Architectural 3D rendering services and visualization services
Six services — one Aurum Standard.
3D architectural rendering for architects, developers, brokerages and luxury builders: exterior and interior stills, aerial and master plan views, architectural film, interactive tours and 3D floor plans. Every one is quoted at a fixed price before work starts, and made by one senior artist from first model to final grade.
Want a figure first? Our price calculator adds up the starting rates for what you need.
Exterior Rendering
Facades, elevations and streetscapes rendered at the fidelity a considered building deserves.
Interior Rendering
Rooms rendered with the light, materials and styling that make a space feel lived in rather than assembled.
Aerial & Master Plan
Whole-site imagery for master-planned communities, districts and phased developments — context, landscape and scale in a single frame.
Architectural Film
Cinematic film that moves through a building the way a person would, not the way a camera on rails does.
Interactive & Virtual Tours
Navigable 360° environments for sales galleries, leasing offices and pre-construction campaigns.
3D Floor Plans
Each floor of your plan, every room furnished at true size, rendered from overhead in a single frame.
Selected stills
Exterior and interior stills. Each one links to the service that makes it.
Project studies
All projects →Each study walks through the brief, how the rendering answers it and the one decision in the frame that made it work.
- $0
- Deposit for registered businesses
- Next morning
- A fixed, scoped quote by the next business morning
What the Aurum Standard includes
A fixed quote first
Scope, price and a delivery date in writing before any work starts — not a range, not an hourly estimate.
One senior artist
The person who builds your first frame lights your last one. Nothing is handed down a production line.
Camera and light before materials
Composition and lighting are signed off at the gray-box stage, where changes are cheap, before any material work begins.
Real materials
Finishes come from our scanned materials library or are matched to your samples and schedule — not approximated from a catalog.
True sun for the site
Light is set for the real orientation and time of day, so the image agrees with your shadow studies and the finished building.
Registered businesses: no deposit
Work starts on a signed quote. Payment terms are set out in the quote itself.
How a rendering project runs
- 01
Drawings and a fixed quote
Send elevations and plans with a line about what the images are for. The quote comes back with the views, the revision rounds and a delivery date, usually by the next business morning.
- 02
Gray-box: camera and light
The building is massed in its real surroundings and every camera is placed before any materials go on, with the sun set for the site’s orientation. You approve composition and light while changes still cost little.
- 03
Materials and first frames
Finishes follow your schedule, landscape your plan, and neighboring buildings come from survey and photographs. You see full-quality first frames on a shared review link and send one combined round of comments.
- 04
Final grade and delivery
The finished frames are graded and rendered at 4K, 8K or print size, with web crops and layered files on request. Film and tours can follow from the same scene.
Rendering services compared: studio, freelancer, render farm or AI tool
Four quite different things get sold as rendering services. They start from different material and leave different decisions with you, so the right one depends on what you have now and what the images must do.
Rendering studio
- You send
- Drawings and a brief.
- You get back
- Finished stills, film or tours.
- Who decides
- The studio sets camera, light and materials from your drawings, and you approve each stage.
- Suits
- Images a client, a review board or a buyer will rely on.
Freelance marketplace
- You send
- Drawings and a brief, to someone you pick from a portfolio.
- You get back
- What that person delivers. Quality and process differ from one freelancer to the next.
- Who decides
- The freelancer makes the images. Checking them and keeping the schedule stay with you.
- Suits
- A smaller job, when you have time to vet portfolios and run it yourself.
Render farm
- You send
- A finished 3D scene, already modeled, lit and textured.
- You get back
- That scene calculated into images or film frames, faster than your own computer could manage.
- Who decides
- You, before you send it. A farm adds computing power, not design.
- Suits
- Artists and studios who have their own scenes and a lot of frames to get through.
AI image tool
- You send
- A sentence, a sketch or a photo.
- You get back
- A convincing picture, quickly and cheaply, with no model behind it to check against the drawings.
- Who decides
- The software fills in whatever you leave out.
- Suits
- An early mood or an option study.
We are the first kind: one senior artist from first model to final grade. Weighing up an AI tool? AI rendering vs 3D rendering sets out which jobs suit which. Comparing studios? How to choose a rendering studio has the questions to ask.
Outsourcing rendering or keeping it in-house
Most design firms end up doing both. Views pulled from your own Revit, ArchiCAD or SketchUp model in a real-time tool are quick to make and good enough for checking a design as it develops. Images that leave the office for a client, a review board or a buyer are a different job: a scene built to the drawings, materials matched to the selections, light set for the site and the hour, and someone whose whole job is the picture.
Keep it in-house when
- The images are for checking the design inside the team.
- You want many quick options and expect to discard most of them.
- Someone on staff renders full-time and has room in the schedule.
Send it out when
- A client, a review board or a buyer will rely on the image.
- The deadline lands while the team is deep in documentation.
- You need film, an aerial in its real context or an interactive tour.
- Nobody on the team renders full-time.
Handing a job over is mostly a matter of sending files: the model, or plans and elevations, with the finish selections and a few site photos. You get a fixed quote with the views, the revision rounds and a delivery date, then approve each stage, starting with camera and light on a plain gray-box model. What to send a rendering studio has the full list.
Which service do you need?
Getting through planning and zoning
Exterior views in accurate context, at eye height from public places, with the neighboring buildings modeled from survey.
Selling pre-construction
A campaign set: hero exteriors, interiors with real views, a ninety-second film and an interactive tour, all from one scene.
Leasing a commercial or residential building
Amenity and lobby interiors, an aerial that shows the location, and exteriors lit for the hour tenants actually arrive.
Winning a client or a competition
Restrained exteriors and interiors that argue the design idea, plus comparison sets while options are still open.
Selling a custom or luxury home
Exteriors and interiors that show the detail you actually build — stone, millwork, landscape and light — for the brochure, the listing and the sales conversation.
Listing a home that isn’t built yet
Our listing package: one exterior and two interior renderings, with web-sized copies for Zillow, Realtor.com and Redfin and high-resolution files for print.
Showing buyers or renters a layout
A furnished 3D floor plan of each plan or unit type, built from the drawings or a measured sketch, for the listing, the plan page and the leasing site.
Presenting an interior scheme
Rooms rendered with millwork modeled to documentation, the FF&E you specified and lighting that behaves like the real fixtures, so a client can approve the scheme before anything is ordered.
New to the terms? Our guide to architectural rendering covers the main types and how clients, planners and buyers judge them, our guide to architectural visualization explains what each output is for and who commissions it, and CGI vs 3D rendering sorts out the jargon.
Not sure? Send the drawings and a sentence about the project and we will tell you what it needs — including when a cheaper option would do the job.
Start a project
Get a fixed quote
A fixed price, scope and delivery date by the next business morning. No deposit for registered businesses.
Received
Thank you — your inquiry is in.
We’ll come back with a fixed price, a scope and a delivery date by the next business morning. If anything is missing, we’ll ask in our reply.
FAQ
Rendering questions
How much does 3D architectural rendering cost?
Exteriors and interiors start from $1,200 per image, aerials from $2,400, film from $7,500 per finished minute, 3D floor plans from $750 per plan and interactive tours from $3,500. Every project is quoted at a fixed price, with scope and a delivery date, before anything starts. All prices in USD.
What are rendering services?
They turn a building’s drawings or 3D model into photorealistic images before it exists: stills, film and virtual tours that clients use for design decisions, zoning and design review, and sales. Most people asking for them want a studio that does all of that from the drawings, which is what we do. Freelancers, render farms and AI tools get called rendering services too; the comparison above sets out how they differ.
What do 3D rendering services include?
Everything from the drawings to the finished files: the 3D model built to your plans and elevations, the surrounding context, materials matched to the selections you send, lighting set for the site and time of day, styling, and the agreed views delivered at 4K, 8K or print resolution. The revision rounds and the delivery date are written into the fixed quote, and film or a virtual tour can be built from the same model.
How long does it take?
Typically: exterior rendering 3–4 business days; interior rendering 3–4 business days; aerial & master plan 4–6 business days; architectural film 8–12 business days; interactive & virtual tours 1–2 weeks; 3D floor plans 3–4 business days once the drawings are settled. Your quote fixes the actual date. The stage that most often moves a timeline is approval at gray-box, so we agree camera and lighting early.
What do you need from me to start?
Elevations and floor plans are enough to begin. A site plan with a north point, a finish schedule and site photographs make the result considerably better, and a Revit, ArchiCAD, SketchUp or Rhino model saves most of the build cost.
How do revisions work?
The number of revision rounds is set out in your fixed quote, so you know before anything starts. Most projects settle quickly, because camera and lighting are agreed at the gray-box stage — which is where revision cycles are usually lost.
Do you sign NDAs?
Yes. We sign non-disclosure agreements on request and have done so for many clients. Send yours before you share the drawings and we return it signed.
What resolution and formats do you deliver?
Stills at 4K or 8K, or at print resolution for billboards and brochures, with web exports as standard and layered files on request. Film and tours are delivered in the formats your channels need.
Can one model be used for several images?
Yes, and it is the biggest saving available. The scene is built once, so every additional view, lighting state or finish option costs a fraction of the first image — which is why a set commissioned together costs far less than the same images bought one at a time.
Are architectural rendering services and architectural visualization services the same thing?
In practice, yes. Both mean photorealistic images, film and tours made from a building’s drawings before it exists; architects tend to say visualization, developers and brokerages tend to say rendering. When you compare studios, compare what the quote fixes — the views, the revision rounds and the delivery date — and who actually does the work.
Is a rendering service the same as a render farm?
No. A render farm rents out computing power: you send it a 3D scene you have already built, lit and textured, and it calculates the images faster than your own computer could. A rendering studio starts from your drawings, builds the scene, makes the camera, light and material decisions and delivers finished renderings. The computing is part of our job, not something you manage.
Who works on my project?
One senior artist, from the first model to the final grade. The person who sets your cameras also lights and grades the last frame, so nothing is lost in a hand-over, and you review every stage on a shared link.
Can film or a virtual tour be added later?
Yes. Film and tours are made from the same scene as the stills, so they can be added at any stage. Commissioned together with the stills they cost less than bought separately, because the scene is only built once.
Do you take on commercial and multifamily projects?
Yes — apartment and condo buildings, offices, hotels, industrial parks and logistics, as well as custom homes. The approach changes with the job: leasing and investment imagery explains access and frontage, while a home is sold on its detail.
Can you work to a tight deadline?
Tell us the date in your brief, and the quote will say whether it can be met. Rush scheduling is the only surcharge, and it is in the quote before you commit, so a faster delivery is never a surprise on the invoice.
Can a boutique studio handle a large set of images?
Often, yes, and a large set from one project is where building the scene once pays off most. Every further view is made from that one model, and the senior artist who sets the cameras also lights and grades each frame, so the whole set holds together as one piece of work. The studio caps how much work it has on at once, so put the number of views and the date you need them in your brief. The fixed quote then gives one delivery date for the whole set, or says before you commit that the date cannot be met.