Rightmove listing photo guide for United Kingdom agents
This is the Rightmove listing photo guide a UK estate agent in Mayfair, Notting Hill, Clifton, Sandbanks, Alderley Edge or the Cotswolds can open on the upload screen and work straight through. Rightmove sits on roughly 66% of the UK portal market with an ARPA near £1,411 — compared with OnTheMarket at around £210 and Zoopla mid-tier — so the Primary Image on Rightmove is, statistically, the single most valuable pixel grid in UK residential marketing. Rightmove's own ' I need help with my property images ' Customer FAQ is explicit: the upload accepts JPG, displays at a 1024-pixel ceiling, and crops to 3:2 landscape for every tile, map pin and 'similar properties' widget. Rightmove's own X post (2012, still canonical in the 2026 help stack) nails the number: '1024 × 683 pixels = optimum size'. That is the spec this page is built around.
Official Rightmove photo specs (2026): 3:2, 1024px, JPG, Primary Image first
Rightmove's Customer FAQ and Technical Guidelines set four non-negotiables. (1) Aspect ratio: 3:2 landscape — any 4:3, square or vertical image is centre-cropped and loses the top and bottom strip. (2) Display ceiling: 1024 pixels in the longest edge, so landscape renders at a maximum of 1024 × 683 on the expanded 'enlarge' view; the summary search card is 224 × 149 and the property details main gallery is 656 × 437. (3) Format: JPG only — HEIC from iPhone is rejected by the pipeline, and PNG is not the documented path. (4) Primary Image: Rightmove's own 'Ultimate Listing' guide (hub.rightmove.co.uk) tells agents the Primary Image must be an exterior landscape because that is the photo used on every search tile, every map pin and every 'Similar Properties' widget across Rightmove.co.uk, the iOS app, the Android app and email alerts. Photo count: Rightmove Plus (the agent back office at rmplusportal.rightmove.co.uk) enforces a 60-photo hard cap per listing, imposed via some software providers and documented at Property Industry Eye; the residential standard is 10–20 photos, with premium New Homes and country-house briefs reaching the 40–60 range.
3:2 landscape aspect ratio — strict, centre-cropped if violated
1024px longest-edge display (optimum 1024 × 683)
JPG only — HEIC rejected, PNG undocumented
Primary Image = exterior landscape, drives every search tile
60-photo cap via Rightmove Plus; 10–20 residential standard
Rightmove Plus, Premium Listing and Premium Display: what changes for the photographer
Rightmove's paid-boost stack is where photo quality either pays back or exposes itself. Rightmove Plus is the agent back-office portal (rmplusportal.rightmove.co.uk) — it is the upload surface, not a paid tier, and it is where the 60-photo cap and the 1024/3:2 spec are enforced. Premium Listing is the paid search-results boost: the tile renders larger, with two photos and a headline on the search results page, so marginal resolution that survived a standard tile becomes visibly soft at Premium size. Featured Property is the sponsored top-of-page placement, priced higher and leaning even harder on the Primary Image. Premium Display is Rightmove's display-advertising product sold via Rightmove Commercial — large-format image units that run against property searches and require full-resolution source. Rightmove Data Services (rightmove.co.uk/property-data) is the analytics arm — Market Intelligence Centre, Surveyors Comparable Tool, Automated Valuation Model — and does not touch the photo upload path, but its report exports drive the comparables photo selection for surveyors and investors. Practical rule (2026): do not buy Premium Listing, Featured Property or Premium Display until the Primary Image and the next four gallery slots are full-resolution, 3:2 native, and exterior-led.
03
Why Rightmove deprioritises or silently under-displays listings
Rightmove's moderation is active — the Data Quality team rejects and re-queues — but the bigger cost is silent under-display. Non-3:2 images are auto-cropped and the vertical iPhone shot becomes an unrecognisable middle strip. HEIC rejects outright, which is the single most common UK rejection because iPhone defaults to HEIC. Legacy sub-1024 images render pixelated on the new 'enlarge' view, which looks amateur next to a Knight Frank or Savills tile. A weak Primary Image — interior, low light, or worse, a bathroom — silently halves search CTR because Rightmove's tile is the only thing most buyers see. Common exterior failures on UK housing stock: blown-out grey-day skies over a Victorian terrace, lens distortion on a Georgian sash window, converging verticals on a period façade, a parked car or wheelie bin in frame, and the interior shot that makes a Foxtons Fulham flat look like a Chestertons clone.
Non-3:2 aspect ratio (4:3, vertical, square all crop badly)
Vertical iPhone shots as the Primary Image
HEIC format — Rightmove accepts JPG only
Sub-1024 legacy photos that pixelate on 'enlarge'
Weak Primary Image (interior, bathroom, night shot) kills CTR
Blown-out UK grey-day sky with no cloud detail
Converging verticals on Georgian or Victorian façades
Wheelie bins, parked cars, visible number plates in frame
Premium UK agencies set the de-facto photo bar on Rightmove. Foxtons (strong in Fulham, Chelsea, Notting Hill, Islington) ships 20–30 photos per residential listing, always exterior-first, with the Foxtons-branded watermark removed from the Rightmove upload (Rightmove rejects heavy branding in the image area per the Data Quality guidelines). Hamptons (country houses, Cotswolds, Surrey, Sussex) leads with a wide landscape exterior and often a dusk shot as photo two — their Premium Listing usage is routine on instructions over £1.5m. Winkworth and Chestertons work central and west London terraces with a heavy emphasis on period-window perspective correction. Knight Frank and Savills run 30–60 photos on country and prime central London briefs, always with a Primary Image at full 1024 × 683, drone aerial as photo two or three, and a dedicated grounds shot for rural; on instructions over £5m they typically pair with Rightmove Premium Display for the surrounding search. Strutt & Parker and John D Wood lean on interiors that show scale — reception rooms with full ceiling height — and are precise about 3:2 landscape. Douglas & Gordon (southwest London) and Chestertons default to a clean 15–20 photo residential book.
05
Rightmove vs OnTheMarket vs Zoopla: one upload, three audiences
The same 30-photo book can feed all three UK portals, but the Primary Image is chosen differently. Rightmove (≈66% market share, ARPA ~£1,411) rewards a clean exterior landscape at 3:2 because its tile is the widest and most saturated. OnTheMarket (ARPA ~£210, agent-owned) runs 'New & Exclusive' listings 24 hours before Rightmove for members, and its tile is slightly taller and more tolerant of 4:3 — OTM-first briefs (Knight Frank, Savills, Strutt & Parker regional offices) often pick an interior hero for OTM and the exterior for Rightmove. Zoopla (mid-tier ARPA, now bundled with PrimeLocation) uses a different image CDN with a bias toward saturated, warm tiles — the same Primary Image looks hotter on Zoopla than on Rightmove. Practical 2026 workflow: export the master at full resolution 3:2, publish to Rightmove Plus at the 1024-optimised JPG, mirror to OTM via the dual-feed ADF, and push to Zoopla with the warmer grade handled by the portal's own pipeline.
06
UK compliance: ASA CAP 3.7, CPR 2008, DMCC Act 2024, TPO and PRS
UK property photography is not a free-fire zone. The ASA CAP Code rule 3.7 requires marketing communications to not materially mislead by omission — so a virtually staged image that shows a furnished lounge where the property is empty must be disclosed. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPR 2008) extends this to estate-agency practice: any misleading action or omission on a material fact (size, layout, condition) is an offence, and Rightmove photos are treated as marketing communications under the CPR. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act 2024) sharpens enforcement — the CMA can fine up to 10% of global turnover for misleading consumer practices and it covers online listings directly. TPO (The Property Ombudsman) and PRS (Property Redress Scheme) membership is mandatory for UK estate agents under the Estate Agents Act 1979, and both redress schemes treat materially misleading photos as a code-of-practice breach. The 2026 operational rule: every virtually staged, sky-replaced or day-to-dusk image on Rightmove carries a caption disclosure ('image with virtual staging' or 'CGI — indicative only') and an XMP metadata flag, and the original unstaged photo is archived for the length of the instruction plus six years. Rightmove's own moderation team will re-queue or reject undisclosed composites.
ASA CAP 3.7: no misleading omission in marketing communications
CPR 2008: misleading action/omission on material fact is an offence
DMCC Act 2024: CMA can fine up to 10% of global turnover
Caption + XMP disclosure on virtual staging, sky-replace, day-to-dusk
Archive unstaged originals for instruction period + 6 years
07
How Plotpane's pipeline meets the Rightmove spec end-to-end
Plotpane exports a JPG at quality 92, about 2.4K, in the ratio you shot, so a 3:2 original comes back 3:2 — exactly what Rightmove's tile and 'enlarge' view want, and it downsamples cleanly to 1024 × 683 without the soft recompression artefact you get from a 4:3 source cropped at the portal. The HEIC problem is one Plotpane happens to solve on the way past — it takes JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC in, and what leaves is always a JPG, which is the format Rightmove wants, so the iPhone default stops being a rejection at the Rightmove Plus step. Perspective correction straightens Georgian sash windows in Kensington, Victorian terraces in Fulham, Edwardian semis in Muswell Hill and modernist glazing in Sandbanks without distorting the façade geometry — so the photo stays CPR 2008-compliant on material fact. Sky Swap rebuilds the typical UK grey-day exterior from four built-in options — Soft Clouds is the defensible British one, with Clear Blue, Golden Hour and Dramatic Storm alongside it — and writes the XMP disclosure flag. Day to Dusk handles the country-house brief that Hamptons, Knight Frank and Strutt & Parker run routinely, again with XMP disclosure baked in. A batch runs 50 photos at once on Pro and 150 on Agency, one credit each, so a 30-photo Knight Frank-grade set goes through in one pass. Keeping the untouched original for the TPO / PRS archive window is your side of the job — Plotpane hands back the edited file and stores nothing — and the caption still has to be typed into the Rightmove Plus field, though an optional visible "Virtually Staged" label can be switched on per render if you want the disclosure on the image itself.
For this region
Local questions, answered
What is the correct photo size and aspect ratio for Rightmove in 2026?+
Rightmove's Customer FAQ and the @rightmove 2012 guidance (still canonical) give a single optimum: 1024 × 683 pixels, 3:2 landscape, JPG. The 1024 figure is the display ceiling on the 'enlarge' view; the search-results tile renders at 224 × 149 and the property details main gallery at 656 × 437. Any aspect ratio other than 3:2 is centre-cropped on upload, which is why a 4:3 DSLR shot or a vertical iPhone frame loses the top and bottom. Plotpane's export is a JPG at about 2.4K in the ratio you gave it, so a 3:2 original comes back 3:2 and downsamples to 1024 × 683 cleanly on Rightmove's pipeline.
Does Rightmove accept HEIC from iPhone, and how do I avoid the rejection?+
No — Rightmove accepts JPG only, and HEIC is rejected at the Rightmove Plus upload step. HEIC is the iPhone default, which is why UK estate agents who shoot on iPhone (common on last-minute Foxtons or Purplebricks visits) hit the rejection constantly. The two fixes: set iPhone Camera > Formats to 'Most Compatible' (which shoots JPG natively), or run every upload through an enhancement pipeline that converts HEIC to JPG at export. Plotpane does the second by default — it takes JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC in and always exports JPEG — so a HEIC frame that has been through a render comes back as a JPG at about 2.4K, which is what the upload wants.
What is the maximum number of photos on a Rightmove listing and is it really 60?+
Yes, the practical ceiling is 60 photos per listing on Rightmove Plus, enforced via some software providers and documented at Property Industry Eye. The residential standard is 10–20 photos — under 10 and the listing loses weight on Rightmove's internal search ordering; over 20 is routine for New Homes developments, country houses (Hamptons, Strutt & Parker) and prime central London (Knight Frank, Savills) where the 40–60 range is used in full. Rightmove Plus is the agent back-office portal at rmplusportal.rightmove.co.uk where the cap is enforced.
What is Rightmove Premium Listing and does it change the photo spec?+
Rightmove Premium Listing is the paid search-results boost — the tile renders larger, displays two photos and a headline on Rightmove's search results page, and is typically sold per-month per-property. It does not change the upload spec (3:2, 1024px, JPG) but it magnifies every flaw because the tile is larger. Featured Property is the sponsored top-of-page placement, again using the same photo spec. Rightmove Premium Display is the separate display-advertising product sold via Rightmove Commercial. Industry consensus from MoneySavingExpert, Property Investment Project and Next Home: do not buy Premium Listing until the Primary Image and the next four gallery frames are full-resolution.
How should virtual staging, sky replacement and day-to-dusk be disclosed on Rightmove?+
Under ASA CAP 3.7, CPR 2008 and the DMCC Act 2024, any virtually staged, sky-replaced or day-to-dusk image on a Rightmove listing must be disclosed so the consumer is not misled on a material fact. The 2026 operational standard, aligned with TPO and PRS codes of practice, is a caption on the image ('image with virtual staging', 'CGI — indicative only' or 'sky replacement for illustration') plus an XMP metadata flag in the JPG. The original unstaged photo is archived for the length of the instruction plus six years in case of a CMA, TPO or PRS review. Rightmove's own moderation team will re-queue or reject undisclosed composites. Plotpane writes the XMP disclosure into every export and can add an optional visible "Virtually Staged" label; archiving the unstaged original is your side of it.
How does the same photo book publish to Rightmove, OnTheMarket and Zoopla?+
The master 30-photo book exported at full resolution 3:2 publishes to all three, but the Primary Image choice differs. Rightmove (≈66% market share, ARPA ~£1,411) wants a clean exterior landscape at 3:2 — its tile is the widest. OnTheMarket (ARPA ~£210, agent-owned, 'New & Exclusive' 24 hours before Rightmove) runs a slightly taller tile and tolerates 4:3 better, so Knight Frank, Savills and Strutt & Parker regional offices sometimes choose an interior hero for OTM and reserve the exterior for Rightmove. Zoopla / PrimeLocation renders warmer on its CDN, so the same Primary Image looks hotter there than on Rightmove. Plotpane returns one master per render at about 2.4K, at one credit an image; the portal-specific crop happens at each portal, or in whatever you crop with before the upload.
Pricing
One credit per image. Every tool, every plan.
Three plans. Every tool unlocked on all of them. Every render unmarked, standard or high resolution, cancel anytime.
Every plan starts with 3 free renders. No card until you subscribe.
Starter
For the solo agent shooting their own listings.
$39/month
billed yearly
100 credits monthly
100 images per month — 1 credit each, whichever tool you use
No Plotpane mark on any render
Every tool, no tier gating
Standard output ~2.4K, or ~4.7K for a second credit
XMP disclosure metadata written into every export
Download a finished listing as a ZIP
Free vertical listing reel from your finished photos
Cinematic clips from a single photo — 1 credit per second of video
That is the whole pricing model. No per-tool rates, no seat maths, nothing to negotiate. We are not SOC 2 certified and there is no SSO, private deployment or API — if you need those to buy, better you know now than after a call.
Starter
4
listings a month
Pro
8
listings a month
Agency
24
listings a month
Questions
The usual questions, answered directly.
No. Midjourney and DALL-E invent scenes from text prompts — beautiful for art, disqualifying for a listing. Plotpane is a structure-preserving pipeline: your room geometry, windows, and floor plan stay exact. We stage, re-light, swap skies, declutter, and enhance your actual photo. No hallucinated architecture, no invented rooms.
BoxBrownie and Styldod are human-edit services: you upload, a retoucher works overnight, you get a result in 24–48 hours at $2–$32 per image per treatment. They also sell things we do not have at all — floor plans, renderings, item removal by a person who can ask you what you meant. Plotpane is one machine pass: you pick one of seven tools, and the image comes back in about two minutes for one credit, whichever tool you picked, on a flat monthly subscription. Stacking two treatments on one photo means running it twice.
Yes, when disclosed. NAR guidelines, California AB 723, and REBNY Rule 3.3 all allow virtually staged photos provided the listing discloses them. Every Plotpane export embeds invisible XMP disclosure metadata so the staging record travels with the file. You still handle the listing-remarks disclosure in your MLS portal — that's the part only you can do.
Every render is sent with a preserve list as well as an instruction. It names one operation and forbids the rest: do not touch windows, doors, walls, ceilings, floors, cabinetry or fixtures unless the instruction names them; do not remove or conceal a defect, stain or crack; do not change what is visible through glass, and never invent a view. Furniture is added to empty rooms; named objects are removed from furnished ones; sky and light are re-graded. If you do see something invented, that is a bug — report the render in the app and the credit comes back.
Yes — one click in the Stripe billing portal from your dashboard. Billing stops immediately, remaining credits stay usable through the end of the billing period, and there's no cancellation fee.
Yes — any AI-generated or AI-modified image is considered an edit requiring disclosure under NAR's standards. That's why every Plotpane export writes invisible XMP disclosure metadata by default. The flag is machine-readable by MLS tooling and survives Lightroom round-trips. You still add the disclosure line to your listing remarks; we make sure the image itself is self-describing.
The toolkit
Seven tools. One credit each.
Every one is a single structure-preserving pass: it changes what you asked for and leaves the building alone.
