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Managing clients, leads, and other contacts

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As your photography business grows, Studio Manager helps you distinguish booked clients from prospective leads and keep track of other business contacts, such as vendors.

Each contact has a profile containing their details and related work. You can add contacts individually, import clients in bulk, or have Studio Manager create and update contacts based on activities such as inquiries, bookings, and invoice payments.

On this page:

Contact types in Studio Manager

Studio Manager organizes contacts into three types:

  • Client: Someone who has booked a session or agreed to do business with you.
  • Lead: A potential client who has expressed interest but has not booked yet.
  • Other: Someone connected to your business who is not a client or lead, such as a vendor, event partner, or personal acquaintance.

You can change a contact’s type at any time.

Note: Contacts categorized as Other appear separately under the Other filter on the Contacts page.

Importing clients

You can add multiple clients at once by importing a CSV file.

Note: For supported platforms, formatting requirements, and troubleshooting, see Importing contacts to Studio Manager.

To import your contact list:

  1. Go to Studio Manager > Contacts.
  2. Click Actions > Import Contacts.
  3. Choose your file:
    • Supported third-party platform: Upload your client CSV directly.
    • Other source: Download Pixieset’s template, add your contacts without changing the column headers, and upload the completed CSV.
  4. Review your imported contacts.
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Adding a contact

To add one contact manually:

  1. Go to Studio Manager > Contacts.
  2. Click New Contact.
  3. Select the contact type.
  4. Enter the client’s information in the required fields.
  5. Save the contact.

Tip: You can also create a new contact while setting up a project, document, or session.

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Contact profiles

Each contact has a profile that serves as their central record in Studio Manager. It includes their name, company, email address, phone number, mailing address, and contact type. You can edit these details or change the contact type at any time.

The contact profile also organizes the work and activity associated with the contact:

  • Overview: View the contact’s projects, Inbox conversations, and linked Client Gallery collections.
  • Documents: View questionnaires, contracts, and quotes assigned to the contact.
  • Payments: Review payment information grouped by Paid, Upcoming, and Past due, along with individual transactions.
  • Sessions: View sessions associated with the contact.

Tip: You can also make private notes about your contact under the Contact Info section of their profile.

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Contact automation

Studio Manager automatically creates or updates contacts based on certain actions:

  • A new contact who submits a session inquiry is created as a Lead.
  • A new contact who books a session is created as a Client.
  • An existing Lead or Other contact who books a session or pays an invoice is changed to a Client.

If you use Inbox, activity from other Pixieset products may also create Other contacts. This happens when a new person:

  • Purchases from your store through a Client Gallery collection
  • Downloads from one of your Client Gallery collections
  • Receives a collection through the email-sharing feature

You can manually change an automatically assigned contact type at any time.