PhotoPills

What PhotoPills does

PhotoPills is a Spain-based software company that develops and sells a mobile photography planning application for iOS and Android. Founded in 2013 in Ciutadella de Menorca by four co-founders — Rafael Pons, Germán Marquès, Joan Pons, and Antoni Cladera — the company operates through three Spanish private limited entities (PhotoPills Core SL, PhotoPills SL, and PhotoPills Travel SL) with a headcount in the low single digits.

The company's core product is the PhotoPills mobile app, which combines celestial body position calculations, geodetic pin-to-pin planning (Red Pin for shooting location, Black Pin for subject), 2D map-centric planners for Milky Way and eclipse shots, 3D augmented reality scouting views, and a suite of more than 20 photography calculators (exposure, depth of field, hyperfocal, star trails, time lapse, spot stars, focal length match, subject distance, and more). It also includes a proprietary database of 10,500+ Points of Interest worldwide linked to Wikipedia, mobile home screen widgets with offline capability, and a dedicated drone planning mode. Content, education, and community tools — including the PhotoPills Academy (articles, video tutorials, user guide, calculators, 100+ term glossary), the annual PhotoPills Awards competition with up to $6,600 in cash prizes, the Legends recognition tier, PhotoPills Camp events, and branded merchandise — sit alongside the app to drive acquisition and retention.

PhotoPills monetizes primarily through a single one-time $10.99 USD (€11.99 EUR) app purchase distributed via the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, with no subscription or in-app purchase model. Supplementary revenue is generated through in-person photography workshops and expeditions operated under PhotoPills Travel SL (e.g., Patagonia, Madeira), branded merchandise sales, and community events. The go-to-market motion is product-led and community-led growth: the company relies on organic App Store discovery, an extensive SEO-driven Academy content library, social media presence on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Vimeo, an email newsletter, and word-of-mouth referrals from a community of 400,000+ self-identified PhotoPillers worldwide. There is no disclosed external funding; the company has operated as a bootstrapped, founder-owned business since inception.

Name

PhotoPills

Legal name

PhotoPills Core SL, PhotoPills SL and PhotoPills Travel SL

Website

https://photopills.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2013

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

PhotoPills is a Spain-based, bootstrapped mobile app developer founded in 2013 that sells a $10.99 one-time photography planning tool for iOS and Android, serving amateur and professional landscape, astrophotography, and drone photographers worldwide with celestial calculations, AR scouting, and calculators.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Photography Planning Software

NAICS

Photographic Services (54192)

SIC

Photographic Equipment & Supplies (3861)

akta.pro primary industry

Photography & Photo Production (BPAFAIAF)

Keywords

• Photography planning software
• Mobile photo planner
• Milky way planner
• Augmented reality photography
• Celestial photography tools

Headquarters

HQ city

Illas

HQ country

Spain

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Mobile App Sales: One-time purchase of the PhotoPills mobile app for iOS and Android. Single price point of $10.99 USD (€11.99 EUR). No subscription or in-app purchases mentioned. Revenue is generated from direct app sales through the App Store and Google Play Store.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

PhotoPills sells a single iOS and Android mobile application that helps photographers plan and execute shots involving the Sun, Moon, Milky Way, eclipses, meteor showers, and star trails. The app combines celestial position calculators, augmented reality visualization, an interactive Planner with geodetic pin-to-pin targeting, 20+ photography calculators, offline widgets, and a 10,500+ Points of Interest database, distributed as a one-time USD $10.99 perpetual license.

Product overview

PhotoPills is a unified photography planning ecosystem consisting of a mobile app (iOS and Android) as its core product, supplemented by educational content through the PhotoPills Academy (articles, videos, user guides), the PhotoPills Awards competition, photography calculators, and community events (PhotoPills Camp and Workshops). The app provides comprehensive tools for planning shots involving celestial bodies (Sun, Moon, Milky Way, eclipses, meteor showers, star trails) using augmented reality, maps, and specialized calculators. Users can also purchase branded merchandise. The company has grown from a 2013 iOS-only app to a platform with over 400,000 PhotoPillers worldwide.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• PhotoPills Mobile App (iOS and Android) A comprehensive mobile photography planning application for iOS and Android that helps individual photographers plan shots involving the Sun, Moon, Milky Way, eclipses, meteor showers, and star trails, distributed as a one-time USD $10.99 perpetual license through the App Store and Google Play Store.
• PhotoPills Awards An annual photography competition and recognition program for the PhotoPills community, with cash prizes of up to $6,600, Legend status, and a public gallery of winning entries tied to the PhotoPills mobile app.
• PhotoPills Workshops and Expeditions Paid in-person photography workshops and expeditions to destinations like Patagonia and Madeira, led by professional photographers and leveraging PhotoPills planning in the field.
• PhotoPills Camp Annual in-person community event bringing PhotoPillers together for collaborative photography experiences and field learning.
• PhotoPills T-Shirts and Merchandise PhotoPills-branded merchandise, including T-shirts, sold via the official PhotoPills online shop to community members and fans.

Quantifiable outcome

• Replaces multiple apps worth over $50 with a single $10.99 purchase
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature7 records

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Sun Surveyor: Sun Surveyor is a direct competitor that combines sun/moon/Milky Way position calculations with AR visualization, addressing the same landscape, real-estate, and outdoor photography use cases as PhotoPills.
• PlanIt! for Photographers: PlanIt! is a direct competitor providing comprehensive photography planning including sun/moon/galactic positions, AR, and a 3D map planner, addressing the same photographer planning workflows as PhotoPills.
• The Photographer's Ephemeris: TPE is a direct competitor offering sun/moon position planning for photographers via web and mobile, with overlapping celestial-planning functionality to PhotoPills' Planner tool.

Broad incumbents

• VSCO: VSCO is a broad-incumbent mobile photography app offering editing, presets, and a creator community. It competes for the same photographer's attention and wallet share as PhotoPills, though without planning functionality.
• Adobe Lightroom Mobile: Adobe Lightroom Mobile is a broad-incumbent photography app for editing and asset management. It does not offer planning features, but it is a default photography tool on many users' phones and represents a potential platform for integrated planning features.
• Snapseed: Snapseed is a free mobile photo-editing app from Google serving the same enthusiast/professional photographer audience as PhotoPills, but focused on post-capture editing rather than pre-shoot planning.

Emerging players

• Sky Guide: Sky Guide is a consumer stargazing/AR astronomy app with partial overlap on celestial visualization, though not purpose-built for photography planning.
• Stellarium Mobile: Stellarium Mobile is a planetarium/astronomy app that overlaps with PhotoPills' celestial visualization features, though it targets astronomy enthusiasts more than photographers.
• Sky Tonight / Star Walk (Vito Technology): Star Walk and Sky Tonight are consumer astronomy apps that overlap with PhotoPills on celestial body visualization, though they are oriented toward general stargazing rather than photography planning.

Others

• Photopills Max (Apple ecosystem camera utilities): Native iOS apps and utilities (e.g., Apple Maps, default Camera, Astropad) partially substitute for PhotoPills' AR planning functions on Apple devices, representing an ecosystem-level adjacent rather than direct competitor.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/photopills
• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/photopills
• Facebookfacebook.com/photopills
• Instagraminstagram.com/photopills

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about PhotoPills