If you have a side hustle or skills that you want to promote, it's worthwhile to keep a portfolio online so other people can see what you're capable of: You can list the website at the end of your emails, on your business cards, in your social media profiles, and anywhere else you can think to feature it.
There are more of these portfolio builders than you might have realized, all ready and waiting to get your work displayed online without you needing to have any web coding experience. With their associated hosting costs, these services are rarely free, but it's a worthwhile investment for your business.
Below we've picked out some of the best options we've seen, and in some cases suggested the type of portfolio that they might be best for. We've also tried to stay clear of some of the more general-purpose website and blog builders—WordPress, Tumblr, Medium—which are also an option.
What instantly impresses me about Format is its versatility. The portfolio builder can help you whether you're a photographer, videographer, model, architect, illustrator, artist, designer, or almost anything else—if you have something to show off, Format can help. There are a wealth of templates to pick from, and getting up and running doesn't take long at all.
You pay to use the site—from $10 a month—but you get a lot of features for that, including video hosting (so you don't have to rely on YouTube or Vimeo,) and ecommerce tools for making sales right from the portfolio you've created. There is a free trial, so you can see whether you like Format first before parting with any money.
Sign up for your own page at Writer's Residence and you get an online space where you can combine writing samples of all types: You can type text straight into the site, blog-style, you can link out to articles elsewhere, and you can upload PDFs and images if you've had your work in print. Whatever format your work is in, you can show it off here.
You can put together your portfolio without any coding or complicated design processes to wade through, but there's lots of flexibility in terms of colors, fonts, a header image, and more. There's also a separate space for a résumé. Your portfolio is going to cost you $9 a month, but you can try it out for free for 30 days.
As soon as you land on Portfoliobox, you can see the numerous ways that the site's templates and layouts can be used to craft a photography portfolio. You might not think there are all that many ways to display a grid of photos on a website, but Portfoliobox will prove you wrong—and it's great for designers and artists too.
There are some nice extras here, including the ability to add watermarks to your images, a password-protected gallery feature if you want to keep certain pictures away from the public, and options for selling your work online. Prices start at $5.50 a month—you can sign up for free to see all of the features, but you won't be able to go live without paying.
Besides just showing off your work on YouTube or Vimeo, you can also turn to Carbonmade if you want to make a videography portfolio—and it actually works great for any kind of visual creative professional. You can upload an unlimited number of videos, which of course comes with a cost: From $9 a month, after your initial free trial is over.
You do get plenty back for your money. An intuitive layout designer that's straightforward to use and offers an almost unlimited number of possibilities, built-in analytics, domain name management, and much more. On the video side, there's support for 4K resolutions, auto-playing and auto-looping content, and even background videos.
Fabrik is another premium portfolio-building service that can help creatives in a variety of professions. Still, its clear emphasis on visuals makes it a great fit for designers of any description. There are plenty of themes and layouts to pick from, which can all be easily manipulated, and if needed you can combine different types of media in your showcase.
You can even add a more traditional blog alongside your portfolio, which is perfect for adding a running commentary on what you're working on (or just commenting on the industry at large), and there are a few nice bonus features such as custom domain support. There's a 14-day trial available, and after that Fabrik starts from $11 a month.
Another all-purpose portfolio builder, Squarespace is a website builder with many portfolio templates. It is far from the only service like it—build your own website with no coding required—but it's hard to beat in terms of the number of layout options, the ease of use, and the number of features.
Those features include built-in ecommerce capabilities if you're hoping to sell your work, marketing tools for promoting your work, and booking and appointment handling if you need to meet clients for your work. There are all kinds of possibilities with Squarespace, and that's reflected in the higher price: from $23 a month after your 14-day free trial.
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