because a photographer cancelled. But I am the one that gets the points off for customer service review. The biggest reason I cancel is because I was not available in the first place. Even when I had a 2 week vacation exception on the books they booked me. And they booked me both times I had Covid. Another problem is that I get very little information from the client and sometimes they don’t understand what is involved. I can’t set up for a portrait shoot in a tiny room with toddlers and pets running around and no space for light stands, or unsafe to set up a tall one. Rather than being put in this situation I simply do not do portraits anymore, even though I had some excellent repeat business from corporate clients who know what they want. As for coming up with ideas, I have no idea who you are or how you will use the photos or the specifics of the location or sometimes who exactly is on the shoot. Snappr should have some interview questions before booking me. I can’t cancel after the fact. So now I no longer do any of the people shoot categories. A few bad apples spoiled it for me. If you have no ideas, why even order a shoot? Am I a mind reader who knows everything? Pinterest is a thing. There will always be complainers and those that try and take advantage of the photographer. You don’t get a $500 shoot for $150.00. I went through a long vetting process to be a Snappr photographer, so I am sure most are very good.
Snappr from management to customer service had no clue about the photography business, they treat photographers as manual labor, and they do not view photography as a form of art, instead, they view it as the act of snapping, as if keep snapping and cranking out photos like a machine gun was the way they encourage photographers to please the customers. they encourage customers to demand raw photos from photographers, it was like a dealership encouraging customers to demand car makers to sell engines or transmissions to customers.
I really do not understand why a photography clueless guy can swindle investors into believing he can reshape the photography business. Their customer service was completely offshore cheap labor from the Philippines, they do not have phone support, and everything was via email, however, most parts of their email were just copied and pasted from a template, a total waste of time to read, it was like chatting with a bot.
When I worked for them, I once had an experience that customer told me he hired another Snappr photographer on his trip to Seattle. who just bought his first camera, and used Snappr as an opportunity to learn photography.
The more I learn about this business the more I found that this business was run by a bunch of idiots who had no clue what they were doing. they like to brag about things that were flat lies. such as the CEO boasted 6 figure income for photographers, in reality, they do not have any skills and experience to find the right market, therefore counting on being cheap to allure customers, actually if you calculate the payment they offered after excluding gas mileage and wear and tear of equipment, it barely passes the minimum wage mark, sometimes even lower than minimum wage. unless you work 24X7 there’s no way to make even half of the 6 figure that CEO bragging about.
Worst of all, they coerce photographers to work on projects making photographers lose money. and if you disagree they will use their algorithm to punish you. Honestly, I’ve never worked for a sweatshop like snappr, and they want every Snappr photographer to make a Philippine wage but deliver American quality, even at the cost of breaking the law.
I would encourage all Snappr photographers to take the shady Snappr business to your State Department of Labor, and IRS, they need to be scrutinized. this business not only drives everything to the bottom but also gives photography a bad name. Snappr need to go !
Total rip-off. Don’t do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am pro photographer but moved to a LA (a highly saturated market already) with no leads/ no jobs and not a super developed business plan so I signed up to make some extra cash through Snappr. I think most reviews are accurate as far as pay… it’s a joke and it’s insulting. So far I”ve done very easy shoots that took about 1-1.5 hours of my time, most of them required no editing on my part. For $80-$100 for the hour of shooting, it’s okay but I can’t imagine going through some of the guidelines and types of shoots, how anything really high end can be achieved. I definitely don’t think I would have the dignity to do this for very long and certainly wouldn’t be okay taking home $100 for setting up $2000 worth of gear for portraiture for example + editing (haven’t done portraits and considering not even bothering).vThe way I see it, this is good for someone who is idle or has extra time and wants to build a bit more portfolio/experience in certain areas but the moment I start developing my business and clientele, I will be turning this off.