by Erik Dungan

This month, NextProof–our new online proofing service–goes into public beta. In fact, a small team of photographers is testing NextProof as you read this. I thought it would be nice to start giving some sneak peeks of the service over the next week or two. In this post I'll briefly discuss the philosophy behind NextProof.

Why another proofing tool?

Every year, more proofing products and services spring up (the same goes for websites, in fact). Suprisingly, we are still continually asked by photographers if we offer one. Until last year, we hadn't given it much consideration–we just continued building great websites and taking care of our customers.

Last fall, we conducted a customer survey. It's primary purpose was to gauge customer satisfaction. But at the end of the survey, we asked our customers "if we offered a proofing tool, would you consider using it?" 75% said "yes". That was the clincher.

Are there several proofing options for photographers? Yes. Are some of them exceptional at what they do? Yes. Is there a need for what we're building? We think so.

Flexible and simple

We're not big on bloated software. We want to be flexible but we know we can't be all things to all people. We set out to build a proofing platform with essential features. We want photographers to (a) spend less time and (b) make more sales. We also needed a system that can grow–fast. Given those goals:

• We built NextProof to accomodate all types of photographers–not just the wedding and portrait segment.
• NextProof leverages cloud computing platforms, giving us storage that is reliable, affordable, and infinite
• We designed NextProof to be fast and easy to use–for both photographers and their clients
• We want NextProof to integrate tightly with our existing websites
• NextProof should give the photographer multiple options for order fulfillment

Affordable

Look at the existing proofing landscape and you'll see an array of pricing structures–often confusing (at least for me). There are setup fees, monthly fees, per-image fees, per-gallery fees, credit-card processing fees, and transaction fees. Not to mention the hosting fees, certificate fees, and merchant account fees required if you choose an installed/self-hosted platform.

Our main goal was to provide a service that is affordable and transparent. With NextProof, you'll choose a monthly plan (based on storage) and pay a low (as in, single-digit low) transaction fee. There is no setup fee, no contracts, no limits on galleries or events, no hidden fees of any kind. Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time.

Oh, there's also a free plan.

The hosting dilemma

The biggest dilemma we wrestled with was where this application would live. Would this be a completely hosted service? Or, would we allow photographers to install this application on their own hosting account? We even considered both. In the end, we decided to keep NextProof as a hosted service. We know this alone will keep some people from choosing NextProof. For those who have reservations about using a hosting proofing service, here is how we addressed some of the cons of hosted proofing:

• Seamless: I don't want customers "leaving" my website to view their images. Your entire NextProof account can be mapped to a subdomain of your website. It may reside on our servers, but your clients will not know that.
• Fees: high transaction fees make hosting your own solution more affordable in the long-run. NextProof transaction fees will be among the lowest in the industry. Combine that with never running out of space, never dealing with merchant accounts, never paying a setup fee, and never paying to upgrade as we add new features. We think NextProof will make you more money, not less.
• Fulfillment: I don't want my proofing company to be my lab. With NextProof, you choose how to fulfill your orders. If you want, send print orders directly to one of the best labs in the US (more on that later). It's your choice.

More sneak peeks to come.