How To Build A Model Portfolio Website That Books Work

A photographer, a brand or a booker asks if you have a website, and you send your Instagram handle. It works, sort of. They scroll past three reposts and a story to find your height, and they never find your digitals at all.

A model portfolio website fixes that. One address, your best work in order, your stats where a booker expects them, and a way to reach you that doesn't depend on an app's algorithm.

It also has to be honest about what's in it. If your book includes glamour or boudoir work, anything suggestive, the site needs an 18+ warning page in front of it, and that changes how people find you.

This post covers what agencies and clients actually look for, the five pages that hold it, how to prepare the photos, whose permission each photo needs, and when the warning page is required. One example runs through it: Noor, an independent model whose book mixes commercial and boudoir work.

The general setup, from image sizes to uploading the folder, is in how to host a one-page portfolio. This one is about modelling.

What Do Agencies Look For On A Model Portfolio Website?

They look for the same things they ask for in a submission: clean, recent photos of what you look like today, your measurements, and proof you can work in front of a camera. A website just puts those in one place.

Agency submission pages are the best guide, because they say exactly what they want. Checked in November 2026:

• Kim Dawson Agency asks for four photos, a portrait, a full length, a smiling shot and a profile, with "no filters, makeup, hats, or sunglasses". Its form asks for height, bust, waist, hips, dress size, shoe size, hair colour and eye colour.
• ONE Management asks for photos in natural light against a plain backdrop, with no makeup, no baggy clothing and no poses, and says a smartphone is fine. It also says plainly that applying costs nothing.
• Wilhelmina's online form asks for your images, name, date of birth, where you live and how you'd like to be contacted.

Notice what none of them ask for: retouched editorial shots. They want to see you. Everything else on your site is there to show range.

The Five Things A Booker Expects To Find

Stats go in as text for a practical reason: a booker can copy them into an email, and they're readable on any screen.

What Pages Does A Model Portfolio Need?

A model portfolio needs five pages, and most models can launch with exactly that:

1. Home. One strong image, your name, the kind of work you do, the city you're based in, and a contact button.
2. Book. Your best 10 to 20 images, strongest first, with tear sheets at the end.
3. Digitals and stats. Four to six current digitals and your measurements as text. Update both every few months.
4. Comp card. A preview and a PDF download, so a booker can file it.
5. Contact. A contact email on your own domain, and your agency's details if you're represented.

Say your city, never your area. And keep any rates off the site entirely; those belong in a conversation, not on a page.

When Does A Model Portfolio Need An 18+ Warning Page?

It needs one when anything on the site is sexually suggestive or meant only for adults. Glamour and boudoir work usually is. If you're unsure whether a shot counts, treat it as suggestive.

Our Terms require the warning page to come before any page of the site is shown. You build it yourself, as an index.html with a short script on every other page, and building an age gate in HTML has the code.

Two things worth knowing:

• The warning page doesn't make explicit work allowed. Explicit images and video aren't allowed on our platform at all, gate or no gate. Suggestive at most.
• You don't need a second site. The guard is a short script on each page, so commercial and glamour work can sit on the same site behind it. One site, one domain, one place to keep up to date.

How Should You Prepare Model Photos For The Web?

Prepare them in three passes: resize, convert to WebP, and strip the hidden data. A full-resolution file straight from a shoot can be 10 MB or more, and a booker on a phone won't wait for twenty of them.

• Resize to the size the page actually shows. The one-page portfolio guide linked above covers the exact widths.
• Convert to WebP. Google's WebP documentation, which measures lossy WebP at 25-34% smaller than comparable JPEG Most image editors and free converters export it.
• Strip the metadata. Camera and phone files often carry the GPS location where they were taken, plus the date and device. Our free image metadata remover runs in your browser and uploads nothing.
• Rename the files. "noor-book-03.webp", not the photographer's file name or anything with your legal name in it.
• Keep the originals somewhere safe, off the website.

If you work under a stage name, the metadata step matters even more. The full checklist for keeping your real name off your work is in the privacy guide for adult creators.

Whose Permission Do You Need For Every Photo?

You need the photographer's permission to publish, and the agreement of every person who appears. Being the model in a photo doesn't make it yours to post.

In the United States, the person who creates a work is its author and owner, according to the US Copyright Office (checked November 2026). For a photo, that's usually the photographer, unless a contract says otherwise. Rules differ by country, so assume the photographer owns it until you've checked yours.

What that means in practice:

• Get usage in writing. A paid shoot's contract usually covers it. A collaboration or trade shoot often doesn't, and a friendly message isn't the same as permission.
• Credit the photographer the way they ask.
• Every person shown is an adult who agreed. If another model or a stylist is in the frame, keep their signed consent and ID records, plus the original files.
• No AI-altered images of a real person without that person's consent. That includes you, edited by someone else.
• No one else's photos, even of a look you want to show.

Hosts that allow adult material can ask for proof after a report. Ours can ask for proof of identity and age, proof you own the content, and proof every person shown consented, and restrict the site until you send it. With the records already in a folder, that's a five-minute reply.

Worked Example: Noor's Five-Page Portfolio

Noor is an independent model. About a third of her work is commercial catalogue and beauty, and the rest is glamour and boudoir. She has nine shoots, sixty usable images and a phone full of digitals.

The cut. She picks fourteen images for the book, strongest first, with two catalogue tear sheets at the end.

The permissions. Seven shoots had written contracts. Two were trade shoots agreed over messages, so she asks both photographers to confirm usage by email. One says yes. One says only on social media, so those images come out.

The second model. One boudoir set includes another model. Noor already has her signed consent and ID records from the day, so the image stays and the records go into a folder.

The digitals. Four new shots by a window at midday: portrait, full length, smiling and profile. No makeup, no filter. Her stats go beside them as text.

The photos. She resizes, converts to WebP and strips metadata from all eighteen files. The book page drops from about 50 MB to under 5 MB. Nine files carried GPS coordinates for her flat.

The warning page. Because part of her book is suggestive, she adds the 18+ guard to all five pages. Her commercial and glamour work stay together on the one site: there's no second site to build or keep in step.

The upload. On OxyPages, a site that promotes paid work is commercial and needs a paid plan, which is also where her own domain lives. She uploads the folder, connects the domain, and tests every page in a private window. The warning page appears first, every time.

One weekend, and the next booker who asked got a single link.

Who Shouldn't Build This Kind Of Site Here?

OxyPages is for a personal portfolio that promotes one person, you. A few things belong elsewhere:

• An agency, a directory or a roster of other models. Under our Terms, an adult site can't promote or book anyone besides you.
• Video. Embed from YouTube or Vimeo within their rules; we don't host or stream video.
• Explicit work, behind a gate or not.
• Selling photo sets or subscriptions. You can link to your own profile on a platform built for that, where it allows it, but not sell or host that content here.

If none of your work is suggestive and you'd rather never touch a file, a mainstream builder such as Squarespace or Wix will be quicker to set up, and they're good at it.

What To Do Next

Open your camera roll and shoot four new digitals this week. Then pick your fourteen best images, chase any permission you don't have in writing, and decide whether your book needs the warning page.

If your book includes adult work, the adult personal brand website guide covers the rules and the warning page in full.

When the folder is ready and your model portfolio website promotes paid work, compare the plans that allow commercial sites and custom domains. You can build and test it on a free account first, then upgrade before you share it.