What Does Early Stage 3D Visualization Cost? A Pricing Breakdown
Planlift's credit pricing explained, and how the per image cost compares to CGI studios, in house modelling and generalist AI tools.
Pricing for architectural and planning visualization has traditionally meant one of two things: a large one off fee to a CGI studio, or a lot of unpaid staff time spent wrestling with 3D software. Neither fits well with early stage work, where you're testing ideas rather than finalising one. Here's what AI driven visualization actually costs, and how that compares to the alternatives.
Planlift's pricing, plainly
Planlift runs on a credit system: 1 credit generates 1 image.
Free trial: £0, with 5 credits one time on signup.
Starter: £25 per month for 30 credits, about £0.83 per credit.
Growth: £50 per month for 60 credits, about £0.83 per credit.
Business and teams: bespoke, sized to team usage with a shared pool, volume based pricing around £0.83 per credit.
A few mechanics worth knowing before you budget:
Subscriptions are monthly and don't roll over. Unused credits reset each month rather than banking.
Tweaks (targeted edits to an existing image) cost 1 credit each, the same as a fresh generation.
Most projects use more than one credit. It's normal to generate a few variations, develop an image into a different style, or run a tweak, so budget for multiple credits per project rather than assuming one image will be enough.
There's no separate pay as you go tier yet. The practical workaround is to subscribe for a month, use the credits, and cancel before the next billing cycle. There's no lock in, so it functions as pay as you go even without a dedicated plan.
New accounts get 5 free credits to test the workflow before paying anything.
Team accounts share one credit pool across multiple users with shared project history, priced to the team's expected monthly volume rather than a fixed per seat rate.
How that compares to the alternatives
Commissioning a CGI studio. Studio produced CGIs are typically quoted per image and often run into the hundreds to low thousands of pounds each, depending on complexity and finish, with turnaround measured in days to weeks. That's the right spend once a scheme is fixed and you need a hero image. It's a heavy cost for testing five early options, where you might discard four of them.
In house 3D modelling. No direct cash cost beyond software licences, but a real cost in staff time. Building and rendering a model properly is a job, not a task, and it pulls someone off other billable work for as long as it takes.
Generalist AI image tools. Often free or low cost per image, but the real cost is time spent getting a usable result: writing a detailed prompt yourself, iterating when the output drifts from the actual drawing, and troubleshooting without any guidance on what settings produce accurate results.
Planlift. At roughly £0.83 a generation, the per image cost sits well below a commissioned CGI, and the workflow of structured options instead of a written prompt removes the time cost that makes generalist AI tools slow in practice. The trade off is resolution and precision: current output suits feasibility and early concept work, not print grade final presentation.
Where the value actually lands
The honest way to think about the cost is that it isn't priced to replace a commissioned CGI, and it isn't trying to. It's priced for the stage before that decision gets made: testing which of several site options is worth pursuing, giving a landowner a first look at what their site could become, or putting a visual in front of a client before a scheme is fixed enough to justify a studio brief. At £25 to £50 a month, that's a lower bar to clear than a single commissioned render, which is the point.
Getting started
Sign up for 5 free credits, generate a few images against a real drawing, and see whether the output fits where you'd use it before committing to a plan.