What drives 360° virtual tour pricing: scene count, capture day, hotspots, Street View publishing and hosting — plus the questions to ask before you sign.
Almost every quote you will get for a 360° virtual tour is priced per scene — a single point the camera stands on and shoots a full sphere. Understanding that one unit explains most of the price differences you will see, and it is the number to pin down before you compare anything else.
What a scene actually is
A scene is one tripod position. A small café might need six. A three-floor showroom might need forty. Photographers count scenes differently, so ask two things when comparing quotes:
- How many scenes are included, and what happens if the space needs more on the day?
- Is the price per scene captured, or per scene published? Some shoots capture extras as insurance and only publish the good ones.
A useful rule of thumb: you want a scene roughly every 3–5 metres in a walkable space, and one at every decision point — doorways, stair landings, the top and bottom of a ramp.
The five things you are paying for
| Line item | What it covers | Typically |
|---|---|---|
| Capture day | Photographer, camera, lighting, travel, on-site time | Fixed day rate |
| Per scene | Stitching, exposure blending, retouching, alignment | Scales with scene count |
| Interactive build | Hotspots, floor plan, info cards, booking links | Fixed or per hotspot |
| Publishing | Embedding on your site, Google Street View upload | Often bundled |
| Hosting | Serving the tour, bandwidth, uptime | Monthly or annual |
What makes a tour more expensive
Four factors move the number more than anything else:
- Difficult light. A space with big windows and dark corners needs HDR bracketing and more careful post-production. A uniformly lit office does not.
- Out-of-hours capture. Retail and hospitality usually have to be shot empty, which means early mornings or nights.
- Interactivity. A tour that just lets you look around costs less than one with product hotspots, embedded video, a floor plan and a booking link on every room.
- Multiple sites. Per-site cost drops sharply across a rollout — the build and template work is done once.
The trap to avoid: a low headline price with hosting billed separately and indefinitely. Ask what happens to your tour if you stop paying, and whether you can export or self-host the assets.
What you should expect included
At a minimum, a professional tour should come with:
- An embed that works on your own domain, not just a link to someone else's viewer
- Mobile and tablet support, including gyroscope look-around
- A floor plan or scene menu if the space has more than about eight scenes
- Alt text and a text fallback, so the page still means something to search engines and screen readers
- Publication to Google Street View if the space is publicly accessible
Is it worth it?
The honest answer depends on whether people choose your space before they visit it. Hotels, venues, showrooms, clinics, gyms and universities all have a decision moment where "what is it actually like inside" is the blocker. A tour removes it. A warehouse that customers never enter does not have that problem, and the money is better spent elsewhere.
If you are weighing it up, the useful measure is not "how many people viewed the tour" but "did enquiries, bookings or direction requests go up". Ask your provider to set up that measurement before the shoot, not after.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a 360° virtual tour take to produce?
Most spaces are captured in a single day. Stitching, retouching and building the interactive tour usually takes another five to ten working days. Street View publishing can add a few days on top while Google processes the upload.
Do I need to close my business for the shoot?
Usually yes, or shoot outside opening hours. People moving through a 360° capture create ghosting artefacts, and most businesses prefer not to have customers identifiable in a published tour for privacy reasons.
Can I update a virtual tour later?
Individual scenes can be re-shot and swapped without rebuilding the whole tour. Budget for a partial re-capture if you refit, rebrand or change layout — it is much cheaper than starting again.
