This page is designed to compare some of the various website thumbnail providers (free or paid). Website previews are a great way to enhance the interactive feel and aestetics of your own website. Having a website thumbnail makes user's feel more comfortable and improves site "stickiness." Our website screenshots are called "PagePix."
There are two charts below. The first details our general services and the second, our PRO features.
| Features / Benefits Comparison - STW FREE PAGEPIX SERVICES | STW |
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Basic Feature-set comparison
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| Real-Time responses for thumbnails already pre-fetched |
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| Support several, free, popular default sizes (view examples) of website previews | |
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| No advertisements or watermarks on thumbnails | |
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| Supports screenshot capture of the first page of PDF files | |
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| Fully Supports Flash Embed and HTML! (i.e. <img src=""></img>) | |
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| Captures Flash-based web page content (so page looks exactly as user would see it) | |
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| Captures any domain (i.e. no DMOZ restrictions or pre-approval) | |
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| Freemium Model (offers a 100% free option)†† | |
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| High Quality, clear images at all sizes (95% default quality) | |
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| Use your own domain name (easy CNAME setup to use images.yourdomain.com) | |
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Unique Feature-set comparison
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| Supports subdomain thumbnails! (i.e. funplace.yoursite.com) | |
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| Accessible via an open API (website thumbnail code supplied) | |
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| Supports HTTPS image delivery (for secure/logged in pages) | |
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| Allows permanent caching of requested thumbnails! | |
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| Custom "Site Queued" and "Problem Detected" thumbnail allowed (API) | |
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| Captures thumbnails at an industry high resolution of 1024x768 | |
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Reliability comparison
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| Can easily handle billions of site thumbnail requests per month | |
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| Friendly, quick, and knowledgeable support (most important!) | |
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| Very Reliable (View PagePix Service Stats) | |
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Terms of Use comparison
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| "Credit / Attribution Link" requested but optional† | |
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| Flexible Terms of Service: Allowed on commercial pages, etc | |
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| Initial "free service" usage up to 1GB†† requests per month |
FREE
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| Monthly "New Request" limits (reverse calculated from daily limits in some cases) |
5,000
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3,000
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3,000
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Price per month
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FREE
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Trial*
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Ads
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*Trial means that they provide a limited number (daily/monthly) of a single deafult (small) size of thumbnails for free
†Most services require a link back to their site from pages on your site in order to use their service
††Most users (75%) will never need more than 1GB per month. Our free limits are 10 times higher than competitors who offer free plans
STW PRO Feature Documentation (See How Simple To Use!)
| Features / Benefits Comparison - STW PRO PAGEPIX SERVICES | STW |
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Unique Feature-set comparison
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| [PRO] Capture Inside Page thumbnails |
$9.95/mo
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| [PRO] Supports Custom-Sized thumbnail requests |
$9.95/mo
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| [PRO] Full-Length web page thumbnails (incl. with Custom Size PRO feature) | $9.95/mo |
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| [PRO] Allows Refresh On-demand (queue instantly) (captured asap) |
$9.95/mo
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| [PRO] Custom Flash Delay option - for timed captures |
$9.95/mo
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| [PRO] Custom "System Messages" thumbnails using simple method |
$9.95/mo
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| [PRO] Custom Browser Resolution |
$9.95/mo
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| [PRO] 'Widescreen' Screenshots (Custom Native + Custom Sized) |
$19.90/mo
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| 100% Money Back Guarantee! (We are THAT confident you'll love us!) |
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| Price per month | $34.95/mo* | N/A | N/A | N/A |
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Corporate and Power Users Pricing comparison (as of 08.08.2008)
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| Additional 1GB bandwidth per month (approx 50,000 impressions) | $4.95 |
~$12
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$9+
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$$**
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| Dedicated, pre-cached, custom-size thumbnails (instantly available) | CALL |
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| CUSTOM Integration services available | $125/hour |
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| 100% Private Labeled Website Thumbnail Solution / "High Volume Fee" ‡ | CALL |
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*LIMITED TIME OFFER: Get ALL PRO features at a significantly discounted rate of only $34.95 per month on unlimited domains!!
**URL2PNG has an unpredictable pricing model. We calculated that their prices are nearly 10x higher. If caching locally, some cases may be cheaper than STW.
Want see what we give away for free? Compare Offerings
SaaS Vendors (ShrinkTheWeb Alternatives)
| Screenshots as a Service Provider |
Potential Pitfalls
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| URL2PNG | Flawed Pricing Model/Scalability |
-- Making a Push --
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| Notes: Now #2 in the market, although lots of reports that support requests go unanswered (while billing never fails). | ||
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| Thumbshots | Flawed Pricing Model |
-- Life Support --
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| Notes: Seems dead, for the most part. | ||
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| Websnapr | Flawed Pricing Model |
-- Life Support --
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| Notes: Seems dead, for the most part. | ||
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There are a lot of fly-by-night thumbnail providers that pop up and then disappear just as quickly. This comparison charts tracks some of the providers that are losing ground and that have been around for more than a couple of weeks. A quick list of those would include: thumbshots.org (thumbshots), Alexa thumbnails (now deprecated), MSN girafa, websnapr, webshotspro, webshots, thumbnailspro, thumbalizr, thmbnl, snapcasa, snapshots, mywebshot, pageglimpse, and many more smaller ones.
The thing to keep in mind is reliability, support, and unique features. ShrinkTheWeb excels in all facets.
