Quick answer: professional photorealistic renders start from £195 per view for interiors and £245 for exteriors at our studio, with virtual staging from £75 per image and a 60-second architectural animation at £1,650. The final price is driven by the number of views, scene complexity, level of finish and deadline.
For context, published industry guides put typical per-image prices anywhere between $250 and $5,000, with high-end animation quoted at $6,000+ per minute – a spread so wide it is almost useless for budgeting. That is because most studios price by project and publish nothing. This guide shows our actual published rates, exactly what moves a quote up or down, and how to brief a project so you are not paying for work you did not need.
Our Published Pricing
From £195 / view
Interior and exterior renders, quoted as one fixed price for UK projects within 24 hours.
3-7 days
Free revisions
Fixed quotes
What Actually Drives 3D Rendering Cost
1. How developed your drawings are
The single biggest factor. A complete SketchUp or Revit model can cut the quote substantially because we skip the modelling stage; scaled PDF plans and elevations sit in the middle; hand sketches mean we rebuild the geometry from scratch and confirm dimensions with you at draft stage. If you have CAD files, always send them – even messy ones save hours.
2. Number of views of the same scene
The first image of a scene carries the modelling cost – the building, site and materials all have to be built once regardless. Additional views of the same scene are far cheaper because that work is already done. Ordering five views together is dramatically better value than ordering them one at a time across a project.
3. Interior vs exterior
Interiors usually cost more per image than exteriors of the same property: every visible object – furniture, fittings, fabrics, decor – must be modelled, textured and lit individually, while exteriors lean on landscape context and repeatable materials. A furnished living room is a small world; a facade is one object done well.
4. Level of finish
A massing study for a pre-application costs a fraction of a photorealistic marketing hero shot, because photorealism is where the hours go: lighting studies, material accuracy, styling. Be honest about which one the job needs – planning officers need accuracy and context, buyers need atmosphere. Paying for cinema-grade polish on a pre-app image is wasted budget.
5. Deadline
Rush work displaces scheduled projects and carries a premium at almost every studio. Booking ahead is the cheapest speed upgrade there is: the same image, the same quality, at the standard price – simply because it entered the queue a week earlier.
Why quotes vary so widely
The same brief can come back at wildly different prices because of what surrounds the image: how many revision rounds are included and what counts as one, what resolution and licence you receive, whether the scene is bespoke or a reused template with your building dropped in, and whether the work is done in-house or subcontracted onward. Always compare the full terms, not the headline number – a cheap render with one revision round routinely ends up dearer than a fair one with free revisions.
How to Keep Rendering Costs Down (Without Cutting Quality)
- Send everything at once – plans, elevations, materials, references. Incomplete briefs cause revision rounds, and revisions cost more than preparation.
- Approve the draft stage carefully – moving a camera at draft stage is free; moving it after final detailing is not.
- Bundle views of the same scene into one order.
- Specify materials before modelling starts, not after you see the render – a finish schedule or even links to products is enough.
- Say what the image is for – a planning image and a sales image are different products at different prices.
- Book ahead of your deadline and avoid the rush premium entirely.
- Reuse the model. If you will need more views later – a marketing set after planning, say – tell the studio up front so the model is built and kept with that in mind.
- Ask for the revision policy in writing. Free, defined revision rounds (like ours) turn the biggest hidden cost in rendering into a known quantity.
Is Professional Rendering Worth the Cost?
For a planning application, weigh the CGI budget against the cost of a refusal and resubmission – months of delay and repeated fees against a few hundred pounds of imagery that helps a committee see the scheme as you do. For off-plan sales, weigh it against not marketing until completion. In both cases the render budget is usually a rounding error against the risk it removes, which is why developers rarely argue about it and self-builders often do. It is also why 3D rendering services are now standard practice on schemes of every size, not just city-centre towers.
Studio or freelancer? A good freelancer can be cheaper per image, but you are buying one person’s availability, style and software licence. A studio gives you capacity (several images in parallel), continuity if someone is ill mid-project, and a defined revision process. We have written a full comparison in freelancer vs 3D rendering company.
UK studio or overseas? Overseas pricing can look dramatically lower per image. The trade-offs are time-zone lag on feedback rounds, licensing and payment friction, and – for planning work specifically – unfamiliarity with UK planning expectations, conservation-area sensitivities and British architectural context. For marketing stills with a generous timeline the gap narrows; for planning-critical imagery it rarely does.
3D Rendering Cost - Frequently Asked Questions
Professional renders start from $249 (approx. £185) per view at our studio, with a fixed GBP quote within 24 hours. Complexity, level of finish and deadline move the price from there.
Most of the cost is skilled manual work: modelling, materials and lighting. A photorealistic interior can take days of artist time before the final frame is rendered. We cover this in detail in our post on why 3D rendering services cost what they do.
Per view, quoted as one fixed price for the agreed scope – so you know the total before work begins.
Yes – free revision rounds are included. You review a draft and give focused feedback on camera angle, materials, lighting and styling.
Supply a complete brief with a 3D model if you have one, bundle all views of the same scene into one order, and book ahead of your deadline. Those three moves cut cost more than any discount will.
Our 60-second architectural animation is priced at £1,650, including free revisions. Published industry guides quote $6,000+ per minute for cinematic work, so it is worth being clear about the grade you need: a sales-suite flythrough and a broadcast-quality film are different products.
Virtual staging starts from £75 per image – furnishing an empty or unbuilt interior photorealistically. It is the highest-ROI item on the price list for agents marketing empty property, at a fraction of the cost of physical staging.
Alex Smith is a content writer at RealRender3D, writing informative articles on 3D rendering, interior design, architecture, and related topics.
With over 15 years of experience at top UK architecture and interior design firms, Alex leverages his expertise to write engaging content educating readers on AEC industry trends and best practices.
Connect with Alex at alex@realrender3d.co.uk.
