PhotoShelter, Frontify, CELUM, Transloadit

Side by side on what we have verified on each vendor’s own pages. Where a fact was not checked, the table says so rather than leaving a blank that reads as “no”.

What decides it · Publishes a price

One of these tells you the order of magnitude before you speak to anyone, and the others do not. That difference sets how long your evaluation takes, whatever the software does.

PhotoShelter

Frontify

CELUM

Transloadit

Yes

Everything else

PhotoShelter

Frontify

CELUM

Transloadit

Verdict

A cloud portfolio and image-storage platform for individual photographers, with client galleries and built-in print/licensing sales.

A brand-management platform built around a single, always-current source of truth for guidelines, logos and templates, aimed at brand teams working with internal staff and external agencies.

An enterprise DAM bundled with workflow and creative-review tools, aimed at mid-to-large manufacturing and consumer brands needing deep Adobe/PIM/CMS/e-shop integration and partner-led setup.

A file-processing API that handles uploading, transforming, and delivering video, audio, images, and documents, for developers who'd otherwise build that infrastructure in-house.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Quote-only. Priced per named "Library Seat" (2-5 seats depending on tier, custom for Enterprise) plus a storage allotment per tier (1TB-5TB, custom for Enterprise) and a cap on "Advanced Integrations" (0 to unlimited). Unlimited invited/contributor users and unlimited Social Content Publisher seats included on all/most tiers. Annual or monthly billing toggle shown on the pricing page, but no dollar amounts are published — all tiers show a "Get Pricing" CTA to a demo/sales call.

Monthly active users

Quoted per customer

GB of data processed per month (combined input + output file size); paid tiers also gate priority processing slots, collaborator seats, and max file size. Overage on the paid Startup tier billed at $1.80/GB. Enterprise tier is custom/quote-based tiered pricing with whitelabeling.

Deployment

Cloud

Free plan

Free trial

Transparency index

Not checked

30%

Not checked

Most common complaint

Not checked

The MAU model favours occasional users, but there is no figure to verify that with

The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures

Not checked

“Not checked” means exactly that: we have not verified it, not that the platform lacks it. Every other value was read off the vendor’s own pages on the date shown on each platform page.

What to ask on the demo

One question per platform, drawn from what actually goes wrong with it — not a generic checklist. Vendors run the demo; this hands the agenda back to you.

Frontify The MAU model favours occasional users, but there is no figure to verify that with — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

CELUM The pricing page contains neither tiers nor figures — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.