A writing portfolio website that grows every time you publish
Portfolio website, built-in blog, zero-commission store. One platform to run your writing business.
No plugins. No commission on what you sell.
15 days, no card required
Portfolio website, built-in blog, zero-commission store. One platform to run your writing business.
No plugins. No commission on what you sell.
15 days, no card required
The basics
A writing portfolio website, also called a writer portfolio website, is a site on your own domain that holds your published work, an about page, and a way to commission you. It is different from a writing portfolio, which is the selection of pieces itself. The portfolio is what you show. The website is what you own.
The distinction matters when a byline moves behind a paywall or a publication folds. A profile on a clipping service holds a link to the piece. A site you control can hold the work, the blog you write on now, and the thing you sell, on one domain that accrues to your name.
Why Pixpa
A blog that is part of the site.
Unlimited blogs and posts, tags, excerpts and post-level SEO metadata, on Creator plans and above. Not a plugin, not a second subscription.
Templates you can rewrite.
200+ designer-made starting points including an editorial and publication category, editable down to the type scale, with custom CSS and HTML underneath.
Zero commission on every sale.
Sell ebooks, digital downloads, signed paperbacks or a course. Payment goes through Stripe or PayPal into your account. Pixpa takes nothing on top.
Human support in chat.
Answered by people who know the editor, at any hour, on every plan.
“These guys are great! They are so easy to converse with over the chat. People who visit my website ask who built it for me. I am so happy to say that I created it on my own with the support team and tutorials on Pixpa.”
Inspiration
Real sites from working writers, authors and journalists. Open any of them live and see how the same platform carries a book-launch site and a freelance samples page.
Design
Most portfolio templates are built for images and treat text as a caption. The editorial and publication templates in the library are laid out around a readable measure, a type scale you can change, and a post listing that does not fight the work.
Change any of it. Move blocks, set your own fonts, write custom CSS, edit the HTML directly. Swap the whole template later without rebuilding the site.
“I have had to use graphic designers in the past, because I didn’t like the templates on other websites.”
Publishing
Clippings.me, the product ranking above most others on this search, has no blog and no store: it holds links to work published elsewhere. Journo Portfolio caps you at five pages on its Plus plan and ten on Pro, and puts selling on the tier above both.
On Pixpa the blog is the same site as the portfolio. Add more than one blog if you write in more than one lane, tag posts, write excerpts for the listing page, and set the SEO metadata per post. Available on Creator plans and above.
Selling
A novelist with three books out, a reader list of 900, and a site that sends every sale to a retailer taking a cut is running a shop window, not a shop. The store on Pixpa runs on the same domain as the writing.
Sell ebooks and PDFs as digital downloads, physical copies with your own shipping rates, or a paid workshop. Run discount codes for launch week. Take payment through Stripe or PayPal directly. Pixpa’s commission is zero, on every plan.
By specialty
A website for authors and self-publishers
A book page per title, a reader list you own rather than rent, and a store that sells the ebook and the signed paperback direct. Pixpa works as a website builder for authors who want the launch page and the checkout on one domain. Built-in email lists capture subscribers on every plan, so the launch list lives on the same site as the launch page. Set the metadata per book page so the title ranks for its own name.
Freelance writers and copywriters
A freelance writer portfolio has one job: get you the next brief. Samples as linked entries, a rates or services page that answers the money question before the email, and a contact form that reaches you. A copywriter portfolio website carries the same weight on the landing pages and email sequences you shipped, where the result matters more than the byline. A content writer portfolio sits between the two and reads better tagged by topic than by client. The blog is where you publish the piece nobody commissioned yet.
Journalists
A journalist portfolio website is a byline index by publication, tagged by beat, with the live link out and your own summary on your own domain. Add a press or speaking page. Password-protect anything embargoed until it runs.
Step by step
Six steps, roughly two hours if your links and bio are ready.
Start from an editorial template.
Filter the library to editorial, publication and blog layouts rather than image grids. These are built around a readable measure, which is the thing you will notice on the third page.
Build four pages.
Work, About, Rates or Services, Contact. A fifth page for books if you have them. Four pages that earn their place beat eleven thin ones.
Add samples as linked entries, not PDFs.
Give each piece a title, publication, date and a one-line summary, then link out to the live version. An editor scanning on a phone will not open a PDF.
Turn the blog on.
Set your tags before the first post, not after the thirtieth. Write excerpts for the listing page so the index reads like a contents page.
Connect your domain.
Bring one you own, or take the free custom domain included for the first year on annual billing.
Set the SEO metadata.
Use the SEO Manager to write a title and description for every page and post before you share the link, not after.
15 days, no card required
Standards
Standards two and six are the ones your platform decides for you rather than you. On Pixpa the blog and the portfolio run on the same site and the same domain, so republishing a piece and adding a sample are the same job in the same editor.
Open with the byline an editor will recognize, not your newest piece.
Recency is your filing system. A commissioning editor gives the top of the page about four seconds and is looking for a masthead they trust. Put the strongest publication first even if you wrote it three years ago.
Link to the live piece and keep your own copy of the work.
Publications redesign, paywall and shut down. A link-only portfolio degrades every year without you touching it. Where your rights allow, republish the text on your own blog with a canonical link to the original, so the work survives the publication.
Say what you write and what it costs to work with you.
Ambiguity reads as unavailability. A rates page with a starting figure, or a clear brief-to-quote path, removes the one question that stops most editors and marketing managers sending the first email.
Make it readable on a phone in a Slack preview.
Most first opens come from a link pasted into a message or an email signature. That means the page title, the summary and the first screen do the work before anyone scrolls, and a heavy hero image just delays it.
Give people a way to hear from you again.
A newsletter signup turns one editor’s visit into a standing relationship. A portfolio with no subscribe path is a business card you can only hand out once.
Keep publishing on it.
A site that has not changed in fourteen months signals you are busy or you are gone, and the reader cannot tell which. This is the argument for a blog on the same domain rather than a static samples page: the site is only current if updating it is a two-minute job.
Answers
Those are directories. Your profile lives on their domain, ranks for their brand, and follows their layout. A site on your own domain ranks for your name, holds a blog and a store, and does not disappear if the service changes its plans. Plenty of writers keep both and treat the directory as a distribution channel.
Yes. Link out to the live piece and add your own title, publication, date and summary on your page. Where your contract allows republication, you can also post the full text to your Pixpa blog with a canonical link pointing at the original, which keeps the work available if the publisher takes it down.
Yes, on every plan, with zero commission from Pixpa. Sell ebooks and PDFs as digital downloads, physical copies with your own shipping rates, or services such as editing and workshops. Payments run through Stripe or PayPal into your own account.
Yes. Posts, images and pages can be rebuilt on the new site while your current one stays live, and you point the domain across only when you are ready. 301 redirects are managed from the dashboard on Creator plans and above, so your existing links keep working.
Yes, if you want the search authority to accrue to your name rather than to a platform, and if you want to move later without losing your links. Pixpa includes a free custom domain for the first year on annual billing, and you can connect one you already own instead.
On Pixpa, the blog, the store and the SEO tools are included in the plan rather than sold as separate add-ons, so the site, the publishing and the selling sit on one bill. Students and educators get a discount. See the pricing page for current plans.
Get started
15 days, no card required · 30-day money-back