Ten credits an image, and a plan that includes twenty
Every guide to SketchUp AI lists the same ten plugins and gives each a paragraph. None of them do the division that decides whether the one already in your subscription is usable. On the $819-a-year plan it is twenty images a month.
What SketchUp AI rendering costs per image
Credits and prices are Trimble’s. The last two columns are arithmetic: credits divided by the ten a render costs, then the monthly price divided by that. Checked 31 August 2026.
| Plan | Price | AI credits | Renders a month | Per render | What that means |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0web only | None | 0 | — | A free SketchUp subscription includes no AI credits at all. Whatever the AI is worth to you, it is not in this tier. |
| Go | $129a year, $10.75 a month | 100 a month | 10 | $1.08 | Ten images a month. Enough to find out whether the thing helps you, not enough to work through options on a real project. |
| Pro | $399a year, $33.25 a month | 150 a month | 15 | $2.22 | Three times the price of Go for half as many images again. The credits are not what you are buying here. |
| Studio | $819a year, $68.25 a month | 200 a month | 20 | $3.41 | The dearest plan, and the dearest render on the page. Twenty images a month is under one a working day. |
| AI add-on | $11.99a month, on top of a plan | 1,500 a month | 150 | $0.08 | Monthly only, and it has to sit on a Go, Pro or Studio subscription. This is the tier the credits are actually sold in. |
Read down the per-render column and it runs the wrong way. The more you pay Trimble, the more each included image costs you — $1.08 on Go, $3.41 on Studio. The $11.99 add-on brings it to eight cents, because it is the only tier priced on credits rather than on the modeller they come attached to. If images are what you want, the base plan is the wrong thing to upgrade.
Three features, one pool of credits
They do not cost the same, and the pool does not carry over. Unused credits reset on your renewal date rather than accumulating.
AI Render
One generated image from the current view. The feature that used to be called Diffusion, renamed after it left Labs.
Generate Object
Geometry from a text description or an image. Three times the price of a render, so Go affords three of them a month.
Help assistant
The in-app chatbot that answers questions about SketchUp itself. It does not touch the credit pool.
What AI Render does to your model
Nothing, and that is worth understanding before you budget for it. It reads the current view, takes a text prompt and one of eight preset styles, and returns an image you can save as a Scene. A slider decides how far the prompt is allowed to override your geometry. Trimble calls it an ideation partner rather than a technical renderer, which is honest: what comes back is a picture of the model, not a change to it, and nothing in it is attached to a product you could order.
The AI for SketchUp that does not come from SketchUp
Two worth knowing, out of the ten every listicle names. They answer different questions, and neither is a straight replacement for the built-in one.
Veras
$29 a month billed annually, $59 monthly
SketchUp 2021–2025, Revit, Rhino, Archicad, Vectorworks, Forma
Built by EvolveLAB, now under Chaos. Its selling point is how much control you keep over how far the AI is allowed to depart from your geometry and materials. The free trial is 30 renders over 15 days, and the paid tiers publish no render cap.
D5 Render
Community free, Pro $38 a month or $360 a year
SketchUp 2021.1–2026, plus the usual CAD hosts
A real-time renderer with a live-sync plugin, rather than an image generator bolted on. The free Community tier is non-commercial, watermarked and capped at 1080p; D5 Lite is the free in-viewport AI plugin, capped at 2K.
What none of them hand back
Every tool on this page turns a model into an image. That is the job, and they do it. What none of them return is the thing a client has to act on: what the sofa in the picture is, whether it is in stock, what it costs, and whether it clears the door.
Decato is not a SketchUp plugin and does not read .skp — worth saying plainly rather than leaving you to find out. It starts from the floor plan instead of the model, so the room is a set of wall lengths and door swings before it is ever a picture. Real products are matched against those numbers, anything that will not clear a walkway is dropped, and what comes back is a priced specification with a render built from those exact pieces.
If you have a model and want a better image of it, stay on this page. If you need the furniture named and priced, that is a different tool, and it is a Mac app rather than a plugin.
Where to go next
- Decato against SketchUp — for the other question, whether to stay in SketchUp at all.
- AI for interior design — the three different products that share that name, and what each returns.
- One project end to end — the plan, the specification and the renders from a single apartment.
- Download for Mac — planning is free on your own ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini key.
Common questions
What is SketchUp AI?
Three features inside SketchUp that share one pool of monthly credits: AI Render, which generates an image from your model and a text prompt; Generate Object, which makes geometry from a description or an image; and a help assistant that answers questions about the software. AI Render costs 10 credits, Generate Object 30, the assistant nothing. It used to be called Diffusion and was renamed after it came out of Labs (Checked 31 August 2026).
How many SketchUp AI renders do I get a month?
Divide your credits by ten. Free gets no credits at all, Go 100 a month, Pro 150, Studio 200 — so 10, 15 and 20 images. The $11.99 add-on carries 1,500 credits, which is 150 renders. Unused credits do not carry into the next month; they reset on your renewal date (Checked 31 August 2026).
Is SketchUp AI rendering free?
Not on the free tier in any form: a free SketchUp subscription includes no AI credits. On the paid plans the credits come bundled, so it is free at the margin until you run out, which on Go happens after ten images (Checked 31 August 2026).
Why does the cheap add-on include more renders than the expensive plan?
Because the plans are priced on the modeller and the AI credits are a garnish, while the add-on is priced on the credits themselves. Studio at $68.25 a month includes 20 renders; the add-on at $11.99 includes 150. If images are what you are after, the base plan is the wrong thing to upgrade.
What does AI Render do to my model?
Nothing. It reads the current view, takes a text prompt and one of eight preset styles, and returns an image you can save as a Scene. A slider sets how far the prompt is allowed to override your geometry. Trimble describes it as an ideation partner rather than a technical renderer, which is a fair description: the output is a picture, not a change to the model.
What is the best AI for SketchUp?
It depends on whether you need the picture to obey the model. The built-in AI Render is the cheapest way to find out whether AI images help you at all, since the credits are already paid for. Veras exists because people wanted tighter control over how far the AI reinterprets geometry and materials. D5 is a real-time renderer with AI attached rather than the other way round, and its free tier is genuinely usable if you can live with a watermark.
Does Decato plug into SketchUp?
No, and it is worth being plain about that. Decato does not read .skp files and is not a plugin. It works from a floor plan instead of a model, and what it returns is a specification of real products with prices, checked against the walls and the door swings, plus a render built from those exact pieces. If you have a SketchUp model and want a better image of it, the tools above are the answer. If you need the furniture named and priced, none of them do that.