Complete BoxBrownie Review: Pros, Cons, Alternatives
BoxBrownie is primarily a company that offers a wide range of photo editing services, from enhancing images to virtual renovations. It's grown in popularity over the last few years, but is it the best place to send your real estate photos? There aren't really any BoxBrownie reviews from customers online, so it's hard to get a full picture. Read on to find out:
- BoxBrownie Pricing and Services
- Quality of BoxBrownie's Virtual Staging Designs
- Who is BoxBrownie Best for?
- Pros and Cons of BoxBrownie
- BoxBrownie Alternatives
- Comparison of BoxBrownie and Stuccco
BoxBrownie Pricing and Services
On their website, BoxBrownie is defined as being, "A hub for all things digital." There are 12 main services listed on their website:
- Image enhancement: $1.60
- Virtual staging: $24
- Day to Dusk: $4
- Item removal: $4-8
- Floor plan redraws: $24-36
- Development site plans for commercial real estate: $24
- Renders: $280
- 360° image enhancement: $4
- 360° virtual staging: $48
- Virtual renovations: $24-$176
- 360° virtual tours: $16-$24
- Property listing copywriting: $28+
Day to dusk virtual staging with Stuccco
Their website says that BoxBrownie, "Is for everyone from real estate agents to developers, professional photographers to amateurs and online retailers." That means that BoxBrownie's specialty is in photo editing, not in creating the best design for each space.
If you're in real estate, and trying to evaluate if BoxBrownie is the best way for you to attract potential buyers, you ought to consider the quality of their virtual staging designs.
Quality of BoxBrownie's Virtual Staging Designs
The good news is that if you're looking for blurry images from BoxBrownie, you won't find them. It's 2021, and you should expect good quality images from any online photo editing service - even DIY photo editing software programs. This is the minimum you should expect.
However, you may not be able to expect the same quality of the virtual staging designs. When you send images to BoxBrownie for virtual staging, your photo is staged by an editor, not a designer.
If you wanted to get your listing physically staged by a traditional staging company, would you look for someone who wasn't a professional designer? Of course not.
After all, what is virtual staging? It's more than just adding virtual furniture to a room, item removal, or changing the lighting from day to dusk.
Virtual staging means strategically and intentionally designing a room for homebuyers. Designers and photographers who have a specialty in home design and real estate consider the floor plan, the furniture, the property's style (and many more factors) in order to create a virtual design that makes buyers drool.
I repeat: virtual staging is not just about filling a room with furniture.
There's a massive difference between luxury virtual staging, done by experienced designers, and the budget-friendly quality of BoxBrownie.
Who is BoxBrownie Best For?
BoxBrownie is a good choice for anyone who needs basic photo editing services and knows exactly what they need. Their platform allows you to upload photos and pay photo editors to enhance the photos, remove items in the photos or to create a floor plan. However, since photos are not edited by designers, it's not the best choice for real estate agents who want listing photos that are strategically designed to increase the home's value.
Pros of BoxBrownie
As a well-known photo editing service, BoxBrownie has been used by many real estate agents. Here are a few of BoxBrownie's beneficial features:
1. Large Variety of Services
From image enhancement to copywriting to custom projects, BoxBrownie is quick to jump on many types of photo editing services and even some basic marketing tasks. This is extremely convenient for many industries that need quick and easy photography or marketing help.
However, they may not be the experts you're hoping for when you need specialized real estate services.
2. 24/7 Customer Support
BoxBrownie offers phone numbers in multiple countries and live chat for 24/7 support.
3. Unlimited Changes to your Design
Another convenient feature of BoxBrownie is that they offer unlimited changes to your design if you're unhappy with it. This can give you some comfort, but keep in mind that every edit takes 48 hours - in real estate, you don't have that time to spare.
4. Free Trial
When you sign up on BoxBrownie, you receive three image enhancements and one day to dusk edit for free. This is a great way to test out the process, but it won't give you an idea of their virtual staging results.
5. Affordable Services
BoxBrownie's services are priced competitively, making them appeal to a wide audience and eligible services to use when marketing most properties, even cheap ones.
Cons of BoxBrownie
BoxBrownie is one of the most widely known virtual staging companies, but it doesn't mean it's the best one. There are a few drawbacks to using their photography and editing services. Keep these in mind before placing an order:
1. No Real Estate or Home Staging Expertise
Your photos are being staged and edited by digital editors who aren't designers.
2. Virtual Staging Takes Twice as Long
The turnaround time for BoxBrownie's virtual staging service is 48 hours. In comparison, Stuccco can turn professionally designed photos around in 12 to 24 hours, 7 days a week. This is a crucially important detail because a property's photos are usually the last thing a real estate agent needs to have before they can list a property. If you're using BoxBrownie to virtually stage your photos, you're delaying the process of listing the property by at least a day. If your virtually staged photos are finished and need to be revised, it could put you days behind schedule, frustrating you and your sellers as a result.
3. No Discounted Options for Bulk Orders
If you're in residential or commercial real estate and plan to get more than one property staged each month, BoxBrownie doesn't offer you a solution that will unlock discounts on its virtual staging services. In comparison, Stuccco offers real estate agents the ability to either pay for their virtual staging orders in full without subscribing to a monthly subscription plan OR the ability to subscribe to a monthly plan, which allows the agent to unlock a discount on every virtual staging order they place.
4. Per Image Prices Can Add Up
BoxBrownie's prices are listed by service, and you may need multiple things done in one photo. Virtual staging only means adding furniture, so you may have to pay extra to remove items or get them enhanced.
For example, if you get a color change, four items removed, and image enhancement, that one photo will cost an additional $12.
Sample of Stuccco’s virtual staging "Change Landscape" service
5. Virtually Staged Photos Are a "Tease"
Virtual staging is extremely useful in real estate marketing. However, if any furniture is placed in a photo of a room, the benefit to virtual staging ends as soon as the house sells.
On the other hand, imagine the value you could give buyers by offering them the ability to bring their virtually staged listing photos to life. BoxBrownie is unable to do this. In comparison, if agents use Stuccco to virtually stage properties, they can refer the eventual buyer to Stuccco, which can turn the virtually staged design into reality or revise it to suit a buyer's unique style, budget or integrate their existing furniture. Stuccco is the only virtual staging company in the world that can turn a virtually staged inspiration into reality for buyers because Stuccco is the only virtual staging company that offers online interior design services.
BoxBrownie Alternatives
If you're looking for the best virtual staging company (and you should be!), look no further. Welcome to Stuccco.
Stuccco is a virtual staging and online interior design company that helps Realtors® and homeowners across the USA.
Stuccco is made up of professional designers who utilize photo editing tools to create beautiful and functional home designs. It's best for real estate agents who are looking for the fastest and best way to attract potential buyers and sell homes for the maximum value, or for buyers and homeowners who need help designing their space.
Stuccco was also named the best Virtual Staging company of 2021 by The Spruce - not to toot our own horn or anything.
Exterior virtual staging from Stuccco
In fact, many of our customers have used BoxBrownie in the past. It's common to see the value in virtual staging, but feel underwhelmed by the results from BoxBrownie.
Here are just a few of the top reasons you'll prefer Stuccco over BoxBrownie:
- Virtual staging designs from professional designers specializing in real estate
- Faster turnaround time (12 to 24 hour turnaround from Stuccco, 48 hour turnaround time from BoxBrownie -and, as we see in the case study below, this can be much longer)
- Ability to turn virtual staging designs into reality with online interior design
- No subscription required, but subscription options unlock 10%-20% discounts on every virtual staging order
- Ability to create slideshow videos of its virtually staged photos
Comparison of BoxBrownie and Stuccco Features
Watch the video below to see a quick but thorough overview of what it's like to place virtual staging orders on BoxBrownie.com and Stuccco.com and how the two services compare:
Below is a chart summarizing how the two companies compare to each other head-to-head:
BoxBrownie vs. Stuccco Case Study: Virtual Staging Design Quality
As shown in the video above, we had both companies virtually stage the same three photos. Here are the three before photos as well as the virtually staged photos that each of the company's designers produced...
Related: Ugly Garage Case Study
Living Room Photo Virtually Staged by BoxBrownie (Design Style: Contemporary)
Living Room Photo Virtually Staged by Stuccco (Design Style: Comfortable Contemporary)
Bedroom Photo Virtually Staged by BoxBrownie (Design Style: Contemporary)
Bedroom Photo Virtually Staged by Stuccco (Design Style: Comfortable Contemporary)
Basement Photo Virtually Renovated by BoxBrownie (Design Style: Contemporary)
Basement Photo Virtually Renovated by Stuccco (Design Style: Comfortable Contemporary)
If you want to see the impact of professional virtual staging services on your real estate listings, try Stuccco. Click here to learn more and place a virtual staging order today.
Check out our other virtual staging company reviews:
