TIME&SPACE vs GetPica: Which Event Photo Platform Fits Your Event
TIME&SPACE · Business of Events
An honest comparison of TIME&SPACE and GetPica for event photo delivery: two different business models, what each is built for, and the events where the right answer is them.
TIME&SPACE vs GetPica: Which Event Photo Platform Fits Your Event
In short: GetPica is an Italian platform doing face-recognition photo delivery at serious scale, with a marketplace where guests can buy photos and a patented approach to sports events. We are a Lisbon per-event platform with published prices and no sales call. The biggest difference is not a feature, it is who pays: their model has a route where the guest pays, ours never charges the guest. No scan rates or delivery percentages here for either product, because those depend on your event, not on the software.
What GetPica Is
GetPica is the consumer-facing name of Pica Group S.p.A., based at Via dell'Aprica 12 in Milan, with additional offices including Madrid and London. Their business site describes the product as "the AI platform that delivers personalized photos, boosts engagement, and unlocks new revenue", and their guest flow is the one you would expect: the participant takes a selfie, opens a private album containing their own photos plus promotional content from the event, then downloads and shares.
They run two distinct sides. For enterprises covers Corporate Events and Fan Experience, where the organiser licenses the platform. For photographers covers Sell Photos, Endurance Sports and Hospitality and Travel, where photographers list their galleries and guests buy. Their site carries "Patent-protected technology" in the footer, and their public material describes face recognition alongside bib-number recognition and automatic anonymisation of bystanders who did not consent.
Where GetPica Is Stronger
Endurance sports. Bib-number recognition alongside face matching is the right tool for a marathon, a triathlon or a cycling sportive, where a runner may be unrecognisable under a cap and sunglasses but their number is legible in every frame. We do not do bib recognition. If you are timing a race, this is not a close call.
A route where the guest pays. Their marketplace lets a photographer sell photos directly, which means an organiser can put on photo coverage at no cost to themselves. We have no equivalent: on TIME&SPACE the organiser pays and the guest never does. Whether that is better depends entirely on which side of the invoice you are sitting on, and for some events, particularly amateur sports, guest-pays is genuinely the model that works.
Automatic anonymisation of bystanders. Their public material describes blurring faces of people who are in shot but not participating. For a public-facing event where uninvolved passers-by end up in frame, that is a thoughtful piece of engineering and a real privacy feature.
Scale and brand references. They publish live counters for users, events, photos delivered and countries, and their client wall carries luxury, automotive and top-flight football names. If your procurement asks who else at your scale runs this, they have a long answer.
A mature consumer app. Theirs has been in the stores for years with a large review base. Ours is younger.
Where TIME&SPACE Is Stronger
You can see the price. Ours is on the pricing page: 188 EUR, 488 EUR and 888 EUR per event, no subscription. We checked GetPica on 23 September 2026 and there is no public price on either of their sites. On the business site every call to action is "Get in touch" or "Contact us", and business.getpica.com/pricing returns a genuine 404. On the consumer site getpica.com/pricing answers HTTP 200 while rendering a "Page not found" screen, which is a soft 404: an automated link checker calls it healthy, a person sees an error. As with any enterprise vendor that sells this way, you find out what it costs by booking a call.
Galleries last 365 days on every plan. Including the cheapest one, with no upgrade required. Gallery lifetime is where per-event platforms quietly differ and it decides whether a guest who looks eight months later finds anything.
Published retention and consent terms. Selfie data deleted after 30 days, the face index deleted a year after the photo was uploaded, explicit consent collected before the camera opens. All of it is in our privacy policy in plain language, which is the document your DPO will ask for.
The guest album is not a shop. Their guest opens an album containing personal photos "and promotional content of the event", which is how the model funds itself. Ours contains the guest's photos. If you want sponsor visibility we do it through watermarking on downloads, which you control per event. Neither approach is wrong, but they produce a different experience for the person who just wants their photo.
Self-serve, and Portuguese on the ground. You can create an event and go live without talking to anyone. We are in Lisbon, working in Portuguese, Spanish and English, in your timezone. GetPica's consumer site does offer Portuguese among its languages, so this is a question of where the team is, not of translation.
We can also shoot the event. TIME&SPACE runs a photography agency alongside the platform, so crews and delivery come from one supplier. GetPica supplies the platform.
Capability Comparison
| | TIME&SPACE | GetPica | |---|---|---| | Face recognition matching | Yes | Yes | | Bib-number recognition for races | No | Yes | | Automatic anonymisation of bystanders | No | Described in their material | | Who pays | Organiser, always. Guests never pay | Organiser licence, or guest-paid marketplace | | Public pricing | Yes, on the website | Not published as of 23 Sep 2026 | | Self-serve signup | Yes | Contact us | | Gallery lifetime | 365 days, every plan | Not published as of 23 Sep 2026 | | Published retention periods | Yes, 30 days for selfie data | See their privacy policy | | Promotional content inside the guest album | No, sponsor watermarking on downloads instead | Yes, part of the model | | Photography crews available | Yes, agency arm | No | | Guest app required | No, browser only | No, browser works; app optional | | Base | Lisbon, Portugal | Milan, Italy |
We publish no comparative scan rates, delivery rates or engagement figures for either product. Those depend on your signage, your photographers and your follow-up email far more than on the platform.
The Real Question: Who Pays
This is the decision underneath the feature list.
Guest-pays works when the guest has a strong personal motive to buy: a finisher photo from a race they trained a year for, a holiday photo from a resort. The organiser spends nothing. The trade is that your attendees meet a paywall at the moment they are most enthusiastic about your event.
Organiser-pays, which is what we do, means the photos are a gift from you. Every guest gets theirs free, the goodwill lands on your brand, and the cost is a known line in your budget before the event rather than a revenue share afterwards.
For a corporate conference, a festival, a gala or a brand activation, we think organiser-pays is the right instinct: you already paid for the photographer, and charging the people you invited undercuts the gesture. For a mass-participation race, the opposite is often true. Pick the model first, then the vendor.
Which One Should You Pick
Pick GetPica if: you run endurance sports and need bib recognition, you want a guest-paid model so the event carries no photography cost, you need automatic anonymisation of uninvolved bystanders, or your procurement rewards a long list of enterprise logos.
Pick TIME&SPACE if: you want the price before the call, you want every guest to receive their photos free, you want galleries that stay up a year, you want published retention terms, you are running events in Portugal, Spain or elsewhere in Europe and want a supplier in your language and timezone, or you want the crews and the platform from one contract.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How much does GetPica cost?
As of 23 September 2026 GetPica does not publish enterprise pricing. Every call to action on their business site is a contact form, business.getpica.com/pricing returns a 404, and the consumer site's /pricing path answers HTTP 200 while showing a "Page not found" screen. Their photographer marketplace is described in their own material as commission-based with no subscription. We publish ours: 188 EUR, 488 EUR and 888 EUR per event.
Q: Is there an alternative to GetPica where guests do not pay for photos?
Yes. On TIME&SPACE the organiser pays per event and guests never pay for their own photos. GetPica also has an organiser-licensed enterprise product where the guest does not pay; the guest-paid marketplace is a separate side of their business, mostly sports, hospitality and travel.
Q: Does either platform work for marathons and races?
GetPica is the stronger choice there. Bib-number recognition matters when a runner's face is covered, and they have built specifically for that category. We do face recognition only.
Q: Do guests need to install an app?
Not for either one. Both work in the browser: scan, selfie, photos. GetPica also offers a consumer app as an optional layer.
Q: Can I use TIME&SPACE with my own photographers?
Yes. The platform works with whoever you hire, and our agency crews are available if you want them, not required.
Founder, TIME&SPACE