TSR Watermark Image vs Watermarkly
Watermarkly is a browser-based watermarking tool with a generous-looking free tier. It's well made and pleasant to use. It also has two limits that most people don't discover until they're halfway through a job.
The free tier watermarks your watermark
Watermarkly's free tier adds "Protected with Watermarkly" to your output images.
Take a moment with that. You came to the tool to put your mark on your photograph. What you get back is your mark plus someone else's advertisement, printed on your work, on every image you publish.
For a hobbyist posting one holiday photo, fine. For anyone whose images represent a business — a photographer's portfolio, a shop's product listings, an agent's property gallery — you're paying for the free tier in brand real estate, on every single file, forever, because those images will outlive your decision to switch tools.
Our free version stamps trial output too, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. The difference is what it costs to stop: $29.95, once. Not a subscription. Not per machine.
Ten images at a time
The second limit is the batch cap: ten images per run on the free tier.
Ten is enough to evaluate the tool. It is not enough to do a job. A single wedding shoot is several hundred files. A product catalogue refresh is a few thousand. An archive digitisation is tens of thousands.
TSR Watermark Image has no batch cap on any paid edition. One of our customers ran over 8,000 TIF files through it in a single pass after being told by another vendor's support that running out of memory on large batches was "normal" behaviour. It isn't normal. It's a design choice, and we made a different one.
The same company, two products
Worth knowing, because it explains the product line: Watermarkly and Visual Watermark are the same company. Watermarkly is the web front end; Visual Watermark is the desktop application they'll point you at when your batches get too big for a browser tab.
That's a reasonable way to run a business, but it means the honest comparison isn't "Watermarkly vs TSR". It's "Watermarkly's free web tier, then their paid desktop app" versus "our free trial, then our paid desktop app". We wrote that comparison separately — see TSR Watermark Image vs Visual Watermark.
Where your files go
Watermarkly accepts uploads from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox and Google Photos, processes them, and states that it doesn't store your photos on its servers or access them.
We have no reason to doubt that. But notice what kind of statement it is: it's a promise, and the only thing backing it is the company's word. You can't inspect it, you can't audit it, and you can't verify it after the fact.
With an installed application there's nothing to promise. Disconnect the machine from the network and watermark 500 files. If it works — and ours does — the question of what a server does with your images never arises, because no server ever saw them.
That distinction matters most for exactly the work you'd least like to explain: images under NDA, unreleased client work, property interiors, anything involving other people's children, anything where you're a data processor for someone else under GDPR.
What you get that a browser tab can't give you
- EXIF, XMP and IPTC preserved through the batch, so your embedded copyright and contact fields survive. GPS, ID3 and several hundred other tags on Share editions and above.
- Direct publishing to WordPress, FTP or secure FTP when the batch finishes.
- Command-line automation —
WatermarkImage.exe "C:\configs\job.wmi"runs a saved profile and exits, so it drops into a scheduled task. - Multipage TIF support, read and written page by page.
- Originals that cannot be overwritten. The application refuses to use your source directory as the destination. Watermarking is irreversible; we won't let you do it in place.
- 29+ languages.
Where Watermarkly wins
It's genuinely faster to start. No install, no download, works on a Chromebook, works on a phone, works on a machine where you don't have permission to install software. Their font library is large and well presented, and the template sync across devices is nice.
If you watermark a handful of images occasionally and the badge doesn't bother you, Watermarkly is a perfectly good answer and you don't need us.
The short version
| TSR Watermark Image | Watermarkly (free) | |
|---|---|---|
| Badge on output | Trial only — gone once you buy | Yes |
| Images per batch | Unlimited (paid) | 10 |
| Install required | Yes | No |
| Works offline | Yes | No |
| Files leave your device | Never | Yes, then deleted per their policy |
| Keeps EXIF/XMP/IPTC | Yes | Check before relying on it |
| Publish to WordPress/FTP | Yes | No |
| Scriptable | Yes | No |
| Cost to remove the badge | $29.95 once | Their paid plan |
Download the free version → · 90-day money-back guarantee
Watermarkly details checked August 2026 against watermarkly.com. Free-tier limits change — verify before deciding.