Sprout Studio

I love Sprout! From the fantastic customer service to the myriad of features it's been amazing!

Pros:

I love that my whole photography studio is under one roof. Leads, calendars, workflows, contracts, galleries, album proofing, money management... everything is all in one place. It makes my life so much easier! I also LOVE the customer service. The team is super prompt at answering questions and solving problems, and they're very responsive to adding newly requested features for their members. Amazing!

Cons:

There isn't much I have to say that's not positive about Sprout, I think at this point the only thing I would say isn't working for me is that the calendar system isn't easy to navigate. At this point I have to click through each month to get to a date in the future, and when I'm looking to see what September 2019 looks like, for instance, having to click through 18 months to get there is annoying. Also sometimes I find the lead and shoot pages are quite slow, I'm assuming it's because I have a lot of open shoots so it take awhile to populate. It would be great if these pages could somehow populate a little quicker :)

Sprout is the tool I needed

Comments: I love it. I have used many other platforms but none had everything I needed in one place. I would invoice a customer here, send a gallery from there, manage a calendar in yet another place. Now, I have all of that and sooo much more in ONE PLACE. It is such a critical part of my business and I'm grateful!

Pros:

Having Sprout is like having an employee, without the cost. I'm able to set up workflow, that makes it easy to stay in touch with potential clients and customers to ensure that nothing is missed. It also provides great reporting to stay on top of the business. It's awesome.

Cons:

Nothing. they listen to their clients and are constantly making updates which makes the software even better.

Big Hopes, Big Promises, Low Quality Delivery, Different Product

Comments: Pretty terrible from day 1. But I bought it stupidly so gave it time, too much time it's time to switch. I speak with support often but nothing is ever fixed.I'd rather pay 3x more money than have to put up with the bugs and problems sprout throws at me on a daily basis.

Pros:

The design is great, for the most part.If a good looking system to work in everyday is your primary concern, go with Sprout. Rounded corners, pretty boxes and subtle colouring.All-in-one, but if none of it works properly or fully, what's the point in it being an all-in-one solution?

Cons:

Where to start?So many missing features.So many bugs and errors.Far too complex for most users to even consider setting up by themselves.Basic things that a CRM should have, integrated emails, nope.Marketing that sends from YOUR email address, nope sends from [email protected], your mass marketing emails aren't sent from your own email address.Calendar scheduling that doesn't disconnect every day or week, which then allows clients to double and triple book your time.Workflows aren't editable once applied to a shoot, you also can't easily add new steps without creating a workflow under settings and applying it. The add step option on the shoot or lead is a joke of an implementation.Contact management is basic and truly underwhelming at best. Merging contacts is again, a joke.They give you stats for irrelevant things.Task management is just painful to work with.The whole system is just annoying at best and down right awful at worst.If you have a VERY simple photo business with 1 brand and a lot of time to learn and configure sprout, go for it, but buy a lot of advil, you'll need it, otherwise, choose any other CRM. You'll thank me.

Can't beat it for the price

Comments: Overall, I'm pretty happy with it, and I don't think you can beat it for the price. Customer Support is always friendly and helpful. It's a pretty complex program, so there's a definite learning curve- it's not really a figure-it-out-as-you-go kind of program. But the tutorials are very clear and thorough, as long as you actually the take time to watch them.

Pros:

My favorite feature is that it includes gallery delivery- so my clients only have to manage one portal for everything from signing the contract, making payments, and

Cons:

I REALLY wish they would have an automatic payment option. I don't love that clients have to manually make each payment individually.

All in one for client management for Photographers

Comments: Extremely useful, however, they need to do a wayyyy better job at explaining where to start setting up all of the tools they have to offer. I think even for them is hard to explain what number one thing to do from the get go. I love all of the tools they offer but there has to be a better way of setting up. In my opinion the templates are the number one place to start, then price list, etc.

Pros:

These is so much in this software, and much that I have been wanting to keep my photography business organized.

Cons:

It is quiet the learning curve with the immense amount of tools that the software offers. They should have step one, step two, step three. It is extremely disorganized even their training. I had to create my own 1,2,3 list of where to start setting up. Yes they offer a whole "school of training" which has the most annoying music one hears for too long when each training video starts. Now give me two weeks later between learning how to use it, I can appreciate all of the tools