Houzz for Architects and Interior Designers: Profile, Project Photos, Video and Reviews for US Leads

Houzz is the US-based home design platform where American homeowners collect ideas for a kitchen or a whole house and then look up who designed the photos they saved. For a residential architect or interior designer in Chicago, Denver or Orlando it is one of three places a homeowner lead comes from, alongside Google and Instagram, and the one most firms set up once and never touch again. This guide covers a complete Houzz profile, project photos that get found, where video fits, reviews, Houzz vs Instagram vs Google Business Profile for US homeowner leads, and a monthly routine.

Key takeaways

• Houzz works as a searchable photo library first and a directory second: a homeowner saves a photo, then clicks through to the professional who posted it.
• Project photos tagged by room, style and location do the finding; an untagged upload of 40 images is nearly invisible.
• Houzz's public directory shows star ratings, review counts, a Verified License badge, and the number of projects near the searcher, so those four fields drive clicks.
• Video belongs on your website and your Google profile first, linked from Houzz; embed or upload on Houzz only where the platform allows at the time you post.
• A 20-minute monthly routine, one project, one review request, one check of inquiries, keeps the profile alive without a marketing hire.

How Houzz actually sends leads to a design firm

A homeowner planning a remodel in Austin opens Houzz to browse photos, not to find an architect. She filters "kitchen," "transitional," saves 30 images to an ideabook, and over a few weeks notices that several of them come from the same two firms. Then she clicks the firm's name, reads the profile, checks the reviews and the license badge, and sends a message or looks the firm up on Google.

The photo is the ad, the profile is the landing page, the reviews and badges are the proof, and the message or Google search is the conversion. Everything below is organized around those four steps.

As of October 2026, Houzz's public architects directory lists professionals by location with a search radius, shows an average star rating and review count, displays "Verified License" and "Best of Houzz" badges, notes how many projects a firm has near the searcher's zip code, and lets homeowners filter by style, budget range, credentials and languages. Sponsored listings appear above organic ones. Houzz also sells a paid professional product, Houzz Pro, that bundles business software with premium profiles, advertising and lead generation. Whether the paid tier is worth it depends on your market; everything in this article applies to the free profile.

Profile completeness: the fields that matter

A thin profile loses the click you earned with the photo. Fill in every field, but these carry the most weight for a US homeowner:

• Business name and category. Use the legal name clients will search for. Pick the category that matches what you sell: Architects and Building Designers, Interior Designers and Decorators, or Design-Build Firms. A firm that does both should choose the one that brings the better client and mention the other in the description.
• Location and service area. Houzz searches by location and radius, so list your office address or city accurately and name the suburbs you serve in the description: "Serving Seattle, Bellevue, Mercer Island and Bainbridge Island."
• License. Enter your state license number so the Verified License badge can appear. For an architect this is the state board registration; for interior designers it depends on the state, and where there is no license, a certification such as NCIDQ belongs in the credentials field instead.
• Description. Three short paragraphs: who you serve, what kind of projects, what the process is like. Write for the homeowner, not for a jury. Include the cities you work in and the project types you want more of.
• Cost information. Houzz asks for typical job cost or a fee structure. A range in US dollars filters out the wrong leads and reassures the right ones.
• Website and social links. The website link is where your video lives, so make sure it points to a page with the film, not the home page.
• Awards and credentials. AIA membership, state chapter, ASID or IIDA, Best of Houzz years, publications.
• Business highlights. Houzz shows attributes such as "Responds Quickly" and "Hired on Houzz" on the listing. Responding to messages within a day is how you earn the first one.

Project photos with room tags

Houzz finds your work by metadata. Each project is a set of photos, and each photo can carry a room type, a style, a location and a description. Homeowners search and filter on those tags, so a beautiful kitchen uploaded without a room tag does not appear in the kitchen results.

For each project:

1. Upload 8 to 20 photos, not 60. Lead with the one image a homeowner would save, usually the kitchen or the main living space, then the exterior, then details.
2. Tag every photo's room and style. Be literal. "Kitchen," "Primary Bathroom," "Exterior," "Living Room." For style, pick the term homeowners use, "Modern," "Farmhouse," "Transitional," rather than your studio's vocabulary.
3. Set the project location to the city and state. A homeowner in Kansas City filters for local work, and Houzz shows "projects in your area" counts on the listing.
4. Write a one-sentence description per photo naming materials and the design move: "White oak island with a quartzite top; the window wall was widened to the full width of the room." Homeowners search phrases like "white oak kitchen," and the description is where that phrase lives.
5. Credit the photographer and confirm you hold the rights to post; see architectural photo licensing for video for how photo licenses limit reuse.

Photo quality matters more on Houzz than anywhere else because the image competes directly against thousands of other kitchens. If you are deciding whether to hire a photographer for a finished project, what architectural photography costs lays out the US price range.

Where video and short films fit

Houzz is a photo-first platform. As of October 2026, Houzz's public help pages for adding video to a professional profile were not available to confirm the current upload options, so treat video on Houzz itself as "use whatever the platform allows when you post, and check the help center for the current rule." Describe the principle to your team: the profile is the place a homeowner lands, and video should be one click away from it even if it is not hosted on it.

That means three practical moves:

• Host the film on your website project page and point the Houzz website link, and each project description, to it. "Watch the 30-second film of this project" with a link is allowed in a description and survives any change in Houzz's embedding rules.
• Put the same film on your Google Business Profile, where video uploads are supported and the specs are published; see Google Business Profile for architects for the current limits.
• Use frames from the film as Houzz photos. A 1080 × 1920 vertical film from Arch2Video is built from six images of one project; the six source images are already your best stills, and the film can be linked from the project description. The AI motion is an interpretation of the images, and films include a small cast of fictional people, so review the clip before you link it and present unbuilt work as concept work.

For a firm that does mostly interiors, the longer argument for video is in video marketing for interior designers. Pinterest, which overlaps heavily with Houzz's audience, has its own visual-search dynamics covered in Pinterest Restyle and visual search for interior designers.

Reviews from US clients

Reviews on Houzz are read by homeowners who have no other way to judge a firm. The star rating and count show in the directory before anyone opens your profile.

Ask at the right moment: the week the client moves back in, or when they send you a photo of the finished room. Send a direct link to your Houzz review page with two sentences: what you enjoyed about the project, and a note that a short honest review helps other homeowners find you. Do not script the review or offer anything for it. Reply to every review with a sentence that names the project and thanks the client by first name.

Spread requests across Houzz and Google rather than sending every client to one. A homeowner comparing you with another firm will look at both, and ten reviews on each is more convincing than twenty on one and none on the other.

Houzz vs Instagram vs Google Business Profile for US homeowner leads

The three channels do different jobs. Most residential firms need all three but should spend time in proportion to where their clients come from.

A homeowner who finds you on Houzz will usually check Google before calling, so the profiles should tell the same story with the same project photos and the same film.

A monthly maintenance checklist

Twenty minutes on the first Monday of the month keeps the profile working.

Keep a shared spreadsheet of which projects are live on Houzz, Google and Instagram, with the film link for each. That list becomes the backbone of the broader content plan in a social media content calendar for architects, and it prevents the common failure where the Houzz profile shows work from 2019 while Instagram shows last month's.

Frequently asked questions

Is Houzz still worth it for a US architecture firm in 2026?

For residential firms, yes, as a free profile. Homeowners planning kitchens, additions and new houses still use it as a photo library, and the directory shows ratings, license verification and local project counts that a homeowner trusts. Whether to pay for Houzz Pro depends on your market and lead volume; set up and maintain the free profile first and measure inquiries for six months before deciding.

Should an interior designer and an architect in the same firm share one Houzz profile?

Usually one profile per legal business, with the category set to whichever discipline brings the better client, and the other discipline described clearly in the text. Two profiles for one firm split reviews and project counts and confuse homeowners who find both.

Can I post renderings of unbuilt projects on Houzz?

Yes, labeled as concept renderings in the photo description, and kept in a separate project from built work. Homeowners browsing for ideas expect photographs, and a rendering presented as a finished room erodes trust the moment someone notices. Wording that fits a caption is in disclosure language for architects.

Where should my 30-second project film live if Houzz does not host it?

On the project page of your website and on your Google Business Profile, with a link from the Houzz project description and the profile's website field. If Houzz offers an upload or embed option when you post, use it as well, but do not make Houzz the only home for the film.