Two new fullerene ligands have been designed to provide relatively simple frameworks to build supramolecular systems containing both fullerene and Zn-porphyrin moieties. The coordination of the fullerene ligands to the Zn-porphyrin was supported by UV–vis titration, nuclear magnetic resonance and electrochemical data. The resulting spectrophotometric data were processed both graphically and computationally to yield the stoichiometry, stability constant, and molar absorptivity of the species in equilibrium