Zillow Showcase is worth buying when the problem you are solving is your position on Zillow, and it is not a replacement for a listing video you own. Zillow's own numbers support the first half of that sentence, and Zillow's own footnote explains the second half. The Showcase treatment sits on fewer than 1% of listings on Zillow, and it works on the one site that sells it. A finished video file belongs to you, and it goes into the MLS video field, onto the portals, into Reels and TikTok and YouTube, into a paid ad, into the listing presentation you use to win the next one, and into the seller's own feed. Most agents asking this question are comparing a rental to a purchase without noticing it.
What Zillow claims, and the date on every number
Zillow publishes its Showcase performance data with the methodology attached, which is more than most vendors in this category do. The current facts page carries data from June 2026, averaged over the preceding twelve months. Active Showcase listings drove "on average 84% more page views, 77% more saves, 93% more shares" against "similar nearby non-Showcase listings on Zillow." Showcase listings are "10% more likely to go pending in the first 14 days" on the same comparison. On price, Showcase listings "sell for 2% or on average $7K [$7000] more than similar non-Showcase listings," for homes sold on or before March 2026.
There is an agent-side claim too. Agents using Showcase on more than half of their Zillow listings are "winning 35% more listings than similar Non-Showcase Agents," measured across June 2022 to June 2026. Zillow also reports a before-and-after cut: the same listings received 85% more page views, 72% more saves and 67% more shares after becoming Showcase listings than they had before.
Those figures deserve to be taken at face value. The comparison groups are matched on home type, location, list price, square footage, bedroom count and timing, several of the claims drop the top and bottom 5% of results, and the price claim is cut off at a stated sale date rather than left open. That is a real methodology, published voluntarily. Nothing in this post disputes any of it.
Two Zillow fact pages are live, with two different sets of numbers
Here is something worth knowing before you quote Showcase data to a seller. Zillow has a second Showcase facts page still live at a different address, last updated 5/9/2025, and its numbers are not the same ones. That older page reports "79% more page views, 76% more saves, 91% more shares" from data dated April 20, 2025, puts the price lift at "2% more" and "$9K more on a home sold at the average home sales price in the United States," and says majority-Showcase agents win "30% more listings."
Both pages are Zillow's. Neither is wrong. They are measurement windows a year apart, and the engagement lift moved in one direction while the dollar figure moved in the other, which is what you would expect as a product moves from early adopters into wider use. The practical point is that a seller or a competing agent can find either page, and if you cite the $9K number from a 2025 page while the current page says $7K, you lose the argument on sourcing rather than on substance. Use the June 2026 figures and name the date.
The footnote that answers the question
On the current facts page, underneath the price claim, Zillow states that "listings on Zillow with the Showcase Treatment represent less than 1% of listings on Zillow."
Read that next to the 84% engagement lift and the mechanism becomes clear. The lift is a relative-position effect. A Showcase listing stands out because almost nothing around it has the treatment, and it gets a search boost that Zillow's product terms describe as a "temporary boost in a user's personalized search results." That is a genuine advantage and it is worth money. It is also an advantage you are renting from a single marketplace, priced by that marketplace, and measured against a field that marketplace controls. If Showcase penetration in your market goes from 1% to 15%, the contrast that produces the lift compresses, and you did not get a vote.
Scarcity also tells you where Showcase fits. It is a position play inside a crowded feed, and the question it leaves open is what you still hold when the subscription lapses.
What the product terms say you are buying
Zillow's published Showcase product terms are specific, and almost nobody writing about this reads them. Showcase is "an automatically renewing subscription requiring recurring payments." Cancellation needs notice at least 30 days before the next bill date, and "Payments are nonrefundable." Under the monthly model, early termination costs "fifty percent (50%) of the unpaid Subscription Price" for the remainder of the subscription period. Listings bought individually have to be activated within 90 days of purchase, and Zillow does not refund listings that go unactivated.
The media is a separate line item. Showcase requires a Zillow 3D Home interactive floor plan, captured either through Zillow Media Experts or an independent photographer, and the terms put it plainly: the advertiser is "solely responsible for scheduling and paying for the Required Media." So the subscription is the position, and the shoot is yours to pay for on top.
Then there is the license. By supplying materials, which the terms define to include photos, videos, information and URLs, you grant Zillow a license that is "worldwide, non-exclusive, fully paid-up, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, sublicensable and transferable," extending to Zillow's partners and licensees and to Meta platforms such as Facebook. For video, that reaches the name, likeness, image and voice of anyone appearing in it, which is worth a thought before you put a seller on camera.
Non-exclusive is the important word, and it cuts in your favor: nothing there stops you from using your own media elsewhere. What you should notice is the shape of the deal. You pay for the capture, you grant a perpetual license in it, and the experience built from it renders on Zillow's page under Zillow's layout for as long as you keep paying.
Where each asset can actually travel
The Showcase experience is a Zillow page. The underlying 3D Home tour travels slightly further than people assume: Zillow has automatically syndicated agents' 3D Home tours to Redfin listings since May 2022, with an opt-out,. That is one extra portal for the tour, delivered as a hosted link.
A hosted link is not a video file. You cannot cut a 30-second vertical from it for Reels, you cannot upload it as the primary video on a YouTube channel that builds your name over years, you cannot run it as the creative in a Facebook ad, and you cannot drop it into a listing presentation that plays without a network connection. A rendered MP4 does all of that from one export, and it keeps working after you stop paying anyone.
The MLS video field is where this gets decided
For most agents the first question is not social reach, it is whether the listing's own feed carries a video at all. The MLS video field is a real field with real rules, and a listing that goes out with it empty loses the distribution it was entitled to before any portal strategy comes into play. We wrote up why a listing video does not show up on Zillow or Realtor.com because it is the most common way a perfectly good video produces nothing. It is also worth being clear that a video and a 3D tour do different jobs for a buyer, which is the subject of what a listing video and a 3D tour are each actually for.
What an owned listing video takes to produce
The reason this comparison used to favor the portal product is that making a video was a project. Paste a Zillow or Redfin listing URL into ShowcaseVideos.ai and the photo set comes in on its own, scoped to that one property. The scoping is the hard part and it is worth saying why: on one real Zillow detail page our importer measured 1,111 image hits on Zillow's photo CDN against 31 photos that actually belonged to the listing, because a detail page carries thumbnails of nearby and similar homes on the same CDN. Reading the property-scoped structured payload first is what keeps other people's houses out of your video. Search and city result pages are rejected rather than imported for the same reason. You can upload photos directly instead, and a job takes up to 30 of them.
From there the render handles the parts an agent would otherwise outsource. Empty rooms get virtual staging inside the video rather than as separate stills. Hero shots get real AI camera motion, automatically on about two in five of the photos you bring, and on every photo in the listing if you choose to pay for it. Every cut carries an address and price lower-third. Music comes from a curated library, or you can have an original score composed for the video on Office plans and above. Landscape delivery is on every plan, vertical and square cuts come with Office, and Brokerage renders all formats every time. For 30 days after a render finishes you can change a finished video and re-render it cheaply instead of paying for the whole job again.
Pricing is in credits, which exist so a small listing bills as a small listing. A render is 18 credits for the base widescreen cut with the lower-third, library music and hosting, 7 credits for each AI motion clip on our current motion model, 1 credit per virtually staged room, 6 for a vertical cut, 4 for a square cut, 4 for an AI-composed score and 12 for a 4K copy. A new account starts with 120 credits and no card, which covers a full 30-photo video with motion on twelve shots and a few staged rooms, carrying a small watermark until the account activates. Plans run $59, $239 and $699 a month, or $49, $199 and $599 a month billed annually, for 190, 780 and 2,350 credits, which works out to roughly four, sixteen and forty-seven videos. Plan credits roll over for two months and credits bought as a top-up never expire. During our Beta every new account gets 50% off for twelve months.
When Showcase is the right spend anyway
There is a real case for it. If your listings are competing in a market where almost no one else has the treatment, and your seller's attention is on Zillow because that is where they look at their own house, Showcase buys a visible position in the place the seller is checking. The 35% listing-win figure is also the kind of number that does work inside a listing presentation, and winning the listing is worth more than any single marketing asset on it. Agents who sell a Zillow-first package to Zillow-first sellers are not making a mistake.
The mistake is treating that spend as having produced a video. It has not. It has rented a page layout.
A decision guide
- You market across the MLS, portals and social, and you want something to show in six months: build the video you own. It fills the MLS video field, it cuts to vertical and square for social, and it is still yours when any subscription ends.
- You list a few times a year: buy credits as you need them and skip subscriptions entirely. A nonrefundable auto-renewing contract is the wrong shape for four listings a year.
- You are in a market with almost no Showcase penetration and a Zillow-first seller: Showcase is defensible, and you still need a video file for the MLS field and for everywhere that is not Zillow.
- You are weighing one against the other on budget: compare the full cost honestly. Showcase is the subscription plus the shoot you pay for separately. An owned video on our Agent plan is the plan price, with no separate photography bill when the listing photos already exist.
- You want to know whether video earns its cost at all: start with the business case for a listing video before you compare vendors, and then with real estate video software compared for what agents are actually using.
One video, produced from the photos you already have, in the formats each channel wants, owned outright. See what a listing video costs in credits and start with 120 free.
Frequently asked questions
Does Zillow Showcase really make a home sell for more?
Zillow's current facts page reports that Showcase listings sell for 2%, or about $7,000, more than similar non-Showcase listings, using sales on or before March 2026 and matched comparables. That is a correlation Zillow measured on its own marketplace with a published methodology, and it is the best data available on the question.
What percentage of Zillow listings are Showcase listings?
Fewer than 1%. Zillow states in the footnote to its own price claim that listings carrying the Showcase treatment represent less than 1% of listings on Zillow. That scarcity is part of why the engagement lift is as large as it is.
Can I use the Showcase floor plan and tour somewhere other than Zillow?
The license you grant Zillow is non-exclusive, so your own rights in the media are not given up. The Showcase experience itself renders on Zillow, and the 3D Home tour has been syndicated automatically to Redfin since 2022 with an opt-out, delivered as a hosted link rather than a video file you can upload elsewhere.
Does Zillow Showcase replace a listing video?
No. Showcase is an interactive floor plan and virtual tour with added exposure on Zillow, and it does not produce an MP4. That means it cannot fill the MLS video field, post to Reels or TikTok, or run as the creative in a paid ad.
Can I cancel Zillow Showcase at any time?
Not on the spot. Zillow's product terms require notice at least 30 days before your next bill date, state that payments are nonrefundable, and set an early-termination fee of 50% of the unpaid subscription price for the rest of the period on the monthly model. Individually purchased listings also expire if they are not activated within 90 days.
How much does a listing video from ShowcaseVideos.ai cost per listing?
A typical render is 18 credits for the base widescreen cut plus 7 credits per AI motion shot and 1 credit per staged room, with 6 more for a vertical cut and 4 for a square one. A new account gets 120 credits free with no card, which is enough for one full 30-photo video with motion on twelve shots.
