Switching
A Studio Ninja alternative with client galleries included.
Studio Ninja runs your admin well. It doesn’t deliver the photos, so you pay for a gallery platform too and connect the two with an integration. This page compares them straight, including the parts where Studio Ninja is the better tool.
Nothing here asks you to cancel anything. Bring one shoot and see.
Why people look
People usually look for the same reason.
Studio Ninja is a proper CRM and the photographers using it usually like it. They end up on a page like this because of what the tool covers, not how good it is. The job doesn’t finish until the client has the photos. That last step happens somewhere else, on another bill and behind another login, connected to the admin by an integration.
The facts box
Checked against Studio Ninja’s own pages on 31 August 2026. Studio Ninja does not deliver client galleries. It connects to Pic-Time, ShootProof, Fundy and ProSelect, and galleries appear on their site as something those integrations sync rather than something Studio Ninja itself does. Their plans run to three tiers, listed in Australian dollars at $24, $36 and $53 a month, with a 7-day free trial and no free plan. The entry tier is capped at five active jobs, one user and one contact form. Studio Ninja was founded in Melbourne, and their about page says it was acquired by Captura in 2023.
Tellisto is one product on one bill. The galleries and the back-office are the same app. There’s a free plan, and zero commission on every plan. It is founder-owned with no outside investors. Their numbers can change any time, so check their pricing page for the current ones.
What maps to what
How your Studio Ninja setup maps to Tellisto.
- Leads and jobs become leads and bookings. It works the way you already do. An enquiry comes in, becomes a quote, then becomes a confirmed shoot with a deposit against it. Each booking creates its gallery with the client and details already filled in, so you don’t retype anything between admin and delivery.
- Your contact form becomes a branded enquiry form. It goes on the website you already have and feeds a simple pipeline. Each enquiry gets an instant reply in your words. Tellisto doesn’t build websites.
- Online booking becomes sessions. Set up a session for anything you take bookings for, and it gets its own shareable page. You can take a fixed or percentage deposit, add intake forms and set capacity limits. There’s a waitlist too, and it drafts a release email when someone cancels.
- Contracts and questionnaires carry across as they are. Draft a contract, send it and have it signed online, all under your studio’s brand rather than a Tellisto address. A signed contract ticks off its booking task by itself.
- Invoices get more specific for Australia and New Zealand. Studio Ninja handles tax generically, with custom tax rates. Tellisto handles Australian and New Zealand GST properly. In Australia it rounds GST the way the ATO specifies and checks your ABN against the register. In New Zealand it charges 15% and shows your IRD number. PayID and bank transfer are built in as proper ways to get paid.
- The integration becomes part of the product. This is the main difference. Galleries aren’t a separate tool Tellisto connects to. They’re part of the same app and linked to the same client record, and they’re white-labelled on every plan including free. When a client chooses to keep a gallery through the Client Vault, they pay for that storage. On Pro you earn a share of every renewal.
Where they do better
Where Studio Ninja is the better tool.
Here is where Studio Ninja does more than Tellisto, and where that might matter to you.
- Accounting integrations. Studio Ninja connects to Xero and QuickBooks. Tellisto connects to neither. If your bookkeeper works in Xero, that is a real cost of moving.
- A mobile app. Theirs is well rated and Tellisto has none. Tellisto works in a phone browser, which is not the same thing.
- More than one of you. Their upper plans carry extra users and up to three brands. A Tellisto account today is one studio and one person.
- Support hours. They run in-app chat around the clock. Tellisto is one person answering his own email, which some photographers prefer and nobody should mistake for 24-hour cover.
- Reach. They bill in several currencies and work in several countries. Tellisto is built for Australia and New Zealand and nowhere else yet, so if you shoot abroad they fit and we don’t.
- Australian-built is not a point of difference here. Studio Ninja was founded in Melbourne. Anyone selling you Tellisto on patriotism alone is wasting your time. The difference is what the product covers, not where it was written.
Here is what Tellisto doesn’t do at all yet: no print store, no website builder, no video hosting, no slideshows. Camera raw upload is on the roadmap for Pro and not shipped, so uploads take JPEG, PNG and WebP today.
The move itself
How the move goes.
- First, get your data out while you still have an account. Clients as a CSV, leads and jobs as a ZIP with the invoices, quotes and contracts inside, payments as a spreadsheet. Templates and workflows have no export, so copy out the handful you actually send. Do this before anything else, and don’t cancel yet.
- Day one: deliver something new. Brand your studio, which takes about ten minutes, and put your next shoot through Tellisto end to end. Nothing about your Studio Ninja account changes.
- Week one: bring your current clients. The people with active work or a likely rebook come across first. Send the exports over and we’ll do it together. While Tellisto is small, the person doing that is me.
- At your pace: the back catalogue. Old galleries re-upload from your own archive when a client needs one again, or in a single sitting if you’d rather be done. There’s no trial clock forcing it.
- Last: cancel the old bills. Both of them, if the gallery platform was only ever there because Studio Ninja didn’t cover it.
Decided?
The step-by-step guide to moving from Studio Ninja.
This page helps you choose. The guide covers the move itself. It lists which exports to pull out of Studio Ninja, in what order, and what has no export button at all. It also shows how to set up your live work in Tellisto before you cancel anything.
How to move from Studio Ninja to Tellisto How every move works
Comparing more than one tool? See every platform we compare.
Frequently asked questions
Questions about switching from Studio Ninja
Does Tellisto replace Studio Ninja, or sit next to it?
It replaces it, if you want it to. Leads, clients, jobs, quotes, contracts, invoices and the automated emails are all here, and so are the client galleries Studio Ninja sends you elsewhere for. You can also run them side by side for a while on the free plan and decide with the real thing in front of you.
I'm happy with Studio Ninja. Why would I move?
Usually one reason: you're paying two subscriptions to finish one job. Studio Ninja runs the admin and a gallery platform delivers the photos. The two only connect through an integration. If that split doesn't bother you, stay. It's a good tool and this page isn't trying to talk you out of it.
Can I get my data out of Studio Ninja?
Yes, and its exports are better than most. Clients export as a CSV, and leads and jobs export as a ZIP with their invoices, quotes, contracts and questionnaires inside. Payments export as a spreadsheet. Email templates and workflows have no export, so those get copied out by hand. The moving from Studio Ninja guide does it in the safe order.
What happens to my galleries?
You re-upload the finished files from your own archive, which you already keep. That's the cleanest way to move, wherever the galleries live now. You own the originals, and a gallery platform only ever holds a copy. Uploads take a whole shoot at once and keep running in the background.
What does Tellisto cost next to what I pay now?
Tellisto is one bill: a free plan with 20 GB and two live galleries, or Pro at $79 a month with 1 TB and unlimited live galleries, both with zero commission. Compare it with Studio Ninja's monthly price plus whatever you pay to deliver photos, not with Studio Ninja's price on its own. The pricing page has the detail.
Are the invoices as good?
For an Australian or New Zealand studio, yes, and they're more specific. In Australia, GST is worked out the way the ATO specifies and your ABN is checked against the register. In New Zealand, GST is 15% and your IRD number goes on the invoice. PayID and bank transfer are built in as proper ways to get paid, not an afterthought behind card.
Bring one shoot and see.
Start free in about ten minutes, run a whole job through it, and decide with the real thing in your hands. You don't need a card, there's no trial clock, and there's zero commission.