Picfair announces 1 million sign-up milestone

London, UK-based Picfair, the portfolio and store builder for hobbyist photographers, has passed 1 million signups. The milestone comes as the company also crossed the threshold into profitability, the company said.

“We’ve been growing by 1,000 photographers a day so far this year” says Benji Lanyado, founder and CEO, Picfair. “We invested a huge amount of time building an organic brand on social media – we’ve got more than half a million followers on Instagram and TikTok now, and that’s been transformative in making our paid campaigns work harder for us”.

Hobbyists from across the world have been signing up to Picfair since the launch of their simple store-builder product in 2019.

“We saw a huge focus across the industry on professionals, and knew that there was an opportunity to create something really powerful for the vast, growing amateur photography community who Flickr and Instagram have left behind,” says Lanyado. 

Picfair photographers can launch an online store within minutes of signing up to the site, on a monthly or annual subscription, with multi-license digital downloads and a variety of printed products instantly available to sell. “We’ve worked really hard to suck all of the complexity out of launching your first photography site – we look after everything that is difficult, so our users can focus on getting out there and enjoying their passion”, says Lanyado. Picfair users who don’t choose the paid store option still gain access to Focus, their comprehensive content hub with marketing resources, kit tutorials, shoot guides and inspiration aimed at taking hobbyist and aspiring photographers to the next level.

Although designed to make life easy for amateurs taking their first steps, Picfair’s slick but powerful interface appeals to a wide range of users, with an increasing number of professionals calling Picfair home. While the number one camera used by Picfair photographers in 2023 was the iPhone 11, Canon and Nikon are the most commonly-used camera brands across their community.

’“We love seeing photographers taking their first steps into showcasing and selling their work using their phone pics, and then developing their skills onwards with more powerful DSLRs,” says Lanyado. “Picfair’s one million users cover a wide range of experience and increasingly we find Picfair providing the perfect gateway to either a part or full time career in photography.”

The most represented age ranges are 25-34 (24%) and 35-44 (22%), and roughly a third of Picfair users are female. While the UK represents their largest market (40% of revenue), North America is likely to overtake the UK as their number one geo by the end of this year. Picfair offers subscriptions in 11 currencies, and has signed up photographers in over 100 countries worldwide. 

Rather than choosing the traditional VC-powered route, Picfair has been funded by a broad range of small funds and angels, including Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and the founders of UK startup successes VoucherCodes and JustPark.

“Profitability has been a real focus for us over the last 12 months,” says Lanyado. “Our investors have been incredibly supportive as we’ve grown rapidly in recent years, but it felt important to get to a stage where we can sustain ourselves and invest in our product using our own proceeds.”