So I've been doing more vacant listings lately and finally started tracking how long different virtual staging options actually take, because the time pressure is real. Photographer delivers Thursday morning, seller wants the listing live Friday, and I'm sitting there waiting on staged photos while the MLS slot stays empty.
Quick version of what I found: the range is genuinely huge, and it matters more than I expected when I started paying attention.
The manual services, typically run 24 to 48 hours per room. Some stretch longer if you're submitting a batch or hit them on a weekend. For a vacant condo where I needed six rooms done, that's a real wait. The quality is usually solid, but if your timeline is tight you're either paying rush fees or pushing your go-live date.
The AI-only tools are faster, sometimes dramatically so. I've gotten staged photos back in under a minute on a few occasions. The tradeoff is consistency. A couple I tested early on looked fine in one room photo and then the staging in the adjacent room shot looked totally different, like the furniture teleported between shots. Buyers notice that. I noticed it. My seller definitely noticed it.
Honestly the virtual staging turnaround time question almost answers itself once you get into the workflow. Fast is great until the output makes you look sloppy. I'd rather wait two hours for something I can actually use than get something back in 30 seconds that I can't put on the MLS with my name attached.
Curious what others are running into here. Are you mostly using one service or mixing depending on the listing timeline?