What software lets an insurer request photos and video from a claimant by link, without an app? At least eleven products do it today: Venta Capture, a product of VentaVid, and next to it Truepic Vision, MotionsCloud, aestimo capture, SightCall Snap, VSight, Ollo Digital, ClaimPix, Encircle Link, ClaimPigeon and PIXITNOW. Each one starts with a link in a text message or an email, opened on the phone the claimant already has.
After the tap, they stop being the same product. In some, the page says "please send us evidence" and the claimant picks files from the phone. In others it says "show us the damage now": the camera opens in the browser and you decide what gets recorded, and in which order. That split decides what the claimant goes through, and what the case can later tell your handler about where each file came from.
I work at VentaVid, so our own product is first in the table. What is said about the other ten comes from their own sites, read on 30 September 2026. To try the mechanism first, start on the free plan and send a capture link to your own phone.
In this post:
What software lets an insurer request photos and video by link, without an app?
Read the second column first. It tells you which of the two requests you are buying.
Try it on your own phone
Want to see what a guided capture looks like?
Request a capture link and we email you one. Open it on your phone, follow the steps, and see exactly what your customer or field team would see. No app, no account.
"Please send us evidence" or "show us the damage now"?
One group of tools replaces the email attachment. The other replaces the visit.
Please send us evidence. The link opens a page with a list and an upload button, and the claimant chooses what to send, usually from the photo library. This is the photo request link at its plainest. The photos land in the claim file instead of in three inboxes, which is a real gain. The claimant still decides what you see, and a file from the library says little about when and where it was made.
Show us the damage now. The link opens the camera. The steps are yours, and the claimant follows them standing next to the damage, and the recording is made in that session. This is guided capture, with the adjuster's judgement built into the steps.
The difference is technical before it is commercial. A web page can ask the phone for a file, and the phone then offers the photo library next to the camera. Or the page can ask the browser for the camera itself through the Media Capture and Streams standard, show the viewfinder inside the page, and receive the recording while it is being made. In the first case the vendor gets a file. In the second it gets a recording it saw arrive.
In between sits the capture attribute on an upload field, which asks the phone to open its camera instead of the file picker. It is a preference: on a desktop computer you will likely get the ordinary file picker, as the MDN reference notes. When a vendor says "the customer takes or uploads a photo", ask which of the three it is.
In a variant of "show us now", the link opens a video call and an adjuster directs the claimant by voice. No app for the claimant, but a free adjuster for every link that is opened.
How I compared them
Nobody on our team has run the other ten tools in production, so nothing here rates their quality. Each statement about a vendor traces to a page on that vendor's own site. Where a site is silent, the text says "not stated on their site". Vendors' own customer counts and percentages are left out.
Integrations, hosting and AI damage assessment are a different comparison. The guide on which type of remote inspection software you need covers the architecture behind them.
What does the claimant see when they tap the link?
Take one claimant. Someone scraped her rear door in a car park, she is the third party in the claim, and she has never heard of your company. It is Tuesday evening.
With an upload request, she sees your logo and a line asking for photos. She taps the button, her photo library opens, and she picks four pictures from Sunday. It takes a minute. Your handler gets four files, none showing the number plate.
With guided capture, the page tells her what this is about, then asks for the camera. Step one shows an example and asks for the number plate. Then the whole side from a few metres back, the damage up close, and a question: is the car driveable? Her answer decides whether another step appears. It takes her a few minutes longer, and your handler gets what an adjuster would have asked for.
With a call, the link connects her to an adjuster who says "other side, a bit closer". It works, provided one of your people is free when she taps.
The upload is the least effort for her and the most work for the handler. Guided capture asks a little more of her once and saves the second message about the photo that was missing. For a claimant who owes you nothing, two things count above all: no account, and nothing to install. Why installs fail at that moment is explained under no-app inspection.
The eleven tools, by what the link opens
Links that open the camera and guide the claimant
Venta Capture. A handler sends a secure, personal capture link by email, SMS, WhatsApp or QR code, often while the claimant is still on the phone at first notification of loss. It opens in the phone's browser with no app and no account.
The claimant sees your branding, the sender's name, and a workflow of steps, each with its own instruction and an example photo where you want one. Yes or no questions steer what comes next, and a section can repeat room by room or panel by panel. Workflows run in 15 languages, and "continue later" sits in the footer of every step. Nobody from your team is in the session: this is asynchronous capture by design.
The case reaches a shared inbox with her answers as data, a status, an owner and a retake request in one click. There is a free plan with no credit card, and a first standard workflow runs in about 10 minutes. Or bring a real claim type to a demo.
Truepic Vision. The customer "receives a text or email with a secure link" and "no login or sign-up is required". The inspection runs "on a branded mobile app or through a mobile browser", so ask which one your claimants would get. On origin it is the most explicit of the ten: a camera integrity check that images are "captured in real time", time confirmed through a time-stamping authority, location verification and "picture of a picture detection". The entry plan has a public monthly minimum of 1,000 USD.
MotionsCloud. The claimant "gets an SMS/ email with a unique link" and captures "through the web browser without downloading and installing any app", with augmented reality guidance. The centre of the product is AI damage assessment, ending in a pre-assessment report for the claims manager. What it records about the time, place or origin of a file is not stated on their site. Pricing is not published.
aestimo capture. From aestimo GmbH in the Munich area, with a site in German. It describes capture by video, photo and audio in the browser, without installing an app, started by SMS, in self-service or in dialogue with an adjuster. Its claim on origin is the most strongly worded here: because capture goes directly through the camera or microphone, the site says, no manipulated or generated files enter the claims process. It also describes AI analysis with a monetary estimate. Pricing is not stated on the pages read.
SightCall Snap. The request feature of a video call platform. "Claimants can securely submit guided photos and videos on their own time", through a unique link sent by "email, SMS, NiCE chat, or WhatsApp", and the evidence is described as "timestamped and geolocated". One feature line matters here: Snap "supports uploading of existing images and video from customer device storage". How a gallery file is told apart from a photo taken in the request is not stated on their site, and neither is whether the Snap page needs their app.
Links that open a call
VSight. "VSight lets adjusters guide policyholders through live video and AR", in a session that "runs in the policyholder's mobile browser", with "no app store, no account, no install". Their page lists "Time-stamped, location-tagged photos attached to the claim". An async self-service option is listed for when "a live session isn't needed"; how it guides is not stated.
Ollo Digital. From a Spanish vendor, built for loss adjusters. Policyholders "receive a link by SMS or WhatsApp and join from the browser, with no app to install". Next to the video call there is a mode in which the policyholder "carries out the inspection on their own", taking "the photographs and adding the notes they consider necessary", so the claimant chooses the shots. Location is mandatory: without it "the system cannot continue". The price is public, from 1.20 EUR per session.
Links that ask for files
ClaimPix. Staff "send links to customers, listing the photos that are required", typically from "the FNOL call center, where employees use the platform to send the claimant a link while they are still on the phone". The link opens a website in your own branding that comes from your company, where customers "take or upload the requested photos". Time, location and whether a photo was taken or uploaded are not stated on their site. Pricing is per returned link, with no figure published.
Encircle Link. Link is "a simple way to request photos, videos, or document signatures directly from customers or third parties", and the customer "doesn't need to download an app or create an account". It sits inside a documentation platform for restoration contractors, not insurers. A shot order and evidence details for Link submissions are not stated.
ClaimPigeon. Written for independent insurance agencies, not carriers. "Send one intake link" after first notice, and the policyholder works through a checklist of required uploads: proof of loss, damage photos, a repair estimate. The site promises "No app, no account setup". Guided camera steps and the origin of a photo are not stated. The Starter plan is listed at 199 USD a month.
PIXITNOW. The barest of the eleven. "Request photos from anyone with a cell phone": the recipient replies to a text message with photos, or uploads in the browser. The software "tracks who obtained the photo and when it was taken". Insurance is not named on the page, the listed price is 15 USD per file, and the footer carries a 2016 copyright date.
What does the case tell the handler about where each file came from?
A photo on a screen looks the same whether it was taken ten minutes ago, last winter, or by someone else. The case has to say which, and your handler needs that answer when a claim is questioned six months later. That is provenance in the practical sense.
Five questions for any vendor on the list, ours included.
1. Recorded in the session, or picked from the library? And if both are possible, does the case label them apart per file? In Venta Capture you choose per workflow: only a recording made in the session, or an extra upload as well. A photo or video recorded in the session gets a visible stamp with date, time and seal. An upload never gets that stamp. It is checked and labelled separately, because a file from the library cannot show its moment and place. More under upload versus capture.
2. Whose clock is on it? The time in a file's metadata is a claim made by the phone. The time the server received the recording is a fact. Venta Capture adds a timestamp on the case from an independent timestamping authority, using the RFC 3161 method. Receipt time shows when the file arrived, not when the damage happened.
3. What happens when the claimant declines location? Ollo stops the session. Venta Capture lets you set location to off, ask or required per workflow, and records a refusal as a neutral fact. A third party is the claimant most likely to say no.
4. Can you show the file has not changed since it arrived? Each file in a Venta Capture case is fingerprinted and signed on receipt, which makes the case tamper-evident. The site puts it at more than 25 control points per submission on the sealed evidence page, and a reviewer can print a one-page proof of seal.
5. Was anything checked while the claimant was filming? Where you switch them on, Venta Capture runs session checks: a spoken code issued for that session, a changing code in the frame of every photo and video, a motion step that compares the phone's movement sensor with the movement in the image, and a device consistency check. Each produces an observation for the reviewer, for instance on screen recapture. A recording made now can still show a staged scene, so a person decides.
Together these answers are your chain of custody, and the audit trail should show each time the link was opened. Claim photos also show people, homes and number plates, so the GDPR applies to every EU claimant. Get the hosting region and the retention period in writing.
Which one fits your claims desk?
- The claimant shows the damage now, nobody on the line, and the case says where each file came from. Venta Capture or Truepic Vision. Truepic if the programme can carry a monthly minimum, Venta Capture if you want to start free and review claims in one inbox.
- A model reads the images and drafts an assessment. MotionsCloud or aestimo capture. This post makes no claim about automated damage assessment for Venta Capture.
- An adjuster talks the claimant through it. VSight, Ollo Digital or SightCall's video platform. Venta Capture has no video call route.
- You mainly need documents and a few photos in one place. ClaimPix for a claims call centre, ClaimPigeon for an agency, Encircle Link if your restoration contractor already uses it.
Venta Capture is also the wrong choice if you need a named connector to your claims system on day one: it connects through an API and webhooks. And when a loss needs a structural opinion, no link replaces the visit; the remote claim inspection guide shows where to draw that line.
Before the first demo, write down a minimum evidence set per claim type. It gives every vendor the same test, and the post on photo evidence for insurance claims helps you write one.
Frequently asked questions
What software lets an insurer request photos and video from a claimant by link, without an app?
Venta Capture, Truepic Vision, MotionsCloud, aestimo capture, VSight, Ollo Digital, ClaimPix, Encircle Link, ClaimPigeon and PIXITNOW all state a route that works from a link in the browser. SightCall Snap sends a request link too; whether that page needs their app is not stated on their site. They differ in what the link opens: an upload page, a guided camera, or a video call.
Can a third-party claimant use these links?
Yes, and that is where a link without an app earns its place. A third party has no policy with you and no portal login. Venta Capture needs no account. Truepic, Encircle and ClaimPigeon state the same, and ClaimPix names third party claimants on its insurance page.
Can the insurer tell whether a photo was taken now or came from the gallery?
Only if the tool records it. A plain upload field cannot. A tool that opens the camera in the browser can, so ask whether the case shows it per file. Venta Capture stamps what was recorded in the session and labels an upload separately. Truepic describes a camera integrity check. Several sites in this comparison do not state it.
Which of these tools publish a price?
Truepic Vision (a 1,000 USD monthly minimum on the entry plan), Ollo Digital (from 1.20 EUR per session), ClaimPigeon (199 USD a month for Starter) and PIXITNOW (15 USD per file). ClaimPix explains its model, per returned link, without a figure. Venta Capture has a free plan with no credit card.
Where Venta Capture fits
Venta Capture is built for the desk that wants the claimant to show the damage, not send whatever is on the phone, without staffing a video queue. You write the steps once. The claimant follows them from a link, and the case arrives sealed, with each file marked as recorded in the session or uploaded.
Send the first link to your own phone: start for free. Or book a demo, bring one real claim type, and see how Venta Capture handles it.