As the founder of one of the fastest growing 3D Virtual Tour companies in the country, I’ve spent a lot of time testing all the leading virtual tour platforms available. There are hundreds of these 3D software on the market, but only a few can produce the quality content my clients need.

There are many factors to consider when choosing virtual tour software for your business, including price, usability, and quality. Sometimes certain types of locations require special features that are only available on one platform. Therefore, as one of the largest virtual travel companies in the US, we have to use all of these platforms.

Today I will discuss my top 3 virtual tour platforms. The software I’ll list today is not only the best of the best, but is the software we use for 99% of our travels.

Matterport

Chances are, if you’re into virtual tours, you’ve seen a Matterport before. You’ve probably seen hundreds of Matterports. This is because Matterport is the most popular Virtual Tour platform of all time and for good reasons.

Matterports are instantly recognizable by the fully three-dimensional “Dollhouse” that appears when you first load the tour. This feature is often absent from many other platforms; if not, Matterport still makes this one the best. The way Matterport works is that a full 3D scan is taken at different locations of a property, which are then automatically stitched together by the software to create one large scale view with 99% accurate measurements.

Matterports are useful for easily creating floor plans, which is useful in the real estate market. Real estate agents use Matterports most often because of all these features, the dollhouse, the floor plans and the realistic rendering. This saves them time and attracts more buyers because essentially anyone can view the property for free as if they were there in person. This is efficient for real estate agents and often leads to more calls, tours and ultimately a sale because the potential buyers already know exactly what the interior looks like before they ever contact the real estate agent.

If you’re not a realtor, some of these premium features may not be necessary for the tour you need, especially considering the high cost of these Matterport scans. The Matterport Pro 2 costs several thousand dollars alone, and this does not include the software or web hosting.

If you own a large virtual tour company, you can expect to pay as much as $1,400 per month to host up to 500 tours at a time. For this reason, we like to use other tours for other scenarios, which can be cheaper and benefit the customer.

Related: How Virtual Reality Affects Real Estate?

Kuula

One of the most pioneering virtual tour platforms you’ve probably never heard of is Kuula. Released in 2016, Kuula has worked its way up to one of the top platforms quite quickly. The special thing about Kuula is that virtual tours can be made of buildings and locations that do not yet exist. This is especially useful for contractors or construction planners to create a fully explorable environment for a building that is still under construction. These 3D models look very realistic and are often confused with real images.

Together with this feature, Kuula can do everything a standard virtual tour platform can do. Kuula is known for its fast loading and mobile friendly tours. These tours are useful for real estate and local businesses as they are optimized to work quickly on smartphones. They may not be as detailed as Matterports, but Kuula’s price makes up for it.

First, Kuula’s software works flawlessly with any 360° camera on the market, so there are no expensive cameras to be an obstacle for a new virtual tour company. The software and hosting are also very affordable. Kuula offers its software for free, with very few features behind a paywall, as well as some of the most inexpensive hosting of all platforms.

Related: How Virtual Tours Can Improve Your Marketing Strategy

Cloud Pano

My company works with all kinds of real estate. Matterports are great for real estate ads and small businesses, and Kuula is essential for new construction projects; but when touring for large areas these platforms suffer. That’s why we use a cloud panorama when we create a virtual tour for college campuses, resorts, or state parks.

Cloud Pano works best with large buildings, facilities or outdoor spaces. Technically, a Matterport is possible for large buildings, but to traverse the virtual environments you must click through each panoramic area created by the camera. Imagine a very long hallway. Matterport basically requires you to “click” your way down the hallway, which can take a long time. If the building is a resort or a factory, it may be impossible to see everything the location has to offer in a reasonable amount of time.

One downside to CloudPano is that the tours have to be sewn together by hand, which can take a lot of time compared to Matterport. But the advantage of sewing it yourself is that you can create the best tour path for the property and include or remove specific areas. This allows my company to charge a little more for our work because there is much more of a creative aspect to these tours, where expert experience yields a better result. CloudPanos is also significantly cheaper to host than Matterports, which is why it’s my preferred tour platform for my business.

Related: This real estate hack will make selling a home easier in 2023

The future

Virtual tours have only just begun to gain popularity in recent years. I believe most people still don’t know they exist unless they are entrepreneurs or in real estate. For this reason, I believe that the virtual tour industry will experience tremendous growth in terms of user engagement and technical innovations in the coming years. For now, these three platforms are the best on the market for my business. However, I see this changing rapidly as 3D software and 360 cameras continue to proliferate and the popularity of consumer VR headsets grows. I’m excited to see where these platforms go over the next five years.