Choosing between LumaBooth and Snappic for your photo booth business often comes down to these five critical questions that most comparisons overlook:
- Do you need to keep costs down and avoid extra fees, or do you want the most options possible?
- Is your focus primarily creating elaborate video sequences and effects, or do you need a balanced solution for various event types?
- Are you comfortable navigating complex settings interfaces yourself, or do you need intuitive software that staff can learn quickly?
- Do you want just software, or an integrated hardware and software ecosystem designed to work seamlessly together?
- Is collecting and analyzing guest data crucial to proving ROI, or are you primarily focused on just capturing and sharing photos?
In short, here’s what we recommend:
👉 LumaBooth delivers a cheap monthly price point for operators who prioritize cost over user experience. At $19.99/month including two device licenses, it offers native 360 booth support, AI background removal, and direct DSLR camera integration. The trade-offs? Setting up has to be done on the iPad as is no web dashboard for managing event settings or devices remotely. LumaBooth also lacks advanced features like AI, and some users report that the interface feels dated with an old-school aesthetic (likely inherited from its parent company’s Windows-based DSLR Booth software).
👉 Snappic serves as a versatile toolbox for professional operators who have special requirements, such as bespoke 360 video activations. Its VideoFX engine creates impressive cinematic slow-motion effects, while 24/7 live support with remote access means you’re never alone during critical event moments. However, this premium experience comes with premium pricing (ranging from $29 to $109 per event), a steep learning curve with overwhelming settings, and extra fees for specific features like green screen and branded galleries that other platforms include in base packages.
Both platforms have their strengths, but for many photo booth businesses, the choice between a dated interface with limited web tools and a pricey overwhelming platform leaves a critical gap. What about operators who want intuitive software, powerful customization, and flexible pricing?
👉 Simple Booth HALO takes a different approach with a philosophy of “simple yet powerful.” It combines ease of use with professional capabilities rather than forcing you to choose between them. With over a decade of development since 2012 and more than 30,000 customers, the platform has matured into a reliable foundation that keeps events running smoothly. Starting at just $9/week, it offers the most accessible entry point while delivering an industry-leading layout designer, DSLR integration with wired or wireless connectivity (a feature most competitors don’t offer), and a comprehensive web dashboard for managing settings and devices remotely. The optional HALO hardware creates a complete ecosystem designed to work together seamlessly.
If you’re looking for a photo booth platform that delivers professional results without the complexity, Simple Booth offers a complete solution worth considering.
Table of contents:
- LumaBooth vs Snappic vs Simple Booth at a glance
- The pricing reality: Understanding the true cost of ownership
- Video capabilities reveal different philosophies
- Hardware integration: DIY versus designed ecosystems
- Data capture and analytics separate hobbyists from professionals
- Support quality becomes critical during live events
- User experience impacts both operators and guests
- Offline reliability can make or break your reputation
- White labeling and branding control
- LumaBooth vs Snappic vs Simple Booth: Which should you choose?
LumaBooth vs Snappic vs Simple Booth at a glance
| LumaBooth | Snappic | Simple Booth | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $19.99 per month | $29 for one event (48 hours) | $9 per week |
| Devices Included | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 360 Booth Support | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Basic functionality | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced VideoFX | ⭐⭐ Video but no slow-motion |
| Layout/Design Tools | ⭐⭐ Limited capabilities | ⭐⭐⭐ Moderately capable | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Powerful Layout Designer |
| Web Dashboard | ❌ Not available | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Available | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Remote device management |
| AI Background Removal | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Included | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Advanced AI-FX | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Background blur/replace |
| Support Availability | ⭐⭐⭐ Chat, email, community | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 24/7 live chat | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 7-day chat, email, community |
| Data Capture | ⭐⭐⭐ Basic survey tools | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Form builder | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Form builder with 87% opt-in rate |
| Learning Curve | ⭐⭐⭐ Dated interface | ⭐⭐ Overwhelming settings | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Intuitive |
| Offline Capability | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Queue and sync | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Robust queuing | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rock-solid offline queue |
The pricing reality: Understanding the true cost of software
The headline prices tell only part of the story. Therefore, let’s examine what you actually get for your money and how flexible that pricing really is.
LumaBooth appears attractive at $19.99/month, especially since it includes two device licenses. For operators running two booths, this effectively costs $10 per device, or one license for the booth and one for the sharing station. The annual plan drops a smidge to $18/month.
However, there’s an important limitation: LumaBooth only offers monthly subscriptions with no weekly or per-event pricing options. If you’re just starting out and want to test the waters with a single event, you’re still committing to a full monthly subscription.
Snappic offers a hybrid model with per event, monthly, and annual options. Per event pricing starts at $29 for Pro (one device), making it accessible for a single event. However, their time limit for an event is 48 hours, meaning the weekly equivalent price would be 3.5x more or just over $100.
Monthly subscriptions start at $69 for Pro but immediately jump up to $189/month for a Business plan, $279/month for Premium, or $399/month for Scale.
Additional devices escalate costs quickly: adding a second photo booth license costs an extra $39-119/month depending on your tier. It’s also worth noting that Snappic charges extra for features like green screen and branded galleries that most competitors include in base packages, and the entry-level plan limits you to just email and text delivery for photo sharing.
So many add-ons and different pricing “gotchas” can add to costs quickly and also create anxiety anticipating needs before events.
Simple Booth offers the most accessible starting price point at just $9/week, making it ideal for operators just starting out or established operators looking for an affordable selfie stand solution. This unlimited per week pricing model lets you do as many events and photos as you desire during the timeframe, and ensures your scale costs with your business rather than committing to monthly fees before you’ve built your client base.
Monthly plans include $29 (Lite), $49 (Core), $99 (Plus), $149 (Pro), to $249 (Select), with features that align to the size and maturity of your business. Consequently, solo operators start with Lite, power users and small operators opt for Core as an all-around plan, established businesses move to Plus for branding, marketers choose Pro for data capture, and enterprises that require compliance tools use Select. On monthly and yearly plans, additional devices cost 75% of the base license price, making scaling transparent and affordable.
Video capabilities reveal different philosophies
Snappic’s VideoFX is highly capable. The timeline editor allows you to slice recordings into multiple segments with different speeds (within the 30-second output limit), creating complex slow-fast-slow effects that look professionally edited.
The platform processes 120fps or 240fps footage with multiple stabilization modes, including “Cinematic Extended” specifically designed for 360 booths. It’s more than most standard events require but essential for operators specializing in high-end 360 activations. The trade-off is complexity, and consequently mastering these tools requires a significant time investment.
LumaBooth covers the fundamentals for 360 photo booths, including motion triggers for spinner arms, speed ramping controls, and timeline editing. The Virtual Attendant feature uses audio and video prompts to guide guests through the experience, which is useful for unmanned 360 booths (if you dare). However, all these settings must be configured in the app, which presents issues for scaling a business across multiple activations occurring at the same time.
Simple Booth doesn’t try to compete on complex video editing because most events don’t need it. Instead, the platform developed the “Rebound” format (an optimized Boomerang-style capture), offers up to 120 second full-length video recordings that render blazingly fast, supports external USB microphones, and provides a “trim” video tool so that guests can cut the beginning and end where they want.
HALO also focuses on making standard video captures look great through intelligent camera settings and interoperable effects that include filters, background replacement, and background blur.
The philosophy is deliberate: most guests want fun, shareable content that looks polished. For operators running weddings, corporate events, and parties, this approach delivers consistently great results without the complexity.
Hardware integration: DIY versus designed ecosystems
LumaBooth is hardware-agnostic and supports a handful of external accessories, including Canon, Nikon, Sony cameras and webcams on MacOSX. The LumaBooth Assistant desktop app handles printing to professional printers but requires a separate computer running alongside your booth setup.
Source: dslrBooth & LumaBooth
Snappic has broader support for external cameras and accessories, notably LED light integrations and GoPro, iPhone, and iPad as separate dedicated cameras, but recommends iPad Pro models from 2020 or newer for optimal video features. Much like LumaBooth, the Snappic Print Server is made to support professional printers and requires a separate Windows computer to run it on.
In other words, for both LumaBooth and Snappic you’re the systems integrator. You’ll be assembling stands, lights, and printers from various vendors, figuring out what works together through trial and error. Both softwares assume you’re a professional who knows what you’re doing with hardware.
Simple Booth HALO takes a different approach entirely.
The app can run on any iPad-based photo booth, but the company provide how-to guides to set up a DIY photo booth and also offers a purpose-built solution for professional selfie stands: the Simple Booth HALO hardware.
The HALO ring light provides integrated studio-grade illumination that can light groups of people at distances up to 8 feet, with manual brightness controls operators can adjust to match different environments. The form factor is iconic and recognizable, captures high quality photos, and is highly portable and quick to set up, making it ideal for digital selfie stands or drop-offs. An out-of-the-box solution like HALO hardware minimizes the tinkering and configuration time that plagues DIY setups.
While Simple Booth does provide a proprietary dedicated print server application, they do recommend established industry solutions like the WCM Plus from DNP or the AirCast Pro print server to connect a professional dye-sublimation printer when necessary.
For DSLR users, Simple Booth offers both wired USB connections for reliability and wireless WiFi connections for creative flexibility for Canon EOS cameras. This is a differentiator because most competitors only support wired connections to DSLRs. Sony support and LED light control are also coming soon.
Data capture and analytics separate hobbyists from professionals
For businesses that need to collect data and show ROI to corporate clients, data capabilities become crucial.
Simple Booth leads in marketing tools with an optimized 87% opt-in rate for data capture, achieved by strategically prompting guests with a form after they approved their photo but before they receive it. The guests can always opt out and still receive their photo, making it compliant out-of-the-box for most regulatory environments.
The platform includes sophisticated features on Pro and higher tiers including custom capture fields, legal terms, an age gate, individual upload privacy controls for guests, and real-time API integration with CRMs.
The analytics dashboard tracks captured data, estimated demographics of the photo booth participants, along with “share button click” metrics, providing insight even when social APIs are restricted.
Snappic analytics also has demographics abilities called AVA (Advanced Vision Analytics), using AI to analyze photos for demographic data without asking guests directly.
The “Face Match” feature lets guests find all their photos with a selfie upload, which is downright convenient—although facial recognition is a highly regulated activity and requires research for your jurisdiction to use properly. The most powerful analytics features in Snappic require Enterprise pricing.
LumaBooth covers a lot of basics with email and phone capture, survey fields, and CSV exports. It includes a disclaimer feature to help with compliance issues. However, you can just as easily export data without the consent of guests, which could lead to data handling mistakes.
For operators focused on entertainment for guests (as opposed to corporate events, permanent installs, or marketing), LumaBooth probably has all the data collecting capabilities you need. For those selling to corporate clients who have more rigorous requirements, the data capture and analytics capabilities may be too limited.
Support quality is critical at live events
When your software crashes on a Saturday night, support availability matters more than any feature.
Snappic’s 24/7 live chat support is well-regarded in the industry. The team can remotely access your iPad through “Live Connect” to fix issues in real-time, even during weekend events. This level of support justifies much of the premium pricing for operators who need a form of insurance in case anything goes wrong.
LumaBooth provides email and live chat support plus extensive documentation, community forums, and helpful YouTube tutorials. The knowledge base is comprehensive and the active Facebook community offers peer support. However, the nature of support is more self-service oriented, which works well for technically comfortable operators but may not provide the immediate assistance some need during critical event moments.
Simple Booth offers support available seven days a week from real humans, with a reputation for responsive customer service. The key difference is that you’ll typically need support less often, because the intuitive interface and more than a decade of development since 2012 have built-in contingencies for the issues that commonly arise during events.
When you do need help, the team is available throughout the week to assist. During off hours, users can still get quick help from the community Facebook group.
User experience impacts both operators and guests
The learning curve and interface design affect both setup time and event success, and consequently this is where the platforms have the biggest differences.
Simple Booth prioritizes intuitive design throughout. The preset editor features a completely redesigned visual workflow that displays the entire booth flow upfront, so you can see and navigate the user journey from start screen to photo delivery without digging through endless settings panels.
The layout designer is available on both the iPad app and web dashboard, offering 60+ themes, text and image layers, dynamic QR codes, guest-editable text layers, and multiple motion types. It’s as intuitive as Canva without requiring a separate graphics program.
For guests, the interface is designed to be intuitive without an attendant, making it ideal for unattended selfie stands and drop-off events where you leave equipment at a venue and return to pick it up later.
The web dashboard deserves special mention: you can monitor all iPad booths in real time, verify which preset is running, preview latest uploads, track battery levels and storage, and even switch presets remotely. For operators juggling multiple events or locations, this remote management capability is invaluable.
LumaBooth packs significant functionality into its interface, but through a user experience that feels dated. The interface has an old-school aesthetic reminiscent of Windows applications.
Navigation can be challenging, and the limited design tools mean you may need to use an external graphics program for custom layouts. Without a web dashboard, almost all configuration happens directly on the iPad, which complicates setup for multi-event operations.
Source: Apple App Store
Snappic is powerful but demanding.
While there are a lot of features, they are not always easy to find or easy to use. The VideoFX timeline editor alone requires significant practice to understand, and the options can feel overwhelming.
With so many settings, it’s not uncommon to find yourself multiple link clicks deep on a page with multiple windows stacked on top of each other before you find what you are looking for.
As a result, there is a significant learning curve.
The platform assumes you’re a professional who will invest substantial time in education and training.
For operators who master it, the results speak for themselves.
Yet, for the majority of boothers who need basic photo booth functionality, the complexity can be unnecessary or even an obstacle.
Offline reliability can make or break your reputation
LumaBooth and Snappic both use queue-and-sync systems. Photos, videos, and share requests are stored locally when offline, then automatically uploaded when connectivity returns. Both support local network syncing between devices without internet, important for sharing kiosks.
However, some features do require internet access to work, or at least the guest will not be able to see the preview onsite. For example, Snappic has “online background removal” that require an active internet connection. Note, it is always very important to confirm whether AI effects will work offline before your event, as many of these are processed in the cloud.
In December 2018, Snappic experienced a large outage during the busy holiday season that affected customer events and caused reputational harm. As such, it’s always a good idea to have a backup app in place—although their track record has been better since.
Simple Booth takes offline seriously with a rock-solid offline queue built on over a decade of development experience. The system queues captures and digital deliveries for automatic upload once connectivity is restored. Both QR and AirDrop sharing work even when the booth is completely offline with no internet access. Other sharing methods queue along with the upload.
The platform maintains the complete experience, including data capture forms, all effects, and digital share options, with or without internet connectivity.
This resilience is especially important for unattended operations where you can’t be on-site to troubleshoot connection issues.
HALO will even give you a friendly reminder notification after your event if you have items remaining in the queue, to make sure you don’t forget to let them upload one you’re back online.
White labeling and branding control
For agencies and operators serving premium clients, the ability to customize branding matters.
Simple Booth provides different levels of branding options on each plan. Starting at the Core plan, Simple Booth branding gets removed, while Plus and above offer extensive white labeling including customization of outgoing messages (text, email, WhatsApp, and so on), custom gallery headers with a link back to your site, and video start screens.
A differentiating feature is the custom profile, available on all plans, that becomes a branded hub for your galleries and offers ways to promote your business, such as through the custom CTA and website link. Some users even report using the Simple Booth profile to get a new business of the ground in lieue of a website.
It’s worth noting that Simple Booth does not offer custom domains as a feature, even on higher tiers, so all galleries are hosted on SimpleBooth.com. However, for most operators, this convenient and graduated approach aligns features with business growth.
Snappic offers comprehensive white labeling but only on Enterprise plans. The “Grey Label” option on Enterprise Plus goes further, removing Snappic branding from the app interface itself, allowing agencies to present it as proprietary technology. The microsite white labeling includes custom domains and CSS customization for extensive brand control.
LumaBooth allows watermark removal with any paid subscription and offers custom email sender addresses for branded communications. However, the white labeling options are more basic compared to competitors, focusing primarily on removing LumaBooth branding rather than building an immersive branded presence.
LumaBooth vs Snappic vs Simple Booth: Which should you choose?
The best platform depends on your business model, technical comfort level, and growth ambitions.
Choose LumaBooth if:
- Lowest monthly cost is your primary decision factor
- You offer 360 booths and are comfortable with the interface
- You’re technically proficient and prefer self-service support resources
- You don’t need remote device management or web-based configuration
- You’re okay with dated interface design and limited layout tools
- Monthly billing through the App Store works for your business (no weekly/per-event option available)
Start saving with LumaBooth today.
Choose Snappic if:
- You specialize in highly custom video activations with advanced requirements
- 24/7 support with remote access gives you peace of mind when you’re at events outside normal hours
- You have the time to master complex settings and can justify the learning curve
- Premium pricing is justified by premium deliverables in your market
Create highly curated experiences on Snappic.
Choose Simple Booth if:
- You need intuitive software that staff can learn quickly and guests can use without hand-holding
- You want to minimize costs with unlimited weekly pricing ($9/week starting)
- You want to save time setting up for events with easy-to-use settings and the built-in photo booth template designer
- You’re building a photo booth business focused on digital selfie stands, unattended drop-off events, or permanent venue installations
- You’d rather have fewer issues overall and great support 7 days a week when you need it during the day
Make your life easier and get the job done with Simple Booth.
The photo booth industry has room for all three platforms, each serving different market segments.
LumaBooth delivers low monthly costs for operators comfortable with its limitations. Snappic pushes the boundaries of video processing for specialists who can master its complexity. Simple Booth provides a thoughtfully designed platform that helps operators focus on growing their business rather than troubleshooting their tech stack.
For most operators, especially those running multiple events, training staff, or offering unattended activations, the question is therefore not which platform has the most features or the absolute lowest monthly fee. It’s which one will help you deliver consistently great experiences while building a profitable, scalable business.