Aftershoot Review: Plans, Data Terms and Limits

What Aftershoot sells in 2026

Aftershoot is sold as modules: Select (culling), Edit, Retouch and Complete (all three), per its pricing tiers post, updated 5 November 2026, which says it checked Aftershoot's pricing page in October. The prices below come from that blog post; the live pricing page redirected to an account page whose content was not readable (source inaccessible), so confirm at checkout before buying. Editing and plan arithmetic beyond culling sit on Aftershoot pricing.

Prices per the blog post above, as read on 8 November 2026. Exit terms, per Aftershoot's support article: a cancel button on the Manage Subscription screen; remaining paid time stays usable; a downgrade converts the remainder to Aftershoot Credits applied to the next purchase; an annual plan can be paused up to three months, once per subscription cycle. The pricing tiers post says any plan can be paused once a year for up to three months; the two statements differ in scope and frequency (conflicting sources), so confirm in the Manage Subscription screen. Refund language: not found in sources reviewed. Device limits: not found in sources reviewed. The article still names the retired Pro and Max plans, so it may predate the 2026 restructure; treat it as a lead to confirm. A 30-day free trial with no card is described in Aftershoot's pricing post.

What Select does

Select offers automated and assisted culling, duplicate grouping, blur and closed-eye detection and "Cull to Target", per the pricing tiers post. The homepage adds Survey Mode, Grid and Loupe views, and says it learns your culling preferences over time. Ratings can be exported to editing software. Aftershoot's pricing post says Select is unlimited AI culling and all plans have unlimited image processing with no per-image fees; that is a vendor claim, and the terms of service returned 404 (source inaccessible).

How a cull runs, step by step

Aftershoot's culling support article and Lightroom workflow guide (updated 5 November 2026) describe the same sequence.

1. Create an album and import. Import settings cover file format, sub-folders and whether to back up memory-card photos first.
2. Choose a mode. Automated mode proposes selections, with either Auto Target or a Cull to Target slider from 10% to 60%; Assisted mode leaves selecting to you and adds duplicate grouping, key-face detection and image scores but does not assign stars or colour labels; Manual lets you rate yourself. Automated filters include Highlights, Duplicates, Blurry Photos and Closed Eyes.
3. Review in Grid, Loupe or Survey view, then save changes.
4. Export to a folder or to an editing app. Aftershoot's FAQ says it never deletes images and every photo stays accessible in the rejected view (vendor statement).

Two limits shape the hand-off. Per the support article, Lightroom and Capture One catalogs cannot be culled, only edited, so Aftershoot culls a folder of files, not a catalog. The Lightroom guide therefore recommends culling before import, so Lightroom only sees what you deliver. For photos already in a Lightroom Classic catalog, it says to run Metadata > Save Metadata to Files first (to protect existing edits), cull in an album pointed at that folder, then run Metadata > Read Metadata from Files; it also says to switch on "Automatically write changes into XMP" in Catalog Settings. It names its own failure cases: Lightroom edits not saved to XMP can be lost, offline RAW files without Smart Previews cannot be edited in Aftershoot, and the catalog workflows are described for Lightroom Classic, not Lightroom (Cloud). Aftershoot's FAQ (vendor claim) says selections also export to Capture One with ratings, labels and flags preserved; the Lightroom guide describes no Capture One workflow.

Where your files go

Aftershoot's transparency page qualifies its homepage line, and one conflict with the 2023 privacy policy remains.

Homepage (marketing line)

the homepage says files never leave your machine and that images are never stored on Aftershoot's servers. The downloads page says the app works offline on your computer; it does not address server storage.

Transparency page

Aftershoot's transparency page says images are processed locally for batch culling, editing and retouching. With learning switched on, culling sends small-resolution versions to Aftershoot's servers for scoring and retraining; the page says the "Help improve Aftershoot's AI" setting is on by default and is switched off with a toggle on the album import screen, per album. Custom editing-profile training uploads the images you choose. It says storage is on Google Cloud and deletion on request generally takes 7 to 14 days. These are vendor statements.

Privacy policy (version 3, last updated July 2023)

the policy says images and the respective edits "collected by Aftershoot" are used solely for training its machine-learning models, will not be reproduced, resold or redistributed, and can be deleted on request. It does not say which product behaviours that covers. Biometric language: not found in sources reviewed.

Not readable or not found

Aftershoot's terms of service returned 404 (source inaccessible). The policy predates the 2026 Galleries product; face-data handling for Galleries: not found in sources reviewed.

Status

conflicting sources remain between the homepage's "never leave your machine" line and the transparency page's learning upload and the 2023 policy. This page does not recommend Aftershoot or any rival for confidential client work. Put the question to Aftershoot in writing, and see offline and cloud AI culling.

Cost at 10, 25 and 45 weddings a year

Aftershoot's listed prices do not change with volume, so cost per frame falls as you shoot more. Example (arithmetic, not a measurement): a hypothetical 3,000 RAW frames per wedding, annual billing, prices from the table above.

This holds if the vendor's unlimited-culling statement holds (a vendor claim; terms of service unreadable). Monthly billing is $180 a year for Select.

Vendor claims

Requirements and Lightroom return

Aftershoot lists Windows 8 or higher and macOS Catalina or higher, each with a 4-core CPU and 8GB RAM (downloads page). The homepage cautions that preview rendering and retouching may not work reliably on Intel integrated graphics or GPUs under 2GB VRAM. The supported-camera article returned 404 (source inaccessible); the FAQ says only that RAW and JPEG files from all major camera brands work (vendor claim), so the RAW format list is not confirmed.

Aftershoot writes results to XMP files; in Lightroom Classic you run Metadata > Read Metadata from Files, with standard previews or re-import as the fallback (support article). Capture One: a vendor claim in the FAQ, no walkthrough read. For profile training inputs see Aftershoot Edit vs Imagen.

What an independent write-up reports

Shotkit's Aftershoot review (last updated 5 December 2025, version 2.14.2, affiliate code in the article) is the one independent account read, and it predates the May 2026 plan restructure. The reviewer tested 156 RAW frames from a couple's portrait session on an M1 Pro Mac, not a wedding gallery, and describes pointing Aftershoot at a folder (it references files on disk instead of building a catalog), then an Automated or Customized cull with burst stacks and Key Faces close-ups. Exporting to Lightroom Classic preserved ratings, labels and flags. Its drawbacks: best results with portraits and people, less support for landscape and travel work, and (for the Edit module) every imported image is edited by default. It lists no RAW formats or minimum hardware. Treat it as one account of an older version.

Honest downsides

• The homepage's local-only line, the transparency page and the 2023 policy do not fully agree, above.
• Prices come from a vendor blog, not the checkout.
• Restructured in 2026 (Pro and Max replaced), so older reviews and support articles may describe retired plans.
• Hardware floor for preview rendering on integrated graphics.
• It culls folders, not Lightroom or Capture One catalogs, so already-imported shoots need the save-then-read metadata round trip.
• Refund language: not found in sources reviewed.

Who should pick it

If you want culling alone at a listed $120 a year and work in Lightroom Classic, Select fits, subject to the data question above. If you need a published profile-training threshold, see the Narrative Select review; for a side-by-side see Aftershoot vs Narrative Select and Aftershoot vs Imagen. If you already pay for Lightroom, compare Lightroom's built-in culling. More options: Aftershoot alternatives. Try .

Check this in your trial

1. Run a network monitor during culling and during any learning or profile step, and note what leaves the machine.
2. Confirm the learning option can be turned off at album import, as the transparency page says, and that profile training only uploads the images you choose.
3. Confirm Lightroom reads the XMP back after Read Metadata from Files, and time that step on a 3,000-frame catalog. Run it once on a shoot culled before import and once on one already in your catalog.
4. Check your oldest camera's RAW files import at all.
5. Run on your slowest machine; look for the integrated-graphics warning.
6. Check the live price at checkout against the table above.

Original test pending: we would cull a licensed wedding gallery with Aftershoot and score keeper overlap, false rejects and minutes per 1,000 frames against a human pick, per our methodology.