Physical staging of a typical 4-room empty home (living, dining, kitchen, primary bedroom) comes to about $6,000–$7,800 if it stays on the market three months: $2,000–$3,000 for the first month, plus $500–$600 per room for each extra month. Virtual staging of 6 listing photos costs $138 at $23 a photo, the designer-edited rate under 8 photos (Styldod). Roomsee renders every room from the floor plan for $29.99 per home.
Estimate your listing
Tick the rooms to stage, enter the months and photos and press “Compare the cost”.
How does the calculator work?
Physical staging = the first month for the whole home + (months on the market − 1) × rooms × the monthly rental per room. Low uses both low prices, high uses both high prices.
Virtual staging = listing photos × the per-photo rate for that many photos: $23 each under 8 photos, $16 each for 8 or more (Styldod). Subscription tools such as Virtual Staging AI start at $16 a month billed annually, which is not a per-listing price, so they are not in the estimate. You need a photo of each empty room first; the photographer is not in the estimate.
Roomsee is a flat price per home: $29.99 renders every room on the plan in one style, however many rooms there are.
The published prices are national figures from the sources below. Stagers price by the size of the home, the local market and the length of the contract, so ask two or three for a quote and type their numbers into the assumptions.
Buyers will walk through the empty home (showings, open houses): real furniture in the main rooms. A picture does not help a buyer standing in a bare room.
The home is finished and photographed empty: per-photo virtual staging is the cheaper fix for the listing photos.
There are no photos yet (a new build, a pre-construction listing, an empty home before the shoot): Roomsee renders a furnished photo of every room from the floor plan. Walls, windows and doors stay where the plan puts them; the furniture is a suggestion. It is not an edit of your listing photos.
Yes. Label every virtually staged photo and every rendering as such in the listing. California’s AB 723 adds a disclosure rule for digitally altered listing photos, and MLS rules differ: read our guide to AB 723 and renderings and check your MLS before you upload. This is not legal advice.
Where these numbers come from
Every page below was checked on . Prices change; the dates are the ones each source shows.
Chase, “How much does it cost to stage a house?” (published May 25, 2026; ranges citing HomeAdvisor) — vacant home $2,000 to $3,000+ for the first month; contracts “may be priced for an initial 30-day period”, and monthly extensions can cost more.
NAR, 2025 Profile of Home Staging (survey of REALTORS®) — median $1,500 with a staging service; the rooms staged most often are the living room (91%), primary bedroom (83%), dining room (69%) and kitchen (68%).
A Chase guide published May 25, 2026 estimates $2,000 to $3,000 or more for the first month of staging a vacant home, and says monthly extensions can cost more. Opendoor lists $500 to $600 per room per month to keep the furniture if the home takes longer to sell. NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Staging puts the median spent with a staging service at $1,500, for occupied and vacant homes together.
How much does virtual staging cost per photo?
Styldod lists $23 per image for fewer than 8 images and $16 per image for 8 or more. AI apps cost less: Virtual Staging AI's Basic plan is $16 a month for 6 photos with yearly billing. Redfin quotes a wider range of $39 to $199 per room.
Is Roomsee the same as virtually staging my listing photos?
No. Roomsee does not edit your photos. It reads the floor plan, builds a simple 3D model of every room and renders a furnished photo of each room over it, with walls, windows and doors where the plan puts them. That helps when there are no photos yet: a new build, a pre-construction listing or an empty home before the photo shoot. The furniture is a design suggestion.
Do virtually staged photos have to be disclosed?
Yes. Label every virtually staged photo and every rendering in the listing, and check your MLS rules. In California, AB 723 adds a disclosure rule for digitally altered listing photos. This is not legal advice: ask your broker.
No photos yet? Start from the floor plan
Upload your floor plan and get a furnished photo of every room, rendered over a 3D model of your own walls, windows and doors — $29.99 per home, about 20 minutes from upload.