A manufacturer has three ways to put a 3D showroom in front of buyers: a self-serve platform from roughly 250 a month, an enterprise visual-commerce platform on an annual contract, or a showroom built for you at a fixed price where you keep the 3D models. The right one depends on how many products change how often, and on what you want to own when the contract ends.
This guide lays out the options with published prices where vendors publish them, and the questions that separate them. We build showrooms ourselves, so we are one of the options; we have tried to say where each of the others is the better fit.
What a manufacturer actually needs from a showroom
Consumer configurators are built to sell a sofa in a different fabric. Industrial buyers are asking something harder: will this fit, connect and work in my plant? That changes the shopping list.
- CAD in, browser out. Your engineering files are the source. The vendor needs to take STEP, IGES or native CAD and produce something that loads quickly in a browser.
- True scale. Clearances, footprint and service access only mean something at real size, which is why augmented reality on the buyer’s own floor matters more here than in retail.
- Detail on demand. Hotspots that open a spec, a part number or a short video, so a distributor does not have to explain the cabinet on a call.
- No install. Plant engineers and procurement teams work on locked-down machines. If it needs an app or a plugin, most of them will never see it.
- Something to measure. Which campaign brought the buyer, what they opened and how long they stayed.
The options, side by side
| Option | What it is | Published starting price | Who hosts it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visao | Web-based 3D and AR platform for marketing, sales and after-sales | From 250 a month on GetApp, with a free trial and free version | The platform |
| Expivi | 3D configurator and personalization platform | From €250 a month on Capterra, priced per feature, with a free trial | The platform |
| Emersya | Platform for 3D and AR configurators at scale, including industrial products | Annual plans with modular options; price on request | The platform, on AWS |
| Threekit | Enterprise visual commerce and configuration | Not published; one industry analysis puts enterprise platforms of this kind at US$50,000 to US$150,000+ a year | The platform |
| TAPQUAD® | Showrooms, configurators, digital twins and web AR, built per project | AR from CAD $688 a model; showrooms quoted at a fixed price after one call | Your site, ours, or a standalone kiosk |
Directory listings and third-party estimates are only a starting point. Ask each vendor for a written quote against the same scope.
Self-serve platforms: fastest way to start
Visao and Expivi both list entry plans around 250 a month and offer trials, which makes them the quickest route to finding out whether 3D changes anything for your buyers. You upload or commission models, assemble the experience in their tools and embed it on your site.
A good fit when you have a marketing team that will maintain it, a catalogue that changes regularly, and you want to test the idea before committing capital. Watch for per-feature pricing that grows as you add AR, configuration rules or analytics, and for what happens to the models if you leave.
Enterprise platforms: when 3D is the storefront
Emersya and Threekit sit at the other end: annual contracts, integration with commerce and pricing systems, and the infrastructure to run thousands of configurable SKUs. Neither publishes prices. Emersya states that its viewer runs on its own AWS infrastructure; its product page does not say who owns the models or whether they can be exported, so that is a question for the sales call.
A good fit when you sell configurable products online at volume, need live pricing and rules across a large catalogue, and have a team to own the platform. Watch for multi-year commitments and the cost of updating models, which some vendors bill separately.
A built showroom: when you want to keep what you paid for
The third route is to have the showroom built for you. This is how we work. A single-product configurator takes 3 to 4 weeks; a facility twin or multi-product showroom 6 to 10 weeks. The price and the launch date are fixed after one scoping call. Augmented reality is priced per model: CAD $888 each below ten, CAD $688 at ten or more, with a 3-model pilot at CAD $2,664 that is credited if you go on to a 10-model order within 60 days.
The 3D models are handed over in GLB and USDZ, the open formats every modern browser, phone and engine reads, so they keep working in a deck, a manual or a trade show stand. A standalone build needs no subscription to keep running. The showroom code stays with us unless you choose to buy it outright, and we would rather say that here than leave it in a contract.
A good fit when your catalogue is a set of large, engineered products that change a few times a year, when you sell through distributors or agencies, or when you want the asset on your balance sheet rather than a line in your subscriptions. Not the best fit when you have hundreds of SKUs changing every quarter and a team that wants to edit them daily; a platform does that better.
Six questions to ask every vendor
- What do we receive, in which file formats? GLB and USDZ are portable. A proprietary scene file is not.
- What stops working the day we stop paying? Ask for the answer in writing.
- Can you work from our CAD, and who optimizes it for the browser?
- What does a model update cost when the product or the branding changes?
- Does it run with nothing to install on a locked-down corporate laptop and on a phone?
- How will we know it worked? Which campaigns, which buyers, what they opened.
We wrote more on the second question in who owns your 3D models when the subscription ends, and on AR formats in AR on your own website, without an app.
See one before you decide
Four of our showrooms are live in the browser on our interactive 3D page, with a model you can place on your own floor from a phone. If you are an agency, the same work can ship under your brand through our partner program.
Sources, checked 20 October 2026: Visao on GetApp, Expivi on Capterra, Emersya, FrameSixty’s 3D configurator cost analysis.