Joy (withjoy.com) is a free wedding website, RSVP and registry platform with a guest photo album that holds 1,000 photos per event. Pix Wedding is a guest photo and video album only: free for 20 uploads, then $44, $54 or $84 once with no cap. Below: what Joy costs, how guests upload on each, and every place Joy is the better pick.
Pick Joy if you want a free website, RSVP and registry and your guests will share fewer than 1,000 photos. Pick Pix Wedding if you expect more photos or lots of video, or want an audio guestbook, photo games and a ZIP of everything. Plenty of couples run both.
Both let a guest scan a QR code and upload without signing in. Joy's older Moments timeline is the exception: that one needs the Joy app.
Sources: Joy pricing, Joy FAQ, Joy Shared Photo Albums help, checked October 28, 2026.
Joy is free and covers the whole wedding website, with a guest photo album capped at 1,000 photos per event. Pix Wedding only collects guest photos and videos, through a QR code and the phone browser, with no cap from $44 once. Small wedding, few photos: Joy is enough. Big crowd or lots of video: add Pix Wedding.
Website, RSVP, registry and a 1,000 photo album at $0. The right call for a smaller wedding that wants one login for everything.
Unlimited uploads from every guest phone, months to collect, an audio guestbook and photo missions. No website or registry.
Keep the free Joy website and registry, link the Pix album from it, and put one Pix QR code on the tables.
Joy's pricing page says "Joy is free to use" and lists the core plan at $0. The money comes from optional upgrades and from registry items guests buy through Joy. Each row below comes from Joy's own pages, checked October 28, 2026.
| Item | Joy | Pix Wedding |
|---|---|---|
| Wedding website | Free | Not offered. Pix Wedding is a photo and video album, not a website builder |
| RSVP, guest list and digital invites | Free | Not offered |
| Registry | Free. Joy earns money when guests buy registry items that Joy sells | Not offered |
| Guest photo album | Free, up to 1,000 photos per event per its help center; more storage by request to Joy support | Free for 20 guest uploads, then unlimited photos and videos from $44 once |
| Your own domain | Optional upgrade. Joy's FAQ says a domain from a provider typically costs $20 to $40 a year | Included in Pro ($84 once) |
| Text message reminders | Messaging Plus, a one-time purchase priced at checkout, US and Canada numbers only. Email is free | Not offered |
| Printed and premium stationery | Paid per order | 48 printable QR sign templates included from Starter |
A dozen phones on one aisle walk. Free albums are priced by how much of this they keep.
Joy shows the Messaging Plus price only at checkout, so it is not quoted here. Sources: withjoy.com/pricing and withjoy.com/faq. The Pix Wedding plans are below.
Try Pix Wedding with 20 guest uploads free and no card. Paid plans are $44, $54 or $84 once, picked by upload window, storage and extras.
For collecting every original
Most couples pick this
One-time payment, no subscription
For big guest lists
One payment. Yours to keep. No subscription. No renewals. No surprise charges.
Secure checkout. Polar, Apple Pay, Google Pay.
Money-back guarantee: if your guests never upload a single photo, you get 100% back. See how it works
Six things first, then the rest row by row. Joy's side comes from its own pages, checked October 28, 2026. "Not listed" means Joy's pricing page, FAQ and album help do not mention it.
No cap on photos or videos from $44 once, and guests upload in the browser from one QR code.
| App | What it is | Price | How guests upload | Photo limit | Videos | How long it stays online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pix WeddingOur pick for photos | Guest photo and video album with a QR code | Free for 20 uploads, then $44, $54 or $84 once | QR code or link, phone browser, no app or account | Unlimited on every paid plan | Yes, up to 100 MB per file | 6, 12 or 24 months, plus a ZIP of everything |
| Joy | Free wedding website, RSVP and registry, with a photo album | Free; optional paid upgrades | Shared album link or QR code with no login; Moments timeline in the Joy app | 1,000 photos per event, more on request | Not described in Joy's photo FAQ or album help | Joy says photos are saved on your site for good |
Swipe to compare
Sources: Joy pricing, Joy FAQ, Joy album help, checked October 28, 2026. Rose cells flag a limit.
| Feature | Pix Wedding | Joy |
|---|---|---|
| Live slideshow | Standard ($54) and Pro ($84) | Photos can show as a real-time slideshow at the reception, free |
| Photo quality | Original quality, photos up to 30 MB each | Stored in high resolution and downloadable, per Joy's FAQ |
| Who can see the album | Anyone with the album link or QR code | Anyone with the link can view a public shared album |
| Separate albums | Up to 6 sub-albums on Standard, up to 20 on Pro | Shared albums set up from the album editor |
| Voice messages | Audio guestbook with guest names on Standard and Pro | Not listed |
| Photo games | Photo missions with a leaderboard and photo bingo on Standard and Pro | Not listed |
| Photographer upload | Private upload link for your photographer on Standard and Pro | Not listed |
| Find my photos | AI selfie search on Pro | Not listed |
| Printed QR signs | 48 QR templates from Starter | QR code for the album; printed stationery sold separately |
| Website, RSVP and registry | Not offered | All free |
| Refund | 100% back if no guest uploads a photo, ask within 30 days | Core platform is free, nothing to refund |
A guest scans the table card, uploads from the phone browser with no app or account, and the photo lands in the shared album a few seconds later. Names below are an example.
SHARED GALLERY
Maya & Daniel
Joy has two photo features: a shared album that opens from a link or QR code, and the older Moments timeline inside the Joy app. Pix Wedding has one flow. Here is each, step by step.
Each Pix album opens on a welcome page with the couple's names, date and cover photo, an Upload Media button and a View Album button. The couples shown are examples. Joy's app and album screens are not shown here; see the Joy video further down.
Joy sources: Shared Photo Albums help, FAQ, Moments blog post.
Joy's help center says every event includes up to 1,000 photos free. One Joy help page calls album storage unlimited, so ask Joy before a big wedding. Here is what the 1,000 figure means in practice.
From Joy's Shared Photo Albums help article. More storage goes through support@withjoy.com.
What 1,000 photos works out to. Simple division, before any video or burst shots.
Unlimited photos, videos and guests from Starter at $44.
Pix Wedding takes videos up to 100 MB each on every paid plan. Joy's photo FAQ and album help talk about photos; we did not find video uploads described there.
A public Joy shared album can be viewed by anyone with the link. A Pix album opens for anyone with its link or QR code too, so share either one only with guests.
Joy says photos are saved on your site for good. Pix Wedding keeps the album online 6, 12 or 24 months by plan, and every paid plan has a full-quality ZIP to keep.
Two public ratings, checked October 28, 2026. Both are about Joy as a whole, mostly the website and registry.
For the "Joy Wedding Planner & Website" app by Joy Life, Inc. App ratings cover planning, the website and RSVP, not only photos.
Half the reviews are 5 stars and about a quarter are 1 star. The 1-star reviews mostly talk about registry orders, notifications, RSVP confusion and support speed.
Most Joy feedback is about the website and registry. If guest photos matter most, test the shared album with a few friends before the wedding.
Sources: Joy on the App Store, Joy on Trustpilot. Pix Wedding customer reviews are further down this page.
Joy and Pix Wedding do different jobs, so they sit side by side without trouble. Four steps.
Website, RSVP, travel info and registry, all free.
Free for the first 20 guest uploads, no card. Pick a plan when you want unlimited.
Add the Pix album link to a page or the schedule on your Joy site.
Print a Pix QR sign so guests on the day scan one code and upload in the browser.
A ten-minute walkthrough of building a wedding website on Joy, from the first page to what guests see. Watch it to judge the website part; the photo album is one tab inside it.
Then compare the guest photo flow with the Pix Wedding demo above: a QR code, the phone browser and an Upload button.
Video by How To Support on YouTube.
If price and one login matter most, start on Joy. You can add a Pix album later if the photos outgrow it.
Still researching? Here is how Pix Wedding stacks up against the other major wedding photo sharing platforms.
Table six
Photo 1,001 and counting
Start a Pix Wedding album free with 20 guest uploads and no card, link it from your Joy site, and pay once only when you want unlimited photos and videos.
From Mom
Scan to join the album
No app, no account
UPLOADING
THE ALBUM
June 21, 2026
647 photos · 95 guests
SCAN TO TRY
pix.wedding/
your-wedding
Joy or Pix Wedding, the goal is the same: the aisle, the conga line and the morning after, from every guest phone, in one place.
this app understood the assignment 💯🔥
Lekker, man. Winelands ceremony with Table Mountain in the background. 130 guests, 860 photos. The QR codes on the tables worked perfectly, even ouma figured it out. The album is something else, we printed a photobook from it and it sits on our coffee table now
Really liked it. The only thing, i set the album to private and a few guests were confused they couldnt share the link. Once i switched it to shareable they were happy. Would be nice if that was explained a bit better during setup. But the photos are amazing and the product works great
Every Joy fact on this page comes from Joy's own pages, read on October 28, 2026: its pricing page, its FAQ, its Shared Photo Albums help article and its blog post on the Moments timeline, plus the Joy listing on the Apple App Store and its Trustpilot page.
Joy's help center asked for a sign-in on the day we checked, so the album limit and the no-login upload come from the indexed text of that article. One Joy help page describes album storage as unlimited while another gives 1,000 photos per event; we quote the lower figure and suggest asking Joy if you expect more.
Joy is a wedding planning platform: website, RSVP, guest list, registry and an app, with a photo album as one part of it. Pix Wedding does one job, collecting photos and videos from guests through a QR code, and has no website or registry. That is why so many couples keep both.
If you are weighing more than these two, the Joy alternative page ranks the website builders and photo apps couples move to from Joy, and the wedding photo sharing apps compared table lists every plan of the main guest photo apps with the date each was checked.
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Straight answers to the questions people ask most about this topic.
Yes. Joy's pricing page says "Joy is free to use" at $0: the website, planning dashboard, registry, mobile app, unlimited guests, online RSVP and digital invites. Paid extras are optional: your own domain, text messaging (Messaging Plus) and premium or printed stationery. Checked October 28, 2026.
Nothing for the core platform. Joy makes money when guests buy registry items that Joy sells. A custom domain bought from a domain provider typically runs $20 to $40 a year, according to Joy's FAQ, and Messaging Plus is a one-time purchase priced at checkout.
Yes. A Joy shared photo album set to Public with Guest Uploads on has a link and a QR code; guests who scan it land on the upload page with no login. Joy's help center says each event includes up to 1,000 photos free, with more storage by request.
For the shared album, no: the link or QR code opens an upload page in the browser. For the Moments timeline, yes: Joy's FAQ says guests need the app to upload photos to your website that way. Pix Wedding has one flow, a QR code and the phone browser, with no app or account.
Yes, and many couples do. Keep the free Joy website, RSVP and registry, add the Pix Wedding album link to your Joy site, and put a Pix QR code on the tables. Guests get one place to upload with no cap on paid plans.
Joy is the better pick for a small wedding that stays under 1,000 photos and wants everything free in one place. Pix Wedding fits better when you expect more photos or many videos, or want an audio guestbook, photo missions, a photographer link or selfie search.
