Your photos & ownership
Are my photos locked in? Can I get them out?
Your photos are never held hostage. Every photo in your gallery is downloadable at full resolution, by any family member, at any time — one click per photo, no export fees, no waiting period, no 'contact support to request your data.' The photos are yours. We're the shelf they sit on, not the owner of what's on it.
What happens to my photos if I cancel?
Your photos are preserved for 6 months after cancellation. During that window you can reactivate and find everything exactly as you left it, or download anything you need. We will never delete your family's photos the day a payment stops — and canceling never requires a phone call, a retention offer, or an explanation.
What happens if KinPhotos ever shuts down?
If we ever wound down the service, every family would get at least 90 days' notice with downloads fully open, and we would provide a complete export of your archive — full-resolution photos and your tags and captions. Building a family archive means being straight about this question, and that's our commitment in writing.
Do you own or use my photos?
No. You retain all rights to your photos. We don't use them for advertising, we don't train AI models on them, and we don't sell or share data about them. Your photos exist on KinPhotos to be seen by the people you invite — nobody else, including us, except as needed to run the service (like generating thumbnails).
Privacy & security
Who can see my family's gallery?
Only the people you invite. Galleries are private and invitation-only — they're not public, not searchable on Google, and not visible to other KinPhotos families. Photos are stored in private cloud storage and served through time-limited access links, so there's no permanent public URL to your photos floating around.
Can I control what family members can do?
Yes. Members can be viewers (browse, search, comment, download) or admins (also upload, tag, edit details, and manage the gallery). You choose who gets which role, and a family can have more than one admin — which we recommend, so the archive never depends on a single person.
Family & membership
How many family members can I invite?
Unlimited, at no extra cost. One $49/year subscription covers the whole family — siblings, cousins, grandkids, the aunt who only checks email on Sundays. There are no per-seat charges and no member limits, ever. Everyone gets their own sign-in.
Do family members have to pay anything?
No. One subscription covers everyone. Invited members browse, search, comment, tag, and download at no cost — they just click the invitation and sign in.
What happens to the gallery as generations change?
The gallery belongs to the family, not to one person's account. Because multiple members can be admins, the archive carries on when the person who set it up steps back — which is the point. We built KinPhotos because photo collections kept dying with the one relative who managed them.
Pricing & billing
What does KinPhotos cost?
Gallery hosting is $49 per year, flat, with a 30-day free trial — cancel before day 30 and your card is never charged. Photo scanning is a separate service at $0.50 per photo (prints, slides, and negatives all at the same rate) with a 50-photo minimum. You can use either service without the other.
Are there hidden fees?
No. Downloads are free. Inviting family is free. Full-resolution files are free. Scanning is invoiced only after your photos are counted, so you see the exact number before you pay. The only optional extra is a USB stick backup of your photos ($35) if you want a physical copy.
Scanning
Do I get my original photos back after scanning?
Always. Original prints, slides, and negatives are returned to you after scanning. Mail them to us, or drop off and pick up in person if you're in the Portland, Oregon area.
Do scanned photos go straight into my gallery?
If you have a gallery, yes — scans land there directly, ready for the family to see and tag. If you only want the files, that's fine too: scanning works as a standalone service and you receive high-resolution digital files with no subscription required.