Softwr
V-Ray logo

V-Ray

Professional 3D rendering software

As of 30 August 2026, V-Ray starts at $29/month. V-Ray is a production-proven rendering software used by designers, architects, and VFX artists to create photorealistic images, animations, and visualizations. Softwr lists it under CAD. V-Ray is made by Chaos Group, launched in 1997, available on Windows, macOS, Linux.

Overview

What V-Ray does

V-Ray is a production-proven rendering software used by designers, architects, and VFX artists to create photorealistic images, animations, and visualizations.

What people use it for

  • Photorealistic rendering for architecture and product visualisation
  • Real time and ray traced rendering inside CAD and 3D applications

The honest half

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about V-Ray.

  • Licences are subscription only with no perpetual option listed for any product
  • Subscription terms renew automatically
  • Cloud rendering runs on separately purchased credits, with the Pro tier at $25.30 a month for 1,000
  • Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of V-Ray

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Pricing

What V-Ray costs

Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.

V-Ray Solo

$60 /mo

  • 1 workstation
  • 5 render nodes

V-Ray Premium

$80 /mo

  • Multiple apps
  • Cloud credits

Capabilities

Features

  • Ray tracing

  • Global illumination

  • GPU rendering

  • CPU rendering

  • Materials

  • Lighting

  • VR output

  • Scene intelligence

  • 3ds Max

    Integration with 3ds Max

  • Maya

    Integration with Maya

  • SketchUp

    Integration with SketchUp

  • Rhino

    Integration with Rhino

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

What is included in Chaos software subscriptions?

All Chaos subscriptions include free support, access to a large community of professionals, continuous updates, and a 14-day money-back guarantee. Annual subscriptions save 45% versus monthly billing. Use of AI credits voids the refund right.

Source
Does Chaos offer enterprise pricing?

Yes, Chaos provides enterprise pricing plans for teams with more than 10 licenses. Enterprise customers should contact the Chaos sales team directly for custom pricing quotes tailored to their specific needs.

Source

Behind it

Who makes V-Ray

Company
Chaos Group
Based in
Sofia, Bulgaria
Share

Keep looking

Where to go from V-Ray

Best CAD software for

Compare V-Ray with

Other CAD software

  • Real-time 3D rendering and animation

    From $1,299/yr12 researched notes
  • Architectural visualization made easy

    From $29/mo8 researched notes
  • World's first fully GPU-accelerated biased renderer

    From $29/mo10 researched notes
  • GPU-accelerated unbiased rendering

    From $29/mo12 researched notes
  • Advanced Monte Carlo ray tracing renderer

    From $29/mo8 researched notes
  • Real-time ray tracing renderer

    Free, then $38/mo14 researched notes
  • Creative 3D modeling and rendering

    From $29/mo9 researched notes
  • Real-time visualization for architecture

    Free, then $29/mo5 researched notes
  • CAD software for iPad and Mac

    Free, then $299/yr16 researched notes
  • Procedural 3D animation and VFX

    Free, then $29/mo15 researched notes
  • Digital sculpting for game artists

    From $29/mo10 researched notes
  • Cloud workspace for Altium Designer PCB projects, now inside Renesas

    From $1,990/yr12 researched notes
  • Free slicer for Bambu Lab 3D printers, funded entirely by hardware sales

    Open source12 researched notes
  • DWG-based CAD platform

    From $29/mo15 researched notes
  • Professional-grade 3D mechanical design

    From $29/mo8 researched notes
  • Digital painting and sculpting software

    From $29/mo8 researched notes

Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for V-Ray, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

More on V-Ray

Best CAD software alternatives

The photogrammetry engine formerly called RealityCapture, free below a one million dollar revenue line

Free below a revenue threshold, then per seat per year

Survey drafting and COGO on an IntelliCAD engine, sold outright rather than by subscription

One-time purchase

Open source point cloud comparison and processing maintained largely by one person in their spare time

Open source, no licence fee

Survey and civil design CAD sold as a perpetual licence with optional maintenance

One-time purchase

Finite element simulation built around coupling physics, with add-on modules licensed separately

quote

Free slicer for Bambu Lab 3D printers, funded entirely by hardware sales

Open source, no licence fee

CAD and modelling platform for infrastructure design, and the file format the rest of Bentley runs on

Per user per year

Compare V-Ray with alternatives