Drawing Pictures for Your Price List with AI

Give every category tile and price list item a picture in one consistent look, without a photo shoot. You see the cost before anything is drawn, approve a sample first, and review every picture before it goes on your price list.

Updated 7 minutes ago 15 views ai categories price-list pictures visual-builder

Drawing Pictures for Your Price List with AI

The visual estimate builder is only as quick as its pictures. A tablet full of grey initials makes your crew read every tile; a screen of clear, matching pictures lets them tap through a quote without thinking. Most businesses never get there because photographing two hundred items is a project nobody has time for.

Pictures with AI draws them for you: category tiles, price list items, or both. Every picture in a set is drawn to match one sample you approve, so the whole screen looks like it was designed together rather than collected from five vendor websites.

You'll find it on the Price List Categories page (the Pictures with AI button at the top), and as Make with AI next to a category's tile picture.

When to use it

  • You're turning on the visual estimate builder and most tiles are still initials.
  • Your pictures don't match. Some are vendor photos, some are phone snaps, some are missing. A single look makes the builder far easier to scan.
  • You sell services as much as parts. There's no product photo for "Gutter cleaning, per 100 ft", but a drawn picture of a gutter and a scoop works fine.

It's the wrong tool when customers expect the exact product, such as a specific faucet model or a branded part. AI draws a generic version with no logos or labels. Keep your real photos for those items. That's why the default is to draw only items that have no picture yet.

How the pictures end up looking like a set

  1. You choose a look. Pick a style (Flat, Line, Soft 3D, Bold tile or Photo), one main colour, and optionally a few words of your own ("make the tools look heavy-duty").
  2. AI draws one sample. Use Draw again or Change the look until it's right. This is the moment to be picky: every other picture copies it.
  3. Use this look. Every other picture is drawn with your sample beside it, copying its style, colours and framing but not its subject.
  4. Your look is remembered. Next month, when you add a category, Make with AI draws its picture in the same look straight away, with no sample to choose.

Our recommendation: Bold tile in your brand colour for category tiles. It reads best at tablet size. Use Photo when you're drawing items that are physical products.

The typical workflow

  1. Choose what gets pictures. Tick Category tiles, Price list items, or both. Each shows how many have no picture yet and how many there are in all.
  2. Choose which ones. Only the ones with no picture (the default) leaves every picture you already have alone. Replace existing pictures too redraws everything in the new look. Use it when you're changing your look, and you can undo it for 7 days.
  3. Choose where. The whole price list, or one category and everything under it. For a big price list, do one branch at a time. AI draws up to 300 pictures per run.
  4. Read the cost preview (more below), then Draw a sample.
  5. Approve the sample, then let it draw. Each picture takes about half a minute and the page shows them arriving. Keep the page open. If you leave, it stops and carries on from where it was the next time you click Pictures with AI.
  6. Review. Untick any you don't like, or use Again on a single picture. Nothing on your price list has changed yet.
  7. Use them. The pictures go onto your category tiles and items. For 7 days the categories page shows an Undo note.

What it costs

Pictures use AI generations, which are separate from the AI credits that summaries and AI search use. One picture drawn is one generation, and so is each Draw again.

Before anything is drawn, the setup screen shows a preview: how many generations the run will use, how many your plan includes this month, and what the rest will cost in dollars from your prepaid balance. If your balance won't cover them, it tells you how many it does cover. Add funds in the License Manager to draw the rest.

You're only charged for pictures that actually come back. If AI declines to draw something, or the connection drops, that attempt is free.

If you don't see the Pictures with AI button at all, AI generations aren't part of your plan.

Undo

Undo puts back the pictures each category and item had before, or none if they had none. If you've uploaded a different picture since, yours stays. Using a new set of AI pictures ends the chance to undo the previous set.

A single picture from Make with AI replaces the old one the same way an upload does, with no undo. Upload the old one again if you change your mind.

Common mistakes

Approving a sample you're lukewarm about. Every other picture copies it. Two more tries now are cheaper than redrawing 150 pictures later.

Choosing "Replace existing pictures too" over real product photos. A drawn faucet is no substitute for a photo of the exact faucet a customer is buying. Leave the default, or narrow Where? to the categories you actually want redrawn.

Using the Photo style for services. A "realistic photo" of Hourly labor tends to come out as a stock image of a stranger. Flat, Line and Bold tile handle services far better.

Vague category names. AI works from the category name and the items in it. Misc or Category 4 gives it nothing to draw. Tidy your categories first; see Organizing your price list categories.

Re-importing a vendor price book afterwards. An update from a vendor price book can replace an item's picture with the vendor's own. Tick Exclude from Import Updates on items whose pictures you want to keep. Excluded items also stop getting the vendor's price changes, so use it with care.

Expecting words on the pictures. Pictures never include text, labels or logos, so they stay readable at tile size. The category or item name is already shown under each tile.

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