Priced in US dollars, charged in dirhams
Lensdrop sets its prices in US dollars outside India and the euro area, tax included. Each gallery is bought once: 5GB (about 480 photos) for $6.99, 10GB (about 970 photos) for $9.99, 25GB (about 2,400 photos) for $14.99. Shoots bigger than 25GB go on the Studio Pass, $249 a year or $24.99 a month, paid once and never renewed. In the UAE the site and the checkout show those prices in dirhams at the day's rate (a 5GB gallery is about AED 26), and that is what your card is charged, so your bank does not convert anything. The figure moves a little with the exchange rate, and some banks still add a small fee for an overseas merchant.
There is no subscription and no minimum spend. Your first gallery is free, up to 2GB, online for 30 days. The payment provider is the merchant of record, so the invoice and any tax treatment sit with them rather than with you.
Why per gallery fits event work
A UAE wedding is frequently several deliveries: the mehndi, the nikah, the reception, sometimes a separate ladies' gallery, often on different nights. Each of those is a natural gallery with its own guest list, and each carries its own link and PIN. On a monthly plan they are one undifferentiated bill. On per gallery pricing you buy the ones you actually deliver, and a short ceremony costs $6.99.
The separate PIN matters more here than in most markets. Where a client asks that one gallery reaches only the family and another reaches everyone, separate galleries with separate PINs is the mechanism, not a settings page.
Expo, conference and corporate work has the seasonal shape a subscription punishes: heavy through the season, quiet through the summer. Per gallery pricing charges nothing in the quiet months.
Guests abroad, opening on phones
- One link and a PIN. No app, no account, no email required from the guest.
- Photos served from a global edge network, so relatives in London, Kochi or Manila load them from somewhere near them.
- Full resolution downloads, single photos or the whole gallery as a zip.
- A mobile first viewer, because that is where these links actually get opened.
Lensdrop never sells to your clients and takes 0% of anything you sell elsewhere. There is no store, so there is nothing to take a commission from.
Questions UAE photographers ask
Can I pay in AED, or with a local method?
You pay in AED: prices are shown and charged in dirhams. The method is a card, plus Apple Pay and Google Pay where your browser offers them. UPI exists only for India.
Can I keep some galleries private to close family?
Yes, and the clean way is one gallery per audience, each with its own PIN. Watermarked previews and client downloads are separate switches, so a gallery can be viewable without being downloadable.
Will it cope with a three night wedding?
Yes. Uploads are resumable and go straight from your browser to storage, and galleries in the thousands stay fast to browse. If you shoot tethered or want photos going out during the event itself, there is a live mode that publishes as you shoot.
When a subscription is the better buy
If you deliver more than roughly three galleries a week year round, paying per gallery stops being the cheap option, and that is the honest answer. At that volume, look at Lensdrop's Studio Pass: $249 a year for unlimited galleries and 1TB of uploads, paid once and never renewed. Per gallery pricing suits seasonal and mid-volume work, which covers most wedding, event and portrait photographers here. The pricing page has the ladder, and the free gallery is enough to deliver a real job first.
