Pholio Mailboxes · a professional address for the studio side of picture day
A branded mailbox for your photography studio
A studio does not run one school. It runs a season across a roster of them. This gives that whole roster of mail your own name.
Pholio Mailboxes gives a studio its own professional address, so client and school correspondence carries your studio's name rather than a free provider's. Each mailbox is a real inbox with its own sender identity; family and client contact details stay inside our own private system instead of an outside marketing company. The address is open for a studio to claim.
Example address: [email protected]. Checkout is not open yet. The figures further down are catalog estimates, never a charge. No mailbox is created and no card is billed.
The mail a studio actually sends
This is not a generic inbox pitch. It is the specific traffic of a studio running picture day across many schools at once, all week, every season.
The booking inquiry
A school's office manager asks whether you cover their date. The reply should carry your studio’s name, not a borrowed handle.
The contract and the purchase order
Terms, coverage, and a PO number that has to match the invoice later. A dozen of these run at once, each with a different school.
The picture-day date confirmation
Room assignments, arrival time, the backup rain plan. Sent to a different adviser or office for every school on the calendar.
The gallery-ready notice
Families at one school open their gallery. Families at the next school are still waiting on their date. The sender name has to be consistent either way.
The order question
A parent asks where their order is. It should reach the studio, not whichever personal inbox happened to send the original notice.
The retake day scheduling
A second date, a shorter list, a tighter window. The office needs one thread with the studio, not a new one every season.
The sports and team photo scheduling
Coaches, rosters, and uniform notes arrive from several teams at once. Each needs a reply that reads as the studio, not a personal account.
The senior portrait booking
A different calendar from picture day, often a different contact at the same school, and usually the highest-touch correspondence a studio runs.
The yearbook photo handoff
The adviser needs files, deadlines, and a format confirmation. That thread is the studio’s working relationship with the yearbook program.
The sales rep coordination
A rep covering several schools needs one address the studio recognizes as theirs, not a forwarded personal account nobody tracks.
The district procurement question
A larger district asks for insurance, references, or a formal proposal. That reply belongs on studio letterhead, in every sense including the address.
The end-of-season invoice chase
Polite, repeated, and dated, sent to a dozen different school offices. It carries more weight from an address that matches the contract.
Who sends mail from an address like this
Six roles, one shape of problem. Each of them corresponds with several schools at once. Each of them is judged on the address in the reply-to.
The solo studio owner
One person books the schools, runs the shoot, and answers the order questions. The address is the whole front office. Studio persona
The small studio crew
A photographer, an office manager, and a season of seasonal help. Role addresses keep a busy September out of one inbox. Studio persona
The contracted sales rep
Covers a territory of schools for the studio. Families and offices should see the studio’s name, not a personal handle. Studio persona
The seasonal second shooter
Brought on for the busiest weeks. A shared role address means coverage does not depend on one phone. Studio persona
The studio office manager
Fields the order questions and the retake scheduling from every school on the roster, all season. Studio persona
The lab and print liaison
Coordinates with the printing partner on proofs and turnaround. That thread belongs to the studio, not a personal account. Studio persona
This page is written for the studio side of the trade. It is not a school page and not a family-facing gallery. No student roster and no face-match capability pass through a mailbox here -- who may see a gallery is decided by the Pholio product’s own consent gate, never by this address.
The addresses a studio actually needs
A studio running a dozen schools is not one inbox per person. A working studio needs role addresses that outlive whoever is covering them this season. Here is the set most studios land on.
| Address | What it carries | Who covers it |
|---|---|---|
| bookings@ | New inquiries, contract terms, and date confirmations. | Whoever books the season. |
| schools@ | The ongoing thread with each school office -- dates, POs, rosters. | The office manager, or the owner on a small crew. |
| orders@ | Family order questions, receipts, and reprint requests. | Whoever handles order support that week. |
| retakes@ | Retake day scheduling and the shorter list that goes with it. | The person coordinating that date. |
| accounts@ | Invoices, PO matching, and the polite end-of-season chase. | Bookkeeping, or the owner on a Friday. |
| hello@ | Everything that does not know where else to go. | The catch-all a website form points at. |
A role address is the point. When a rep or a seasonal shooter leaves, the address stays and the history stays with it. No school’s thread walks out inside a personal account.
How claiming an address would run
Six steps. Two of them are real today. Four are the part we have not turned on. Each is labeled so you can tell which is which.
- You ask about the address. A short note through the contact form. Nothing is charged and nothing is reserved. Open now
- We agree on the shape. How many mailboxes, which role addresses, and roughly how many schools you run. A conversation, not a form. Open now
- The domain records get published. The sender-authentication records described below are drafted for this domain. Publishing them is a founder-confirmed step and is currently off. Not turned on
- Mailboxes get created. Real inboxes with their own sender identity and reply-to. Provisioning is founder-confirmed and currently off. No mailbox is created today. Not turned on
- You point your old mail at the new address. Forwarding and an away-note are the honest first move. We do not have an automated import or archive transfer built. Not built
- Billing starts, if it ever does. There is no checkout on this page. The prices below are catalog figures. No card is on file and none is charged. Checkout closed
We would rather show you a six-step path with four honest gaps than a three-step path that pretends. The gaps are the product roadmap, written down.
A branded address next to a borrowed one
We are not going to name another company. The comparison that matters is structural. A borrowed consumer account handles a studio’s mail one way. A professional address on the studio’s own domain handles it another.
| The question | A borrowed consumer account | A branded mailbox here |
|---|---|---|
| The name on the reply | A personal handle and a free provider’s domain. | Your studio’s name, on every school’s thread. |
| Who owns the address | Whoever created the account, personally. | The studio. It is a role, not a person. |
| When a rep or shooter leaves | The thread history for that school usually leaves too. | The address is handed over. History stays. |
| Running a dozen schools at once | One inbox, a dozen unlabeled threads. | Role addresses split the traffic by what it is, not who sent it. |
| Sender authentication | Set by the provider, not by you. | Records drafted for your own domain. Not published yet. |
| What happens to family and school contacts | Terms vary. Often scanned for ad targeting. | They stay on our own private system. Never sold. |
| How a district procurement office files you | As an individual. Sometimes as a risk. | As a vendor with a matching domain. |
| Storage for old threads | Shared with personal mail and photos. | Storage per mailbox, listed on each plan. |
Delivery, said plainly
Three DNS records decide whether the internet believes your mail is really yours. Worth understanding before anyone sells you on them.
- SPF lists which servers are allowed to send as your domain. A receiver checks that list.
- DKIM signs each message with a key. A receiver checks the signature against your published key.
- DMARC tells receivers what to do when the first two fail. It also asks for reports.
Here is the honest status. For this domain those records are drafted, not published. Our own fleet audit says the same thing in the code, not just in a sentence on a page.
We will not tell you your mail lands in the inbox. Nobody can promise that. Placement is decided by the receiving side, message by message.
A properly set-up domain buys you three narrower things. A sender identity that verifies. A reply-to that returns to you. A record trail when a school asks what was sent and when.
Anti-spoof records also protect a studio in the other direction. They make it harder for someone to send a fake invoice under your studio’s name to a school office that trusts you.
When a rep changes, the school’s thread stays
A studio’s season roster turns over. A rep who covered ten schools moves on, or a seasonal shooter’s contract ends.
A role address is the fix. schools@ belongs to the studio. Coverage is a rota, not a password handed off in a hurry.
So a school office that asks “what did we agree on last year” can still be answered. The old thread is where the contract terms live.
This is the ordinary, unglamorous case for a professional address. It is also the one studios feel most at the start of a new season, and the one nobody markets.
What comes with a mailbox, and what does not
Three things the product is built around, and three things that are honestly not switched on. Read both columns of that sentence.
Storage per mailbox
Every plan lists storage per mailbox in the pricing below. A school’s contract terms from last season are worth keeping searchable. Catalog figure
Your own sender identity
Each mailbox sends with its own from and reply-to. A gallery-ready notice goes out as your studio, and the reply comes back to you. How it is designed
A shared role address
One address can be covered by several people. The rep who booked a school goes on to the next shoot. The reply still gets answered. How it is designed
Moving in from an old account
Forwarding plus an away-note is the honest first move. We have not built an automated import or an archive transfer, and we will not pretend otherwise. Not built
Provisioning
Creating a live mailbox is a founder-confirmed step and is currently off. Nothing on this page creates an inbox. Currently off
Billing
There is no checkout, no cart, and no card on file. Every figure on this page is a catalog display figure. Checkout closed
No AI drafts your studio’s mail. The complete version of that sentence:
Nothing on this address writes, rewrites, or auto-replies to a school or a family. A gallery-ready notice, a booking confirmation, an order reply -- every message a mailbox here sends is written by the studio, not generated for it.
This page is also not the Pholio product. Whether a family may see a specific photo of their child is decided by the Pholio product’s own consent gate, on a separate system, and is never a property of an email address.
No face recognition is used anywhere in this lane. Families reach their own child’s gallery through the Pholio product’s permission-checked link, never a face match, and nothing about that changes because a message arrived from a branded mailbox instead of a free one.
What happens to the contact details
Your correspondents are school offices, advisers, families, and reps across a dozen client relationships at once. Their contact details are your business asset, not ours.
Those details stay inside our own private system. They are not handed to an outside marketing company and they are not sold.
We are not going to dress that up into an absolute. Mail is delivered to other people, by design, every time you press send.
The honest version is narrower and it is the one we hold to. We run the system ourselves. We keep the handling tight. We do not monetize your address book.
One more boundary worth stating. This mailbox carries no roster, no face-match capability, and no gallery access decision. Consent for a child’s photo lives entirely inside the Pholio product; a mailbox address changes whose name families read, never who may see a photo.
What a mailbox would cost
Catalog figures for planning. Not a price you are charged. Every plan is per mailbox, monthly, with storage included.
Team $3.50 per mailbox / month
Catalog price — not a charge
Includes 5 mailboxes · 25 GB each.
Branded studio mailboxes so client and school mail carries your own address.
At the included 5 mailboxes, that is about $17.50 / month at catalog rates — an estimate, never billed.
Organization $2.75 per mailbox / month
Catalog price — not a charge
Includes 25 mailboxes · 50 GB each.
A studio's whole team on branded mailboxes with catch-all routing.
At the included 25 mailboxes, that is about $68.75 / month at catalog rates — an estimate, never billed.
A studio with a small crew usually starts at the team tier. A studio adding a second territory of schools tends to look at the organization tier. Both figures are catalog, and neither is a charge.
What’s true today
Catalog prices, not a charge
We show these figures so a studio can plan a budget. Not because you can buy right now.
There is no buy button on this page. There is no signup that bills. Turning a mailbox on is a founder-confirmed step and it is currently off.
- Prices shown are catalog estimates, not a charge -- checkout is not open yet.
- Mailbox provisioning is a founder-confirmed step and is currently off; no mailbox is created and no card is billed.
- A branded address is a professional mailbox, not a claim that any specific school or studio uses it.
Nothing on this page creates a mailbox or moves a cent. When that changes, the page will say so in the same plain words.
What this is not
A page that only lists what a product does is half a page. Here is the other half, so you can rule it out quickly if it is wrong for you.
Not the photography product
This page is a mailbox. The capture pipeline, the consent gate, and the parent storefront live at pholio.software, a separate product.
Not a marketing sender
This is business correspondence, not a bulk campaign tool. There is no list builder, no blast scheduler, and no open-rate dashboard here.
Not a booking or scheduling system
It carries the mail around a booking, not the calendar itself. A studio still schedules picture day elsewhere.
Not an archive migration
We have not built an automated import from an old account. Forwarding plus an away-note is the honest first move.
Not a deliverability guarantee
No provider can promise inbox placement. We describe what the records do and we stop there.
Not live yet
Checkout is closed and provisioning is off. The address is unclaimed. We would rather write that here than bury it.
Questions a studio asks first
Can I claim an address today?
Not yet. Checkout is closed and provisioning is a founder-confirmed step that is currently off. You can ask about it through the contact form. Nothing is charged and nothing is reserved.
Is the address already taken?
No studio has claimed it. We do not name a studio, imply one, or publish an adoption count. The address is open.
Is my mail actually going to be delivered?
We will not promise inbox placement. Nobody can. What a properly set-up domain gives you is a verifiable sender identity and a reply-to that returns to you.
Are SPF, DKIM, and DMARC live on this domain?
No. They are drafted, not published. Our own fleet audit records that no record has been placed live for any domain in the fleet. We will not claim a lock that is not live.
Does this mailbox decide who can see a gallery?
No. That is the Pholio product’s own consent gate, on a separate system. A branded address changes whose name a family reads, never who may see a photo.
Does AI write any of my mail?
No. Every message a mailbox here sends is written by the studio. Nothing on this address drafts, rewrites, or auto-replies on a studio’s behalf.
What is a role address and why should I care?
It is an address tied to a job, like bookings or schools, not a person. When a rep or a seasonal shooter leaves, the address and the thread history stay with the studio.
Can two people cover the same mailbox?
That is the design. A shared role address is covered by whoever is in. So a school’s question still gets answered when the person who booked it is on a shoot.
Will you move my old mail across?
No. There is no automated import and no archive transfer built. Forwarding plus an away-note is the honest first move. We would rather say that than sell a migration we do not have.
What do you do with my schools’ and families’ contact details?
They stay inside our own private system. They are not handed to an outside marketing company and they are not sold. We stop short of an absolute, because mail is delivered to other people by design.
How is this different from pholio.software?
pholio.software is the photography product -- capture, consent, galleries, storefront. This is the mail a studio running that product sends and receives. One is the product; the other is how you write about it.
How is this different from photos.email?
photos.email is written from a single school program’s side of picture day. This page is written from the studio’s side, running many schools’ picture days at once.
Can I take payment through the mailbox?
No. A mailbox is correspondence, not commerce. There is no checkout on this page for the mailbox either. Every figure shown is a catalog figure.
What does the price actually include?
A per-mailbox monthly catalog rate, a set number of included mailboxes, and storage per mailbox. All three are listed on each plan card above.
Is there a fee to ask a question?
No. Asking costs nothing and reserves nothing. There is no card on file at any point in that conversation.
The rest of the Pholio family
Every other Pholio surface is about the picture. This one is about the inbox around it. They are separate products, and they do not pretend to be one another.
pholio.software
The Pholio photography product itself: the private-system capture pipeline, the consent gate, and the parent storefront.
pholio.software/pholio/for-studios
How the studio-run picture-day program works, and what a studio keeps.
pholio.software/pholio/for-schools
What a school gets when it runs its own picture day on the same pipeline.
pholio.software/pholio/for-photographers
The photographer-facing lane of the Pholio product.
pholio.software/pholio/pricing
The Pholio product’s own pricing posture -- a different catalog from the mailbox prices on this page.
Asking a question
The only action on this page is a question. It does not reserve an address and it does not create an account.
Tell us the studio, roughly how many schools you run in a season, and which role addresses you would want. That is enough to have a useful conversation.
No card is requested at any point in that exchange. There is no advertised response time, because we are not going to invent one.
What is real and what is honest-off
Real today. The domain is owned. The catalog is a committed price book, and the figures above are read from it. The address is unclaimed and we say so.
Off today. Checkout is closed. Provisioning is founder-confirmed and currently off. No mailbox is created and no card is billed.
Drafted, not published. The SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for this domain. We describe what they do and we do not claim they are live.
Not built. Automated import from an old account, and archive transfer. Forwarding plus an away-note is the honest first move.
Never claimed. Inbox placement, an immutable record, a gallery-access decision, or a studio that already uses this address. None of those is true, so none of those is on this page.