Evaluation criteria

Here are the different criteria we looked at for evaluating the different services:

1. Image Quality: The most important aspect of virtual staging is its quality. Nobody wants floating furniture that distracts buyers from the property instead of helping them to envision themselves living in the space. In order to be able to compare the image quality of the different services we took sample images of a bedroom, a living room and a dining room and got them virtually staged by all the different services we will review in this guide. You can find the different results below. This way you can easily compare the quality for yourself.
2. Pricing: There is a huge range in terms of prices for virtual staging starting at $1 per image for AI software all the way to $79 per image for expert designers.
3. Turnaround time: AI apps offer turnaround times of as little as 10 seconds, professional virtual staging agencies can take up to three days even though we often received the results within 24 hours or less.
4. Required input time: Some apps require you to manually place furniture which can take 15 minutes, whereas for most design agencies it's as simple as uploading the image, selecting which room type and furniture style you want and getting the result 24 hours later.
5. Revisions: Some virtual staging companies offer unlimited free revisions, others only include a set number of revisions. We also looked at online reviews to get a feeling for what other customers thought about their results.
6. Customer Support: Getting an answer fast if things go wrong is crucial. Most companies offer live chat and email support. Some even offer phone support or 24/7 support teams.

We wanted to include all major virtual staging agencies and apps. After scouting the market and doing a preliminary analysis we narrowed our list down to 10 companies. Below you can find the results.

Overview of the results

Best overall: Virtual Staging AI

Virtual Staging AI is the most sophisticated AI virtual staging app available and woos buyers with their $1/photo pricing and their lightning fast turnaround time. You just need to upload a picture of an empty room, select a room type and furniture design style and 10 seconds later you get the beautifully staged result. You can even declutter the input room free of charge with the click of a button. Thanks to the fast progress in the AI space in the last 12 months, Virtual Staging AI has surpassed many manual virtual staging design agencies in terms of quality so for the majority of agents it presents the best choice for their virtual staging needs.

Best Quality: Virtual Staging Solutions

Even though none of the photos in our test had floating furniture or other artifacts of 2010 virtual staging, the virtually staged photos from Virtual Staging Solutions had the highest quality. Without knowing that they were virtually staged it would be almost impossible to detect it just by looking at the images. Not only does their furniture look the most realistic in terms of shadows, size and positioning, their designers also paid a lot of attention to what elements to add. For example they were one of the few services that added a wine cooler in the kitchen in the background of the living room instead of leaving the area empty. Virtual Staging Solutions high quality results come with a hefty price tag though: $75/photo for their virtual staging and decluttering is an extra $25/photo.

Runner-Up: Styldod

Surprisingly or not this company from India offers not only the cheapest virtual staging by designers but also one of the best in terms of quality. That’s why they’re our runner-up recommendation if you’re looking to work with a designer but Virtual Staging Solutions is too expensive. If you order 8 images or more Styldod charges just $16 per photo which is only 20% of what Virtual Staging Solutions charges per picture but still 16x more than what Virtual Staging AI charges.

Best DIY software: Apply Design

If you’re looking for a software to place the furniture yourself to get a specific furniture arrangement you should take a look at Apply Design. They had by far the easiest software to place furniture in a room and the results look quite good albeit not perfectly realistic. Unfortunately their pricing is roughly $10/image depending on how many credits you buy which is almost as expensive as Styldod where a designer does the staging for you.

The different companies in detail

Virtual Staging AI

Packages start at $18 for 6 photos, as low as $0.25 per photo, 20 seconds turnaround time, unlimited renders

Virtual Staging AI is a startup originating from the Harvard Innovation Lab that developed the first AI based fully automatic virtual staging service. The self-service software allows users to upload an image on their site, select a room type and furniture style and 20 seconds later the AI spits out 3 staged photos according to the defined preference.

Virtual Staging Solutions claims to be the inventor of virtual staging and is targeting customers looking for the highest quality possible. That’s why their staging also comes with a hefty price tag: $75/photo. In return you do get some of the highest quality staging we have seen in our test on-par with Stuccco’s and arguably even better. Virtual Staging Solutions was also one of the quickest services - it took them only 10 hours to complete the staging. Their online interface is easy to use and allows for significant customization.

Over the past 12 to 24 months AI staging has made significant improvements in terms of quality. While initially it wasn’t really comparable to the quality you would get from a designer it now surpassed the quality of many of the cheaper virtual staging services and it will be interesting to see how AI further improves over the coming months.

Virtual Staging AI offers subscription packages from 6 photos per month up to 250 photos per month with monthly as well as yearly billing. With prices as low as $0.25 per photo for the enterprise plan with yearly billing the cost for staging an individual photo becomes almost negligible.

Not many other virtual staging companies offer AI staging with Styldod being the notable exception with their Reimaginehome.ai product.

Pros:

• Ultra cheap: basic package $18 for 6 photos and gets as low as $0.25 per photo
• Super fast: 20 seconds turnaround time
• Free trial with watermark: just go to virtualstagingai.app and upload an image - no sign up or credit card required

Cons:

• Limited options to tell the AI how to furnish the room (only room type and furniture style)

Virtual Staging Solutions:

$75/photo, 24h turnaround time, free revisions

Virtual Staging Solutions claims to be the inventor of virtual staging and is targeting customers looking for the highest quality possible. That’s why their staging also comes with a hefty price tag: $75/photo. In return you do get some of the highest quality staging we have seen in our test on-par with Stuccco’s and arguably even better. Virtual Staging Solutions was also one of the quickest services - it took them only 10 hours to complete the staging. Their online interface is easy to use and allows for significant customization.

If price isn’t an issue and you’re looking for a done-for-you service where you don’t need to request revisions or wait for two days to get your images then Virtual Staging Solutions might be a good option for you. Similar to the other virtual staging agencies they not only offer virtual staging but also furniture removal, image enhancement and 3d floor plans.

Pros:

• Highest quality
• Super fast turnaround at no extra cost

Cons:

• Most expensive service in our test

Stuccco

$29/photo, 12 - 24h turnaround time, unlimited free revisions

Kentucky-based Stuccco offers an online interface on their website to order virtual staging. The process is pretty straightforward even though they require a lot of information for the account setup. Their regular pricing for virtual staging starts at $29 per photo but they offer a team-plan where the team pays $125 per month and up to 10 agents can then get 20% off on all services. With the team plan the price for virtual staging comes down to only $23.20 per photo making Stuccco’s virtual staging not only a highly realistic looking option but one on the lower end of the pricing spectrum as well.

During Stuccco’s ordering process clients can choose between 9 different styles or let their designers choose one. You can also leave a comment for the designer to incorporate into the final image such as no TV in the living room.

Stuccco features customer reviews on their website with the typical Trustpilot rating layout and “Verified Purchase'' badge even though we couldn’t find any reviews on Trustpilot. Nevertheless the few customers that did review them on Facebook seemed to be happy with their experience.

When we ordered our test images we received the results back within 12 hours even without paying the additional $10 express surscharge.

Other services offered by Stuccco besides virtual staging include virtual landscaping, decluttering, changing wall colors or floors, day to dusk and general image enhancements.

Pros:

• High quality virtual staging
• Fast turnaround time
• Reasonable price Cons:
• Decluttering is an extra $10 and included with some of the competitors
• Dubious reviews

Styldod

$23/photo, $16/photo for more than 8 images, 24-48 hours turnaround time, unlimited free revisions

Styldod is a US-incorporated Indian business with CRMLS’s Venture MLS as a notable investor. In the past some customers had concerns regarding the quality of their virtual staging but in our test for 2024 their quality was very convincing and arguably on-par or better than BoxBrownie’s - the other large volume provider in the space offering competitive prices.

Styldod’s order process is pretty straightforward: setup an account, upload an image, choose between 8 different styles and select the correct room type for each photo. One noteworthy thing about their order process is that for each room they offer a suggested list of what items to add that one could add or leave out.

Their regular turnaround time is 48 hours with the option to pay an additional $6 to receive the images within 24 hours. They also offer 24/7 customer support and unlimited free revisions to make sure clients are happy.

Besides virtual staging Styldod offers an array of other services from floor plan redraws to AI copywriting and real estate flyer templates.

Pros:

• Large bulk discount: orders with 8 photos or more only $16/photo
• High quality results

Cons:

• Only limited selection of furniture styles

BoxBrownie

$24/photo, 48h turnaround time, unlimited free revisions within two months

BoxBrownie is probably the most well known virtual staging company in the industry. If you have been to any NAR or Inman conference in the last few years you have probably met one of their sales reps. BoxBrownie started back in 2014 and was part of NAR’s inaugural REACH cohort in 2018. Even though they brand themselves as being the “online hub for all things digital” most of the services they offer are geared towards real estate professionals.

Their virtual staging offer is pretty simple: sign up for an account, upload your images, select a furniture style and room type for each photo and hit submit. You can choose to leave a note for the designer if you want to but they already offer one of the most extensive catalogs of room types in the industry. One thing to note is that BoxBrownie not only offers virtual staging for residential real estate but also has options for commercial virtual staging.

BoxBrownie only guarantees a 48 hours turnaround time and doesn't offer an express option but in our test we received our images back within 14 hours.

Pros:

• Many different services including for commercial real estate
• Good image quality

Cons:

• Only 48h turnaround, no faster option

ApplyDesign

Starting at $15 for one photo with auto-staging, as low as $7 per photo with DIY staging, 15 minutes turnaround time, unlimited revisions included

ApplyDesign is a YCombinator-backed startup from Israel offering a DIY software for virtual staging. Their software allows users to manually pick furniture from their library or choose one of their predefined furniture sets and position it in the image. The software is fairly intuitive to use so after two or three images REALTORs should be able to stage an image with 10 to 15 minutes of work and then it takes another 10 minutes to render the result.

Recently they also added auto-staging, where an AI automatically places a chosen furniture set. In our experiments this worked well for some photos and not so well for others where some objects were looking too small or like they’re floating in the room. But users can go in and adjust those after the fact.

Overall the furniture quality looked pretty good even though their virtual staging is almost as expensive as Styldod. So if you don’t need the images right away or require to be able to choose yourself where certain items are placed you’re probably better off outsourcing to Styldod at a similar price without having to worry about floating furniture or spending time arranging furniture items.

But as we all know AI will most likely improve and we’re curious to see what that means for the quality of ApplyDesign’s virtual staging.

Pros:

• Full control over furniture items and positioning
• Results within the hour

Cons:

• Almost as expensive as done-for-you virtual staging by design agency
• Requires user edits to get good results

Padstyler

$34 for one photo, $23 per photo for eight photos or more, 24h turnaround time, unlimited free revisions

Padstyler is a Texas-based virtual staging and rendering agency. They advertise themselves as a quality focused provider with their own research on the effect of their virtual staging on the speed of the sale and price of the property. They also offer a money-back guarantee which not all virtual staging companies offer.

They have several different pricing tiers starting at $34 for one photo all the way down to $23 for 8 photos or more. They offer the option to select a specific furniture set to be added to the room, otherwise their designer chooses the best fit. Unfortunately the quality of their virtual staging wasn’t as convincing as the staging from other companies like BoxBrownie in our test. They didn’t add a dishwasher in the kitchen and their staging of the dining room looks quite a lot like virtual staging from five years ago and not as realistic as the results from other companies.

Bear in mind that Padstyler offers free revisions so one could request a revision of the dining room and the dishwasher to be added in the kitchen but this can take another 24 hours to be completed.

Padstyler offers 24/7 customer support and boasts an impressive 479 reviews on Trustpilot with a 4.7 star average. Once you order with them you also get the opportunity to refer them to a fellow agent and you can both get up to 20% discount which brings the price of Padstyler for 8 images or more almost to the pricing level of Styldod.

Besides virtual staging Padstyler also offers 3D renderings and walkthroughs for construction projects and real estate photography in the Austin, TX area.

Pros:

• Fast turnaround
• Money-back guarantee

Cons:

• Quality issues
• Rather expensive

VRX Staging

$29/photo, 24h turnaround time, unlimited revisions

VRX Staging is part of VRX Media which was acquired by Zillow in December 2022 in their effort to create a national photographer network. They offer virtual staging, furniture removal and other image editing tasks like day to dusk or wall color change. Their virtual staging is priced at $29 per photo and comes with a next business day delivery, unlimited revisions and a money-back guarantee.

The online ordering process of VRX Staging is really simple, just upload the images and let the designer know your preferences. One issue we had though was the page load time of their website which sometimes took 10 seconds to load when competitor’s sites were loaded instantly. The image upload to their server took over 3 minutes to complete.

In our test their staged images were realistic albeit not perfect. For example the curtains in the bedroom look a bit unnatural and they also didn’t add a dishwasher in the kitchen.

Pros:

• Average price
• Average results

Cons:

• Website on the slower end

RoOmy

$49/photo, usually 24h turnaround time, revisions cost $20 extra

RoOmy’s vision is to turn vacant properties into immersive experiences. They offer 2D image virtual staging as well as Matterport virtual staging. Similar to Virtual Staging Solutions they target less price-sensitive clients looking for the highest quality. Their staging starts at $49/photo but if you want free revisions you have to pay $20 extra. Furniture removal will also be an extra $40. This way after all is said and done, a single image can cost you more than $100.

Their online order interface is intuitive and gets the job done quickly.

The quality of the staging in our tests was a bit better than BoxBrownie’s or Styldod’s quality but since they charge more than twice as much this can be expected. We think that Virtual Staging Solutions still has an edge in terms of quality but see for yourself.

Pros:

• High quality
• Convenient ordering process

Cons:

• High price
• Revisions aren’t included in the regular price

Visual Stager

$15 for a single photo, as low as $7/photo, 15 min turnaround time, unlimited free revisions

Visual Stager is the second DIY app in our test which allows clients to manually select and place furniture in an image similar to how ApplyDesign works. They offer a very extensive furniture library to choose from and compared to ApplyDesign there is no rendering wait time. Just place the furniture and you can instantly download the final image.

After the image upload you need to select two walls to calibrate the software.

Subsequently one can either choose a predefined furniture set or pick individual items from their furniture library.

The part our team found significantly more challenging with Visual Stager than ApplyDesign is the correct placement of the furniture to make it look realistic. ApplyDesign’s interface felt very intuitive for this whereas we struggled quite a bit to get the correct alignment in Visual Stager.

Therefore the results we got from Visual Stager are unfortunately the least realistic in our test. We believe that with more training and experience using the software the results can be improved but if a REALTOR just needs virtual staging sporadically it might not be worth the time investment to learn using the software at an expert level.

Pros:

• Large furniture library

Cons:

• Steep learning curve to use the software
• Pricy: $15 for one photo

Important things to consider - FAQ

Is virtual staging worth it?

A study by the National Association of Realtors from 2020 shows that 81% of buyer’s agents said that staging a home made it easier for the buyer to visualize the property as a future home. Considering that 90% of home buyers look for properties online (see this study) it gives a clear picture as to why some companies claim a positive ROI of over 1,000% for virtual staging.

Should I do virtual staging or physical home staging?

Virtual staging gained a lot of popularity in 2020 as in-person showings were only possible in a limited manner and many buyers exclusively relied on scouting for properties online. But going into 2024 virtual staging is still very popular and especially for properties on the lower end of the pricing spectrum it can make a lot of sense to ditch expensive home staging as it costs on average $1,774 according to data from Angi and go with virtual staging instead.

How much does virtual staging cost?

When thinking about how much to spend on virtual staging you should not only consider the cost but also the ROI of your investment and how doing virtual staging makes your listings stand out from the competition and positively reflects on you as an agent. Prices for virtual staging can range anywhere from $1 per photo for AI services all the way to $79 per photo for high-end american virtual staging design agencies. Most virtual staging companies charge between $20 and $30 per photo though.

What’s the difference between virtual staging software and a virtual staging agency?

When you’re looking to get your photos virtually staged you have two options to choose from:

1. Virtual Staging Agency These agencies employ designers that do the virtual staging for you. You just send them your photos, select a room type and furniture style for each image and they will do the staging for you and send you the final results. You can usually leave comments for the designers or request revisions if you would like something to be changed in the render you got. As this approach requires a human designer, prices for virtual staging agencies usually start around $20 per photo.

2. Virtual Staging Software In the past virtual staging software and apps weren’t very popular as they required the listing agent to manually choose furniture items and place them in the photo. Unless you have an eye for design and have some practice using the software the results weren’t very convincing and it can take quite a bit of time to manually select and place furniture items. On the other hand, using DIY software is usually a lot cheaper than hiring a done-for-you agency (at least when you don’t factor in the time it takes you to create the staging). In recent months software that’s using generative AI to do virtual staging has gained a lot of popularity. For this type of software you just upload the photo of the empty room and tell the AI what kind of furniture you want and it adds the furniture for you and gives you the final result similar to what you would expect from a design agency. Virtual Staging AI, a startup from the Harvard Innovation Lab, pioneered this technology.

Five tips for virtual staging

1. Stage for your buyer profile When you choose the furniture style for your virtual staging or specific furniture items, think about what style would be appealing to your target buyer persona and their lifestyle. Avoid staging for your personal preferences. You should also avoid following a specific design trend and instead opt for more neutral colors and timeless furniture pieces. Remember: the goal of virtual staging is to help potential buyers envision themself living in the space and not turn the house into an interior design exhibition.

2. Compensate for what the house is missing Virtual staging can help shift the focus from potential drawbacks of a property to its unique advantages. For example: adding mirrors can help make a small apartment seem more spacious or plants can add a lush feeling when the outside view might not be very appealing.

3. Use photos with good lighting Even if you opt for the most expensive virtual staging agency you can find: if the input photo of the empty room has bad lighting or was shot from a not so advantageous angle virtual staging can’t do very much to help. Therefore we always recommend hiring a professional photographer and investing in high quality photography.

4. Include unstaged listing pictures To avoid buyers feeling disappointed when they see the property for the first time in person you should always include the photo of the empty room right next to the virtually staged photo. This way buyers know what to expect. During the showing it can also help to have the photos with virtual staging printed out or on an iPad to help buyers remember what the room could look like furnished.

5. Check guidelines on disclosure of virtual staging for your local MLS While all MLSs allow virtually staged photos some require that a “Virtually Staged” watermark is included in the photo or that the listing description contains a disclaimer that the photos are virtually staged.