Switching to CoreHue
Is switching going to be too much work?
It's the first thing anyone asks, so here's the honest answer.
You don't move your old work. You leave it where it is. Finish the clients you're mid-way through on the tool you're already paying for, and put your next client through CoreHue. That's the whole method. Photographers who try to recreate two years of jobs in a weekend usually give up on day two, with a half-finished account and nobody using it.
The setup that matters is small. Your business details, one service, your availability, one contract template, and Stripe. That's the list. An afternoon, not a project.
The bits that take longest are the bits you're rewriting anyway. Contract wording and questionnaire questions have to be retyped, and most photographers find they improve them while they're at it.
What comes across, and what doesn't
| What you have | How it moves |
|---|---|
| Galleries | Download the originals from your old tool, then upload them into a new CoreHue gallery. Export as JPEG: CoreHue takes JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF and GIF, up to 50 MB a photo |
| Contacts | Add them one at a time in Contacts. They also create themselves when someone books, sends an inquiry or fills in an intake form. There's no spreadsheet import |
| Contract wording | Copy the text into a contract template and swap the blanks for variables |
| Questionnaires and forms | Rebuild in the questionnaire builder or the intake form builder |
| Canned or saved emails | Retype into email templates |
| Prices | Enter once as Items, then reuse them on every invoice and proposal |
| Payment history | Stays where it is. CoreHue starts counting from your first payment in CoreHue |
| Signed contracts | Stay where they are. Download the PDFs and keep them somewhere safe before you close the old account |
| Your domain | Point it at CoreHue when you're ready. See Your links and domain |
Download every signed contract, every invoice PDF and every gallery you still care about. Once a subscription lapses, those files are usually gone. Do this even if you're not switching this month.
What CoreHue replaces
| What you need | Where it lives in CoreHue |
|---|---|
| Delivering photos | Galleries with your own design, chapters, downloads and client selections |
| Booking and scheduling | A booking page with inquiry, direct booking and mini-session services |
| Proposals and quotes | Proposals clients review, choose from, sign and pay |
| Invoicing and payments | Invoices with card payments, payment schedules and reminders |
| Contracts and signatures | Contracts with templates, auto-filled details and online signing |
| Client email | Messages, kept against the person it belongs to |
| Client records | Contacts with their whole history and revenue on one profile |
| Intake forms | Intake forms that create a contact and open a conversation |
| Your own domain | Custom domains, with no hosting to manage |
Set these up first
Five things, in this order. Everything else can wait.
- Your business details. Name, logo and contact details in Settings → Business. Contracts and invoices fill themselves in from here, so this unblocks the rest.
- Your default currency. Settings → Profile. It's a permanent choice, so get it right before you raise anything.
- One service. Just one, in Bookings → Services, with a real price. See Services.
- Your availability. Bookings → Settings → Availability, and connect Google Calendar so your own diary blocks times.
- Stripe. Payments → Settings → Payment methods. Nobody can pay you online until it reads Connected.
Your saved signature is worth doing next. Without one you can't require a contract on a booking service. Draw or type it under Settings → Business → Contract signature, or use Set signature on the service itself. See Your saved signature.
Your first week
Day 1. Finish setup, then the five things above. Take the tour of the app so you know where everything is.
Day 2. Adapt one starter contract template into the one you actually use, and add the variables so client and booking details fill themselves in.
Day 3. Publish your service and turn on your booking page. Book yourself through it, end to end, so you see exactly what a client sees.
Day 4. Build a gallery from a recent job, design it, and check its access and download settings before sharing. Note the download PIN is on by default.
Day 5. Raise an invoice to yourself and pay it, so you've seen the client side of payment before a client does.
Then. Put your next real inquiry through CoreHue from the start, and leave everything already in flight where it is.
Coming from something specific?
Each one matches the words you already know to CoreHue's. That's the part that trips people up most.
Before you commit
Read What CoreHue doesn't do. It's a short, honest list of the edges: no print store, no watermarking, one user per account, no website builder, no contact import. Better to find those now than the night before a delivery.
Need a hand? Email hello@corehue.co.