Comparison
Image to 3D model tools: Sculptly vs. Meshy, Tripo, Rodin, and SupaVoxel.
Pricing and features checked directly on each product’s own pricing page on 2026-09-27 — these change often, so verify on the vendor’s site before deciding. We are not neutral (we make Sculptly), so we’ve tried to be specific about where the others are genuinely ahead of us rather than only listing our own advantages.
Last reviewed: 2026-09-27 — Meshy and Tripo’s rows, this time. Rodin was added on 2026-09-10 and has not been re-checked since; SupaVoxel and Sculptly’s own rows were last re-checked 2026-08-23.
How we checked
Every number below came from the vendor’s own public pricing page on the review date, read from Australia — which matters, because one of the five detected our location and quoted us in Australian dollars, while Rodin quoted USD from the same connection. Meshy’s row was re-checked 2026-09-27 against its pricing page’s own embedded USD figures rather than from the same Australian connection, so its AUD price was not re-verified. Nothing here comes from a press release, an affiliate summary, or another comparison article. Where we did not verify something ourselves, the table says so with a dash instead of guessing, and we have not put a rating, a star count, or a testimonial anywhere on this page, because we have no honest way to produce one.
Image to 3D model pricing and free tiers
| Product | Free tier | Cheapest paid plan | Currency observed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 anonymous demo + 3 signup credits, one-time | $19/mo (400 credits) or $5 one-time (90 credits, never expires) | USD | |
| 100 monthly credits, 1 concurrent task — but only 10 downloads/mo, and only on the Lite model | $20/mo (Pro, 1,000 monthly credits) | USD (re-checked 2026-09-27) | |
| 200 monthly credits ≈ 13 models, non-commercial | $20.00/mo (Pro, 3,000 monthly credits) | USD | |
| Limited free generations, credits reset unclear | A$15/mo (Starter) | AUD (site geo-detected our location) | |
| Free plan: basic image and text to 3D, export limited to legacy models | $30/mo Creator (~60 models), $24/mo billed yearly | USD (checked 2026-09-10) |
Credit counts are not comparable across vendors on their own — each one prices a generation differently, and a “credit” on one site is not a generation on another. The only fair way to compare image to 3D model pricing is per finished model on the plan you would actually buy, not per credit and not by list price. On Sculptly a textured generation costs 3 credits, and the pricing page shows the resulting per-model price on each card rather than leaving you to divide.
Feature-by-feature: what each image to 3D model tool does
| Capability | Sculptly | Meshy | Tripo | SupaVoxel | Rodin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turns a single image into a 3D model | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Text prompt to 3D model | Yes — draws one reference image first | Yes | Yes | — | Yes |
| Multiple reference photos as input | No | Yes | Yes | — | Yes |
| Auto-rigging and animation | Humanoid characters only, walk and run included | Yes | Yes | — | — |
| In-app retopology / mesh editing | No | Yes | Yes | — | Mesh editor yes, retopology unverified |
| One-click plugin for Blender, Unity, Unreal | No | Yes | Yes | — | Yes |
| Public API on paid plans | Yes — any purchase | Yes | Yes | — | Yes — Business tier only |
| One-time credit pack that never expires | Yes | Yes | — | No — subscription only | — |
| GLB export free, no account, no watermark | Yes | — | — | — | — |
| Browser tools usable with no account at all | Yes — eleven browser tools | — | — | — | — |
A dash means we did not check that row on that vendor’s site during this review — it is not a “no”.
Meshy vs Tripo vs Rodin vs Sculptly: where they are ahead of us
Meshy and Tripo are larger, more established products with feature sets we do not match today:
- Text-to-3D and richer multi-view input. Both generate models from a text prompt or multiple reference photos. Sculptly’s text mode is two steps: it draws one reference image from your sentence, you can redraw it, and then the normal image-to-3D run builds the mesh. Extra angles (back, left, right) are on High Detail only.
- Rigging and animation. Meshy ships 600+ stock animations and auto-rigging. Sculptly rigs upright humanoid characters only (animals and objects are refused and the credits are refunded) and ships just a walk and a run, no animation library.
- Retopology and mesh editing tools. Both offer in-app mesh cleanup (Meshy’s “AI texture editing”, Tripo’s “Smart Mesh”/“Smart Segmentation”). Sculptly’s output is the raw Replicate result. The paid export can decimate to a face-count budget and the print formats get a watertight repair pass, but we run no quad retopology and no texture editing.
- DCC bridge / plugin integrations. Both plug directly into Blender, Unity, Unreal, Maya, and game engines from inside their app. We publish written import guides (Blender, Unity, SketchUp) instead of a one-click plugin.
- API rate limits and volume tiers. All three publish an API; theirs is metered in tiers. Rodin gates it behind the $120/mo Business plan. Ours is included with any purchase and has no volume tier — which also means we publish no rate-limit ladder to grow into.
If you need a native text-to-3D model, animals or props rigged, or a large animation library, use Meshy or Tripo — they're genuinely better at those. If you just want one image turned into an importable mesh fast, without committing to a subscription, that's what Sculptly is built for.
Try the free image-to-3D model generator →Where we are different
- One-time credit packs alongside subscriptions. SupaVoxel is subscription-only; a subscription is the only way to try it past the free tier, which means cancelling it is the only exit. Sculptly sells credit packs that never expire and never auto-renew — see pricing.
- Transparent fair-use caps. Our Ultra plan states its generation cap (750/month) and the math behind it on the pricing page itself, not in a support article.
- Free browser tools with no account. The GLB viewer, voxelizer, mesh repair, mold generator, scene composer, and Gaussian splat viewer, and OBJ to STL converter run entirely in your browser, take any file rather than only ours, and never ask for a sign-up. The mesh repair tool in particular closes the loop on a limitation we admit to below.
What no image to 3D model tool can do for you
Some limits belong to the method rather than to any one product, and they apply to our output as much as to anyone else’s. A reconstruction built from a single photograph has never seen the back of the object, so the hidden side is inferred — plausible, not observed. The mesh that comes out is frequently non-manifold, with open boundary edges where a surface was never closed, which is why a slicer can reject an STL that looks perfectly fine on screen.
Scale is normalised rather than measured: nothing in the file knows how many centimetres the real object is, so every downstream tool needs you to set the size yourself. Topology is generated, not authored, so it is not laid out for clean deformation or for a particular triangle budget. And the texture is baked from the viewpoint the camera had, which means detail on surfaces the photo only grazed will be softer than detail facing the lens.
None of that makes the output useless — it makes it a draft. The practical question when comparing these tools is not which one avoids these limits, because none do, but which one is honest about them and gives you something to do about them.
Which one to pick
- You need a rigged, animated character. For an upright humanoid with a walk and a run, we can rig it. For animals, props or a big animation library, Meshy.
- You are working from a description, not a photo. Either works. Meshy and Tripo build the mesh straight from the text; Sculptly draws a reference image first, which you can check and redraw before the 3D run.
- You want models generated from inside Blender or Unity. Meshy or Tripo, for the plugin. Our path is export, then import using the guides linked above.
- You have one image and one afternoon. Convert an image to a 3D model free, no account needed for the first one — GLB, OBJ, or STL out, usually in two to four minutes, with no subscription to remember to cancel.
- You only need to inspect, voxelize, or repair a GLB you already have. Any of the free tools above — no account, and no reason to pay anyone for it.
Correction requests: if something above is out of date or wrong, let us know and we’ll fix it — this page is only useful if it stays accurate.
For what one model costs on Meshy, Tripo and Sculptly in credits and dollars, with the 3D-printing steps and every row dated and sourced, see Meshy vs Tripo vs Sculptly.