ArtCall — an open call catalogue with a free artist portfolio site

ArtCall portfolio and open calls — it’s one free package for the artist, and someone else pays for it. The open-call catalogue is open without registration. The same free account also unlocks a personal portfolio site builder for selling work. The organisations that pay for the software itself are galleries, festivals or exhibition curators — whoever runs the entry process through ArtCall. On similar services, it’s usually the artist who pays for the upgraded tier. Here, the logic is reversed.

What it costs the gallery
ArtCall’s pricing scales with entry volume. The starter tier costs from $79 per call. On top of that, higher tiers are built for thousands of entries. A call’s page stays live for 12 months, then moves into archive. Fees can be set flexibly. Separately, for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Separately, for a donation or a non-competitive entry. And for work the jury has already selected, there’s its own fee — a hanging fee, for instance. Festivals also get booth registration — four customisable types, in the same tier.

What you can attach to an entry
The entry form takes photos, video, PDF and audio. Images get resized into four sizes automatically — from 160 to 1920 pixels. File size — up to 4MB. Video, audio and documents are allowed up to 25MB as well. A standard call allows up to three attachments per entry. A festival, exhibition or ongoing call allows up to ten. Form fields can also show up conditionally. For example, a “Video URL” field only appears if the entrant picked the “Video” category.

Jury, 3D staging and audio comments
Jurors vote in one or two rounds and rate entries with stars. The system averages the results automatically. There’s also a helper tool alongside those settings, called Jury Estimator. In particular, there’s a separate 3D floor-planning tool. Organisers can see how the show will hang before the install even starts. As of the latest update, entrants can record a short voice note about their own work. That recording plays in both the regular and the 3D version of the gallery.

What the artist gets for free
ArtCall’s open-call catalogue is open without logging in. You can browse calls and filter straight away by location. There’s also a filter for the entry deadline and for who’s eligible. Eligibility ranges from open-to-all and regional, to state- or country-only, and sometimes invite-only. A separate filter shows the entry fee, from free to a set amount. Entering a call needs a free account. ArtCall itself never charges the artist a subscription. If a call has an entry fee, the organiser sets it. The payment runs through Stripe, directly on the ArtCall site.

The work doesn’t disappear after judging
Selected work doesn’t disappear once the call closes. For the next three months after the deadline, it stays in the Shows section. That’s essentially a public online gallery for every finished call. It also lists upcoming physical exhibitions — venue and dates. For the artist, that’s extra visibility after the jury’s decision — not just at the point of entry.

ArtCall portfolio and open calls — a free bonus, no subscription
The site builder includes several themes, each with 10 colour schemes, plus visitor analytics. Galleries can be public, private or password-protected. This isn’t a new add-on. The personal site builder was already there in ArtCall’s very first version. Back then, it also covered inventory tracking and sales. It’s grown a lot since.

Direct sales and tracking
Work from the portfolio site also feeds into the shared Artwork catalogue, where buyers browse pieces by medium, size and price across different artists. There’s a cart for direct sales, plus an event module with registration and payment. On top of that, you can track where each sold or exhibited piece currently is, and print a certificate of authenticity.

Who’s behind it
ArtCall belongs to the American company Ballyhoo LLC. By ArtCall’s own figures, over 250,000 artists are registered in the system. That’s the number the company shows galleries as a reason to list a call there. Ballyhoo LLC also runs a separate product, Gaze3D — another 3D display tool, with no direct tie to ArtCall itself.

Six versions in sixteen years — the latest shipped this week
ArtCall’s first version launched on 15 January 2010. Since then, the platform has had five more major updates. Version 6.0 shipped on 12 September 2026 — a week before this piece. The latest update added an AI assistant for support tickets. Regular human support is still there too. It also added flexible fee settings and conditional form fields. A year earlier, version 5.4 added a 3D gallery builder. A year before that came a template editor for certificates and tags.

Who this suits best
Good fit if: you want a steady source of exhibition open calls without a mandatory subscription. It’s handy if you also want a personal artist site without a separate subscription, or if accepted work staying visible afterwards matters to you. It also helps if a clear filter for fees and eligibility matters. Might not fit if: you’re planning to run your own call — that’s the paid side, and listing isn’t free. It won’t suit anyone who wants to enter without registering — an account is required, even though it’s free.