Virtual Staging Cost, and What $50 an Image Buys
Virtual staging cost at OpenDoors360 is $50 per image on an HDR shoot in New York or Baltimore. What the $50 buys, and how it compares with per-image apps.
Virtual staging cost at OpenDoors360 is $50 per image, added to an HDR photography booking in New York City or Baltimore. Two images is $100, three is $150, and it goes up in fifties from there. Most rooms take one frame, we agree the count with you from the room list before anyone arrives, and the photos and the staged versions come back on one delivery link, 24 to 48 hours after the shoot. The virtual staging in New York page covers which rooms earn the furniture, what the frame underneath has to look like, and the line we hold on what gets added to a photograph and what stays exactly as it was.
A vacant interior, shot level and wide, with a plant in the corner and nothing else on the floor. It’s the kind of room staging starts from. Only one frame in this post is a staged result, the Upper East Side bedroom further down. Every other empty room here was empty on the day, and every other furnished one was furnished by whoever lived there.
How much does virtual staging cost at OpenDoors360
$50 per image, on top of the photography. Staging isn’t sold on its own, since the furniture has to sit on a frame we shot, so the number worth knowing is what the whole shoot comes to with staging on it.
HDR photography runs by interior square footage. $200 up to 1,500 square feet, $275 to 2,500, $375 to 3,500, $475 to 4,500, $575 to 5,500, and a quote past that. Most of the vacant apartments and rowhouses we shoot land in the first two tiers, so those are the two in the table.
| Images staged | 0 - 1,500 sq ft (HDR $200) | 1,500 - 2,500 sq ft (HDR $275) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 image | $250 | $325 |
| 2 images | $300 | $375 |
| 3 images | $350 | $425 |
| 4 images | $400 | $475 |
Same rate in Baltimore as in New York. Same $50 on a studio in Astoria as on a four-bedroom in Howard County, because you pay for the frame and not the floor area. Square footage only moves the photography line. The full sheet, with every add-on sitting next to its tier, is on our real estate photography pricing page.
The square footage prices the shoot. The image count prices the furniture.
Want the shoot priced before you add the frames?Pick the square footage and the package. The estimator prices the HDR tier off this same published sheet, and staging goes on top at $50 an image.
What you’re paying for at $50
A person, placing furniture into a photograph we took.
Each half of that sentence is part of the price. The frame is one of ours, shot HDR with the camera level at chest height and the window held against the interior, so the light on an added sofa can match the light already in the room. Then somebody sits with that file and puts a sofa where a sofa would fit, a rug under it at the scale the floor would hold, a bed in the bedroom with room to walk around it. Shadows go where the window says they should. The file comes back on the same link as the rest of the shoot, so the staged living room sits beside the untouched kitchen from the same afternoon, same color, same lens height, same light.
Corner-on, two walls and the floor line in one frame. That corner is what gives a room its depth on screen, and it’s what digital furniture needs to land on. A room shot this way stages well. A room shot from the doorway at an angle with the floor cropped out doesn’t, whoever ends up doing the furniture.
That is easier to see on a real job. Same Upper East Side bedroom, same exposure, once empty and once with the furniture in it.
The brick, the floorboards, the radiator and the light through the windows are identical, because only one photograph was ever taken. That is the test. A staged frame that quietly widens the room or brightens the window is a frame the buyer will hold against the listing on the day of the showing.
So the $50 buys both halves coming from the same place. The photograph was made to be staged, and the staging was done by people who know what the room looked like, because they stood in it.
What a photographer’s per-image price buys
Most of the staging pricing you’ll find online is per image, and so is ours. An app charges $4 to $30 a photo and hands the file back in minutes, and on those two counts it wins. We charge $50, and the difference is what happens before the frame exists.
The count is set from your room list before anyone arrives. One frame for most rooms, two for a long living room that reads differently from each end or an L-shaped one where a single angle loses half the floor, and we tell you which rooms are the two-frame rooms. That count goes on the quote, so you have the total before the shoot and not after you’ve picked frames out of a gallery.
Then the frame itself. The photographer stood in that room and shot it level and wide with staging in mind, so the floor plane and the corner the furniture needs are already in the file. A person places the furniture on it, and the staged version comes back on the same delivery link as the photos, filed beside the untouched frame and marked as virtually staged. Kitchens and bathrooms don’t get a frame at all, and we say so before one is opened.
Self-serve AI staging against a photographer’s staging
A whole category of app will stage a photo for a small per-photo fee, software placing the furniture on whatever frame you upload. Plenty of agents use them. Four things separate that product from ours.
Who places the furniture. In the app, the software does, from a prompt or a preset style. With us a person does, working from the frame and from having been in the room. The difference shows up in scale, in where a sofa’s legs meet the floor, and in whether the shadow under a table falls the way the window light in that room falls.
What the furniture sits on. The app stages whatever you upload. If that’s a phone photo from the doorway, the result is built on that. Our staging goes on an HDR frame shot level and wide for the purpose. The photography line already paid for that frame, so the $50 doesn’t have to.
Who is accountable at the showing. When a buyer stands in the empty living room holding a phone with the staged version on it, the question is whether the furniture was honest about the room. If the frame and the furniture came from the same company, one call covers both. If the frame came from you and the furniture from an app, the answer is split between two places.
Changes. In the app, a change is another upload and another fee. With us, the furniture is reworked in the file you already have.
Dark green subway tile, a quartz island, the window over the sink. Nothing in this kitchen needs furniture, and staging it would spend $50 on a frame that already had its content on the day. We tell you that before the file is opened. An upload form never asks.
Where an app wins is plain enough. It’s cheaper per image, it’s instant, and it works on photos you already have. If the listing is already shot and you need one furnished frame by tonight, that’s the tool. If the listing hasn’t been shot yet, we can plan the staging into the photography, and that way costs $50 an image.
Software furnishes a picture. A person furnishes the room in the picture.
What changes the bill
One number moves it, the count of staged images, and it’s on the quote before you book.
The number of staged images. $50 a frame. One image is $50, four is $200, and nothing says you have to book more than one.
Rooms that take two. Most rooms are one frame. A long open-plan space or an L-shaped living room sometimes wants both ends shown, and that second frame is a second $50. We settle which rooms take two from the room list when you book, so the count sits on the quote instead of coming up in a conversation afterward.
Size sets the photography tier. The count of staged images sets the staging line. Those are the only two things that move, so square footage never touches the staging number, and neither does the borough, the furniture style, or whether the listing is a sale or a rental.
Where the money is wasted
Kitchens and bathrooms, mostly. Cabinets, counters, tile and appliances are permanent and fill the frame on their own, so a staged kitchen is $50 spent convincing nobody of anything.
The other place is a room with a permanent problem in it. A radiator under the only window, a column in the middle of the floor, a soffit dropping the ceiling over half the room. Furniture placed to hide any of those is the version of staging that ends with a buyer standing in the real room, and the service page has more on where we hold that line.
A living room with real furniture in it, a white stone fireplace, a cream sofa, striped armchairs, a shag rug. Shot on location, no digital staging. A staged frame has to hold up next to one of these when a buyer scrolls past both. The furniture sits on the floor, throws the shadow the room’s light would throw, and reads at the size the room would hold.
Disclosure
The disclosure itself costs nothing, and the way the files come back keeps it that way. Staged frames come back as separate files beside the untouched ones, so the two sets never get mixed in your listing folder and you can point a disclosure at the right images without opening every file to work out which is which. The wording and where it sits are your brokerage’s call, and the service page covers that side.
How to add it to a booking in New York or Baltimore
Send four things and the quote comes back within two business hours.
- The address.
- The interior square footage, which sets the photography tier.
- Which rooms you want furnished. We turn that into a frame count, usually one per room, and that count is the staging half of the price.
- The listing deadline. Delivery is 24 to 48 hours from the shoot, photos and staged frames together.
Colin shoots New York, the five boroughs plus Long Island and Westchester. A Baltimore-based photographer shoots Maryland, Baltimore City and County, Howard and Anne Arundel. The rate is $50 an image on either side, and the areas each one covers are on the New York real estate photography and real estate photography in Maryland pages.
A Baltimore rowhouse bedroom, furnished by the owner, shot as found. Charcoal painted brick, a black headboard, glass nightstands, and through the open door the red brick of the stairwell. That’s the Baltimore side of the map, and it came from the same HDR shoot a vacant rowhouse gets before any furniture goes into the file.
If you’re pricing the photography first, our post on what real estate photography costs walks the HDR tiers on their own. For a furnished short-term rental where the furniture is already there, what an Airbnb photographer costs is the closer read. OpenDoors360 was founded in Brooklyn in 2020. Send the address and the room list and we reply with a number within two business hours.
Common questions
Is virtual staging charged per photo or per room? Virtual staging is charged per image, at $50 a frame. Most rooms take one frame and a long or L-shaped living room takes two, and we agree the count with you from the room list before the shoot, so the number on the quote is the number on the invoice.
How much does it cost to virtually stage a whole apartment? Count the staged images, multiply by $50, then add the HDR photography tier. A one-bedroom with the living room, the bedroom and a dining alcove staged is usually three frames, $150 in staging, so $350 in total under 1,500 square feet and $425 between 1,500 and 2,500. Kitchens and bathrooms don’t need it, so a whole apartment is usually two or three frames.
Is AI virtual staging cheaper? An app is usually cheaper per image, yes. Self-serve apps charge a few dollars a photo and place the furniture with software on whatever frame you upload. Our $50 covers a person placing the furniture on an HDR frame we shot for the purpose, reworked in the file if something is off, and delivered with the rest of the shoot. We agree the frame count off your room list before the shoot, so you know what a listing costs to stage before the photos exist.
What happens if the furniture in a staged frame is wrong? The furniture gets reworked in the file. Tell us what’s off, a sofa too big for the wall, the wrong room, a style that doesn’t fit the listing, and the frame is redone from the same photograph, so nothing gets reshot and no second shoot gets booked. If a specific room worries you, say so when you book and we’ll agree on what goes in it before the file is opened.
Does virtual staging cost the same in Baltimore? Yes. $50 per image in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Howard, Anne Arundel and Harford, the same as in the five boroughs, Long Island and Westchester. The HDR photography tiers are the same in both markets too, so the table above prices a Baltimore rowhouse the same way it prices a Brooklyn apartment.
Can I stage only one room? Yes. One image is $50 on top of the photography, and on a lot of vacant listings the living room is the only frame that needs it. There’s no minimum.
Is there a minimum order for virtual staging? No minimum number of images. Staging does have to ride on a photography booking with us, since the furniture is placed on the HDR frame we shoot, so it isn’t sold on its own.
