Format review

Format is a hosted portfolio website builder for creative professionals. It lets you choose from 90+ themes, adjust design settings, and build pages without coding. Its Flex Block tool adds more layout control: you can drag, scale, and overlap images, text, dividers, and buttons.

The site builder is only part of the product. Format also includes branded client galleries, proofing, file transfers, and contracts, plus a store for products, services, and digital downloads. The company describes that store as commission-free. SEO settings let you edit page titles, meta descriptions, image alt text, blog posts, and store item structure.

In short, Format combines a portfolio site with several client and selling tools. It is built around presenting creative work and managing client interactions, rather than being just a place to publish a gallery.

Format’s main advantage is that portfolio presentation and client work live in one product. Creatives can show work, share galleries for proofing, transfer files, and handle contracts without assembling separate tools for each step. The 90+ themes and Flex Block layouts also give users options beyond a rigid grid of portfolio images.

The feature set has room to grow with a business:

• The Pro plan includes 1,500 high-resolution images, 100 GB of storage, 50 client galleries, and 15 hosted video minutes.
• Pro Plus raises those limits to unlimited high-resolution images, 1 TB of storage, 250 galleries, and 120 hosted video minutes.
• The store supports up to 15 products on Pro and 1,000 on Pro Plus, with no platform fees listed.

Format also offers useful SEO controls for key portfolio, blog, and store fields. For a creative professional who wants a hosted site plus basic client workflows and selling tools, the combination is more compelling than a portfolio builder alone.

The plan limits matter, especially if a portfolio relies on video or a growing image library. Basic costs $14 per month on monthly billing and includes 70 high-resolution images, but no image storage or hosted video; file transfers are capped at 2 GB. Pro includes only 15 hosted video minutes, while the 120-minute allowance is reserved for Pro Plus.

Pricing needs careful checking before committing. The plan cards list annual-billing equivalents of $4 for Basic, $9.35 for Pro, and $14.30 for Pro Plus per month, compared with monthly rates of $14, $24, and $36. The pricing details say Pro and Pro Plus annual prices are promotional first-year rates, while the FAQ lists different annual prices. That makes the headline annual figures a poor basis for forecasting renewal costs; confirm the renewal rate before choosing a plan.

There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial. A custom domain is listed at $30 per year, although the first year is free on annual Pro and Pro Plus plans. Professional branded email via Google Workspace is an additional $100 per year.

Format lists three plans: Basic at $14 per month, Pro at $24, and Pro Plus at $36. The plan cards also show annual-billing equivalents of $4, $9.35, and $14.30 per month. Read those carefully: Pro and Pro Plus annual prices are promotional first-year rates, and Format’s FAQ lists different annual prices. The annual cost after the promotion is not clear from the published pricing details, so confirm it before switching.

Basic includes 70 high-resolution images and 2 GB of file transfers, but no image storage or hosted video. Pro adds 100 GB of storage, 15 hosted video minutes, 15 store products, and 50 client galleries. Pro Plus raises those caps to 1 TB, 120 video minutes, 1,000 products, and 250 galleries. The jump from Pro to Pro Plus is $12 monthly at monthly rates.

A custom domain costs $30 per year, with the first year free on annual Pro and Pro Plus plans. Branded Google Workspace email is $100 per year. There is no free plan; the listed trial is 14 days.

Moving to Format means choosing a theme and rebuilding your portfolio pages with its design tools, including Flex Block layouts. Plan time to bring over your images, copy, SEO details, store items, and any client-gallery content you want to keep. Format lists controls for titles, meta descriptions, alt text, blog posts, and store structure, but the published material does not say whether those details can be imported in bulk.

If you leave, expect to check how your pages, galleries, store, and files will move before canceling. Format’s data-export options and migration tools are not published on the vendor's site, so we can’t confirm what transfers or in what format. That uncertainty matters if you rely on its client workflows as well as the portfolio builder.

The published sources include no Reddit reports, so we can’t attribute specific reasons for leaving to users there. The practical pressure points visible here are plan caps, annual-price uncertainty, and portability questions. Get export terms and post-promotion pricing in writing before committing.