AI architectural rendering
Photoreal architectural renders, seconds after the sketch.
Upload the drawing you already have. A sketch, a SketchUp screen, a floor plan or an elevation. Get a photorealistic architectural render back in seconds, with the geometry you drew still intact. No install, no render farm, no quote.
5 free renders a month. No card. Paid plans from $29 a month, in US dollars.
Placeholder illustration. Exterior: sketch to render. Real sample renders replace this at launch.
Inputs accepted
8 drawing types
Output resolution
Up to 4096 px
Free tier
5 renders, no card
Pricing
USD, published on-page
What you actually get
Rendering used to be a stage in the project. Now it is a step in the conversation.
The traditional pipeline made images expensive, so practices rationed them. You rendered at the end, once the design was frozen, because a studio quote of 250 to 700 US dollars per image (surveyed 2026-08) is not something you spend on an idea you might discard on Thursday. That economics shaped the work. Options went unexplored because nobody could justify visualising them.
Generative rendering removes the per image cost, and that changes what the image is for. A render stops being a deliverable and becomes a thinking tool you can point at in a meeting. The four things below are what that shift is actually worth.
Brief it in plain English
No node graph, no material editor, no render settings. Write "warm brick, low winter sun, wet asphalt" and you get warm brick, low winter sun and wet asphalt. The learning curve is a sentence.
Geometry that survives the render
The geometry preserving pass keeps your edges, openings and proportions where you drew them. A render that quietly redesigns the building is worse than no render, because you have to explain it in the meeting.
Material variants in one pass
Render the same view in five claddings and put them side by side in the client deck. Option boards used to be the expensive part of a package. Now they cost a re-render.
Views that agree with each other
Lock a scheme and carry its materials, light and season across the other views of the same project, so an elevation and a courtyard shot look like the same building on the same afternoon.
Inputs
Eight things you can upload, all of which you already have
There is no import step and no rebuild. You are not exporting geometry into another application, you are handing over a picture of your design and a sentence about how it should look. Anything readable as a drawing works, and cleaner line work gives a closer result.
Hand sketch
Pen, pencil or tablet line work. Photograph of a page is fine.
SketchUp screenshot
Straight from the viewport, shadows on or off.
Revit view
Shaded, hidden line or realistic viewport capture.
Rhino or ArchiCAD export
Any flat viewport export as PNG or JPG.
White clay model
Untextured massing, the cleanest possible input.
Floor plan
Black and white plan in, furnished plan render out.
Elevation or section
Materialised in context with entourage and sky.
Site photo
For extensions, refurbishments and facade studies.
Placeholder illustration. Interior: drawing to render. Real sample renders replace this at launch.
Placeholder illustration. Floor plan to render. Real sample renders replace this at launch.
How it works
Three steps, and two of them are typing
The whole workflow fits in a browser tab. There is nothing to license, nothing to update and no GPU to buy. If you can screenshot a viewport, you can finish this in the gap between two meetings.
The part worth learning is the brief. A render that comes back generic almost always traces to a prompt that named a mood instead of a material, or that left the time of day unstated. Say what the building is made of, say what hour it is, put the camera at a height, and the output stops being a lottery and starts being repeatable.
Step 1
Upload the drawing you already have
Drop in a hand sketch, a SketchUp or Revit screenshot, a white clay model, a floor plan, an elevation or a site photo. There is nothing to install and no model to rebuild. The upload is the whole setup.
Step 2
Describe the result in plain English
Write the brief the way you would describe it to a visualiser. Material, time of day, season, mood, camera height. Choose exterior or interior mode, then pick how tightly the render should follow your geometry.
Step 3
Render, adjust, download
The render comes back in seconds. Change a material, move the sun, or ask for a variant, and re-render only what you changed. Download at up to 4096 by 4096 pixels with no watermark on any paid plan.
Want to skip the reading? Start with sketch to render, exterior rendering or interior rendering.
Pricing
Prices in US dollars, on this page
Every plan is listed below with what it includes. There is no sales call, no annual lock in and no currency surprise at checkout. The closest tools to us either price in pounds only or publish no price at all (checked 2026-08-02), which is a strange way to sell a 29 dollar product.
| Plan | Price | Renders | Max resolution | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 forever | 5 renders per month | 1024 x 1024 | Enough to see whether the output holds your geometry. |
| Pro | $29 per month | 300 renders per month | 2048 x 2048 | For the architect who renders most weeks. |
| Studio | $79 per month | 1,200 renders per month | 4096 x 4096 | For a small practice running renders on every project. |
| Team | $199 per month | Unlimited fair use | 4096 x 4096 | For studios with a visualisation pipeline to feed. |
Who uses it
Built for people who draw buildings for a living
The tool is general, but the defaults are not. Camera heights, entourage, material libraries and lighting presets are tuned for architectural work rather than for general image generation, which is why a prompt like “north facing courtyard, overcast” behaves the way an architect expects it to.
It is worth being equally clear about where this does not belong. There is no light simulation underneath, so it will not produce a daylight study you can hand to a consultant, it does not output animation, and it is approximate about construction level detail. For those, a traditional pipeline or a rendering studio remains the right answer, and we would rather say so here than have you find out on a deadline.
Architects
Concept boards on the day of the meeting, planning imagery without an external quote, and option studies you can actually afford to run.
How architects use itInterior designers
Turn a plan and a mood board into a furnished room the client can react to, then re-render the scheme in three palettes before lunch.
How interior designers use itReal estate developers
Marketing imagery for an off-plan listing, produced while the design is still moving, at a cost that does not need sign-off.
How real estate developers use itAlso used by landscape architects and 3D artists. See every audience.
How we compare
What the other AI render tools publish about themselves
This table records what each vendor states on its own public page, read directly on 2026-08-02. Where a figure was not on their site we write “Not published”, which means exactly that and nothing more. We do not guess at a competitor’s capabilities in order to make our column look better.
| Tool | Price published on site | FAQ on the page | FAQ structured data |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARAI | 0, 29, 79 and 199 USD | Yes, 8 questions | Yes |
| Gendo | 79 GBP per month, no USD price | No, moved to a separate page | No |
| Rendair | Not published | Yes | No structured data at all |
| mnml.ai | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| ReRender AI | Not published | Not published | No |
| MyArchitectAI | 29 USD per month | Yes | No |
| ArchiVinci | 79 and 549 USD | Yes | Yes |
The full 13 row feature comparison lives on the AI rendering software page, and the head to head write ups live on the alternatives hub: Gendo, Rendair, mnml.ai, Lumion and Enscape.
Fits the software you already run
No plugin, because a screenshot is the integration
Plugin based renderers tie you to a version of a host application, and every upgrade cycle turns into a compatibility problem. Working from the viewport image instead means the tool is indifferent to which CAD package you use and which version of it you are on.
In practice that covers SketchUp, Revit, Rhino, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD, Vectorworks, Blender and Lumion, along with anything else that can produce a flat image of your model.
Deeper reading on the method sits on the AI rendering software page, the rendering fundamentals guide, the visualisation field overview, and the specialised pages for sketch conversion, interior work, exterior work and plan conversion.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What is AI architectural rendering?
AI architectural rendering is the process of turning a drawing or model of a building into a photorealistic image using a generative model instead of a ray tracer. You supply a sketch, a CAD screenshot or a floor plan plus a short written brief, and the model returns a lit, materialised image in seconds rather than the minutes or hours a traditional render engine needs.
Can AI turn a sketch into a photorealistic render?
Yes. A clean line drawing with readable massing is enough. The sketch defines the geometry and the composition, and your written brief defines the materials, the light and the mood. The clearer the line work, the closer the output tracks the design you actually drew.
Does AI rendering keep the geometry of my design?
ARAI has a geometry preserving mode that locks the edges and proportions of the uploaded drawing and only generates material, light and context on top of it. Use it when the render has to match the design. Loosen it when you are exploring options early and want the model to suggest form.
What file types can I upload?
JPG, PNG and WebP images, plus PDF pages. In practice that covers hand sketches, SketchUp and Revit viewport screenshots, Rhino and ArchiCAD exports, white clay renders, floor plans, elevations, sections and site photos. You do not upload the CAD file itself, you upload the view of it.
How much does AI architectural rendering cost?
Plans start free with 5 renders a month, and paid plans run from 29 US dollars a month for 300 renders. For comparison, a rendering studio charges roughly 250 to 700 US dollars per image with a three to ten day turnaround (surveyed 2026-08). Every price is published on the pricing page in US dollars.
Is AI rendering good enough for a client presentation?
For concept reviews, planning submissions, competition boards, marketing images and early client meetings, yes. For a stamped deliverable, a construction level detail render or an animated walkthrough, a traditional pipeline or a rendering studio is still the right call. We would rather say that plainly than sell you the wrong tool.
Do I own the renders, and can I use them commercially?
On every paid plan you own the output and the commercial licence is included, so you can put the images in a client deck, a planning pack, a listing or a competition entry. The free plan is for personal and evaluation use and its output carries a watermark.
Will my drawings be used to train an AI model?
No. Paid plans run in private mode by default, which means uploads and outputs are never used to train any model. Unpublished projects are commercially sensitive and ARAI treats them that way.
Another 20 answers sit on the full FAQ.
Render the sketch on your desk right now
Five renders a month are free and there is no card to enter. If it does not hold your geometry, you will know inside a minute.
Free tier, no card required. Prices in US dollars.