PhotoShelter Brands, Kontainer, ImageKit, imgix

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 Brands

Kontainer

ImageKit

Yes

imgix

Yes

Everything else

PhotoShelter Brands

Kontainer

ImageKit

imgix

Verdict

A DAM platform for brand and marketing teams, built for real-time camera-to-cloud photo and video distribution during live events.

A Nordic/European DAM, with optional PIM, aimed at mid-market brand, retail and ecommerce teams wanting fast onboarding without heavy IT involvement, backed by a 30-day no-commitment trial.

An image and video CDN with an API-first asset library, built for fast developer integration, billed on flat monthly tiers with per-GB overage once bandwidth or storage limits are exceeded.

An image and video API for real-time resizing, compression, and format conversion via URL parameters, built for developers at ecommerce, media, and agency teams.

Price published

Yes

Billed on

Plan tiers differ by number of Library (admin) seats and storage (TB); unlimited invited/contributor users on every tier. No dollar figures published — all tiers show a "Get Pricing" CTA leading to a sales/demo form.

Depends on configuration; several features are priced separately

Bandwidth, storage and user seats, with published per-unit rates above the limits

Consumption-based credits, sold in monthly tiers ($25–$500/mo self-serve, custom above that). Credits are spent on Management (2 credits/GB/month for stored assets), Delivery (1 credit/GB bandwidth), and Transformation (variable by operation). Per-credit rate drops as plan tier rises ($0.25 down to $0.12, monthly billing; slightly cheaper on annual commitment). Each plan also states an implied storage/bandwidth cap in GB.

Deployment

Cloud

Free plan

Yes

Free trial

Yes

Transparency index

Not checked

20%

70%

Not checked

Most common complaint

Not checked

Feature-level add-on pricing makes the final figure hard to anticipate before a quote

Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats

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.

Kontainer Feature-level add-on pricing makes the final figure hard to anticipate before a quote — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

ImageKit Several units are metered at once: bandwidth, storage, video units and seats — ask them to answer this in writing before the trial.

No email required — the page prints as it stands.