Questions Cost Updated on
What does a virtual tour cost?
The short answer
An amount without the location attached says little, so usually we first come and look at the location in person.
Then you hear what it costs. If everything is already clear, you sometimes hear it in the call. For a 360 tour, four things determine the amount: the number of viewpoints needed to cover the location, how many days of shooting are required, what interaction goes into it, and the hosting afterwards. Of those four, the number of viewpoints is by far the largest. A hair salon of eighty square metres needs a handful, a school building with three floors needs dozens. Omnitour does not work with fixed packages. For 3D, the future tour, an integration, a website or a video, the price depends on what you need. Where there is no location to look at, as with a website, a video or an integration, you sometimes hear it in the call if it is clear what you need, and otherwise afterwards.
- Usually we first come and look at the location, then you hear what it costs.
- Shooting takes one day on location, two for a large location.
- Live within four weeks, counted from the shooting day.
- The number of viewpoints is the biggest cost driver, not the technology.
What "a viewpoint" is and why you need fewer than you think
A viewpoint is one spot where the camera stands and from which you can look in every direction.
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From that spot you see the entire room, so you need far fewer of them than with ordinary photography. The rule of thumb is: one viewpoint per room, plus an extra one wherever someone makes a choice or where something stands that deserves attention.
What drives the count up are corridors and stairs. They are not interesting in themselves, but you need them to make the tour flow: without an intermediate viewpoint you jump from one room into another and lose your bearings. In a building with a lot of circulation space, a fair share of the viewpoints therefore sits in the walkthrough.
The shooting day
1 day
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Almost every location is shot in a single day. For a large or complex location it becomes two. That is the entire burden on your side: nobody needs to be freed up and you do not need to prepare anything except tidying up.
What does make the day longer: shooting outside opening hours, drone footage that depends on the weather cooperating, and rooms with people in view who need to be removed. That last one is not a technical problem but it is a time problem, and it is usually cheaper to shoot when the building is empty.
This is what you are buying
A price without a product says nothing. This is a viewpoint from the park, our 360 tour by the lake. Open it and look around for yourself: this is what the amount is about.
What the interaction costs
Imagery is the largest part of the bill, interaction the smallest, and that surprises people.
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Creating an information point is minutes of work. What does take time is the content that has to go into it: a video that needs to be shot and edited, an audio guide that needs to be recorded, a tour in three languages that needs to be translated three times.
The rule that follows from this is a useful one: interaction that points to existing material is cheap, interaction that requires new material to be made is not. An information point that links to your existing product page costs almost nothing. The same point with a newly produced product video inside it is a different story altogether.
Why hosting counts separately
A tour is not a file that gets delivered and that is that. It has to run somewhere, and that costs money every year.
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This is the part where the differences between providers are largest and where you hear the least up front.
Broadly there are three models. The difference is not so much in the amount as in what happens when you stop paying, and that is a question worth asking in advance.
How to compare prices from different providers
Prices for 360 tours are notoriously hard to place side by side, because everyone puts something different into the price.
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Four questions make them comparable.
That last one is the question people forget. Locations change. If you renovate one department in two years' time, you want to know whether only that part gets replaced or the whole tour has to be made again.
Bespoke
A tour built around a task in your business: a VR story on a trade fair stand, a building let before it is finished, a booking made inside the tour. Quoted per project; it begins where the standard tour ends. Read how we work bespoke →
A few follow-up questions
Why are there no prices on this site?
Because an amount without the location attached says little. Two buildings of the same floor area can differ by a factor of three in the number of viewpoints. Instead of a guide price that will not hold anyway, usually we first come and look at the location in person. Then you hear what it costs. If everything is already clear, you sometimes hear it in the call. What you want to show, you pick in the form, with examples for each part; your choices come along to that call.
Are there recurring costs?
Yes, for hosting. A tour has to run somewhere for as long as it is online. What else recurs depends on what you put in it; a tour without changes costs nothing further.
Can I start small and expand later?
Yes, and for a large location that is usually also the sensible thing to do. You start with the rooms that matter most and expand later with extra viewpoints in the same tour.
Continue reading
- How does making a tour work, and how long does it take? Live within four weeks of the shooting day, with one day on location. How it works, what makes it longer and how to get it faster.
- What happens to my virtual tour if I switch supplier? What happens to your 360 tour if you switch supplier, and the four questions to ask before you sign.
- Do I choose a 360 tour, a 3D scan or both? A 360 tour is photography, a 3D scan a model you can measure in. When to choose which, what we do in 3D, and why it can also be both.