Questions to Ask a Rendering Studio Before Hiring
This is a list you can paste into an email to any studio, including us. It overlaps with our general guide on choosing an architectural visualization studio, which covers what to look for; this page is the question list.
The ten questions
1. What exactly is included in the price per image? Ask for views, resolution, revision rounds and file formats in writing. Ours: renders from $199 per image, two rounds of revisions, JPEG and TIFF as standard.
2. How many revision rounds, and what counts as one? Ask what a round covers (camera, materials, lighting, styling) and what is quoted separately, such as new views or design changes.
3. When do I see the first draft? Ours: usually 3 to 5 business days after a complete brief, finals in about 11 business days. Be wary of any studio that promises a finished image in a day or two.
4. Who builds the model, and from what? Ask which file types they accept and what they do when you only have 2D drawings. Clean dimensioned drawings give the most accurate result.
5. Who owns the files and the images? Ask for the answer in writing before you send drawings or pay a deposit.
6. Will you sign an NDA? If your project is confidential, ask this before you send anything.
7. How does payment work? Ask every studio for the full schedule, the currency and the cancellation terms.
8. Can I see work like mine? Look for your building type in the portfolio, and read public reviews as well as the studio’s own pages.
9. Who will I talk to, and in which hours? Ask for one named contact and the overlap with your time zone.
10. What do you do when the brief is incomplete? A good studio says what is missing and what it affects, and does not guess silently. Our inputs checklist shows what helps.
Red flags
Prices with no scope, “unlimited revisions” with no definition, no named person, no written terms, a portfolio with nothing like your building type.
Compare on the same brief
Send the same brief and the same ten questions to each studio. Differences in how clearly they answer usually predict how the project will go.
Want our answers in writing? Contact us with the brief and we will reply to each question.
