Skip to content
3D.MBA

Market map

What people are actually buying

Twenty services, ranked by how often they are commissioned rather than by what they bill. Each one carries an indicative price band, a realistic turnaround, and the specific question worth asking a supplier before you sign — because a market map that only lists what people sell is an advert.

20
Services mapped
5
Categories
11
In high demand
2026
Rates gathered
Search
Sort by

Showing 20 of 20.

1

3D product modelling

3D content production Very high

Building a web-ready model of a physical product from photos, drawings or a CAD file.

$35 – $900
per SKU
Per SKU · 3–10 days per SKU
Optimised glTF/GLBUSDZ for ARSource .blend or DCC filePBR texture set
2

CGI product photography

3D content production Very high

Rendering catalogue and campaign imagery from 3D instead of photographing physical samples.

$15 – $250
per image
Per image or per shot list · 1–2 weeks per campaign
Hero and detail rendersLifestyle scenesColourway variantsLayered files
3

CAD to web optimisation

3D content production High

Turning a 400 MB STEP or JT assembly into something a browser can load in under three seconds.

$100 – $3,500
per assembly
Per assembly · 2–15 days
Budgeted glTF with Draco/KTX2Decimation and tolerance reportLOD chainPart-name mapping
4

Product configurator development

Software & configurators Very high

The interactive build-your-own experience, its rule engine, pricing and commerce integration.

$25,000 – $400,000
build
Project + licence, or SaaS subscription · 8–20 weeks
Configurator UIRule and pricing engineCart/ERP integrationAdmin catalogue tooling
5

AR try-on & placement

Software & configurators High

View-in-your-room and try-on, delivered through AR Quick Look, Scene Viewer or WebAR.

$30 – $400
per SKU
Per SKU + platform fee · 1–3 days per SKU once modelled
USDZ and GLBTrue-scale validationPDP integrationAnalytics events
6

Custom WebGL application

Software & configurators High

Bespoke real-time 3D — a planner, a viewer, a training tool, a showroom.

$40,000 – $600,000
Time & materials · 10–30 weeks
ApplicationAsset pipelinePerformance budgetSource and handover
7

Laser scanning & reality capture

Reality capture High

Terrestrial or mobile LiDAR of a site, registered into a single coordinate system.

$900 – $6,000
per day
Per day or per m² · 1–3 weeks to registered data
Registered E57/LAZRegistration reportControl networkWeb-viewable octree
8

Drone survey & inspection

Reality capture High

Aerial photogrammetry and inspection imagery, flown to a planned ground sample distance.

$600 – $12,000
per site
Per site or per hectare · 3–10 days
OrthomosaicDense cloud and meshDefect reportFlight log
9

Photogrammetry capture

Reality capture Moderate

Photographic reconstruction of physical objects into measured, textured 3D.

$150 – $2,500
per object
Per object · 2–7 days per object
Dense meshRetopologised low-polyBaked texturesScale reference
10

Scan-to-BIM / as-built modelling

Reality capture High

Turning a point cloud into a structured Revit or IFC model with real object semantics.

$1 – $12
per m²
Per m² by LOD · 3–8 weeks
Revit/IFC model at agreed LODDeviation reportClash-ready geometry
11

Digital twin build

Industrial & simulation Growing fast

Live plant or asset data bound to real geometry, with history and alarms.

$60,000 – $1,500,000
Project + per-tag licensing · 12–40 weeks
Bound 3D modelOPC-UA/MQTT tag mappingDashboardsHistorian integration
12

Production line simulation

Industrial & simulation Moderate

Discrete-event modelling of throughput, buffers and constraints before capital is committed.

$18,000 – $350,000
Per study · 6–16 weeks
Validated modelScenario comparisonBottleneck analysisSensitivity study
13

Robot cell simulation & offline programming

Industrial & simulation Moderate

Reach, cycle time, collision and program generation for a robot cell, before it is built.

$12,000 – $250,000
Per cell · 4–12 weeks
Cell modelReachability studyCycle-time estimatePost-processed programs
14

VR training & simulation

Industrial & simulation Growing

Procedural or safety training delivered in VR, with assessment and reporting.

$25,000 – $400,000
per module
Per module · 10–24 weeks
VR moduleLMS/SCORM integrationAssessment logicFacilitator guide
15

Asset pipeline engineering

Advisory & enablement Growing

Automating CAD-in to budgeted-asset-out, so the hundredth SKU costs what the tenth did.

$30,000 – $450,000
Project + retainer · 8–20 weeks
Automated pipelineValidation gatesCI integrationRunbook
16

PIM & catalogue integration

Advisory & enablement High

Making the 3D catalogue a projection of the product master rather than a second, diverging copy.

$20,000 – $350,000
Project · 6–16 weeks
PIM schema extensionSync jobsGovernance modelReconciliation reports
17

3D performance audit

Advisory & enablement Moderate

Finding out why the existing experience is slow, on the devices customers actually use.

$6,000 – $90,000
Fixed fee · 2–4 weeks
Device-matrix measurementsDraw call and payload breakdownPrioritised remediationBudget targets
18

3D commerce strategy & analytics

Advisory & enablement Growing

Deciding which SKUs deserve 3D, and measuring whether it moved conversion or returns.

$4,000 – $40,000
per month
Retainer · Ongoing
SKU prioritisationTest designConversion and returns analysisRoadmap
19

Specialist staff augmentation

Advisory & enablement High

Borrowing scarce three.js, technical-art or pipeline skills for a defined stretch.

$250 – $1,800
per day
Day rate · Immediate
Embedded contributorCode and asset handoverDocumentation
20

Managed 3D delivery & hosting

Advisory & enablement Moderate

Serving, transcoding and versioning 3D assets at production scale.

$300 – $12,000
per month
Subscription + bandwidth · 1–2 weeks
Asset CDNAutomatic transcode to GLB/USDZVersioningUsage analytics

Bands are indicative global planning figures in the region you have selected, converted from a USD baseline at a fixed rate. Onshore and offshore rates differ by 3–5× — a configurator build quoted in San Francisco and one quoted in Ahmedabad are not the same number and should not be. The same service name also covers wildly different scopes between suppliers. Use these to sanity-check a quote, never to set a budget.

Reading a quote

Four things that move a price by 10×

Scope hidden inside a familiar noun

"As-built model" spans a massing block and a model with bolt holes. "Digital twin" spans a 3D dashboard and a validated simulation. Two quotes for the same words routinely differ by an order of magnitude, and both are honest. Pin the deliverable, the level of detail and the tolerance in writing before comparing numbers.

Revisions and source files

Per-SKU modelling quotes rarely include more than one revision round, and often exclude the source file entirely. A model you cannot re-open is a model you will pay to rebuild the first time the product changes. Ask what revision three costs and who owns the authoring file.

Which device it has to run on

A scene that holds 60 fps on the studio's workstation and 9 fps on a mid-range Android has failed, and you will only find out after launch. Any proposal for interactive 3D should name a target device, a triangle budget and a payload ceiling. If it does not, that is the first thing to send back.

Where the rules live afterwards

The expensive part of a configurator is never the 3D — it is encoding what the factory can actually build, and keeping that in step with the ERP. If the option catalogue ends up owned by the agency's CMS rather than your product master, you have bought a second source of truth that will start diverging within a year.

Honesty

Where we would tell you not to bother

Most catalogues have a few dozen SKUs where 3D pays for itself and a long tail where it does not. Configurable, high-consideration and returns-prone products earn it. A $12 accessory with one colourway does not, and modelling it will cost more than it ever returns.

The same applies upward. If your product has three options and they are all colours, you need good photography and a swatch picker, not a rule engine. We have talked more than one prospective client out of a configurator, and theROI calculator on the pricing page is built to return a negative verdict when the numbers warrant one.

Bands are indicative global planning figures in the region you have selected, converted from a USD baseline at a fixed rate. Onshore and offshore rates differ by 3–5× — a configurator build quoted in San Francisco and one quoted in Ahmedabad are not the same number and should not be. The same service name also covers wildly different scopes between suppliers. Use these to sanity-check a quote, never to set a budget.

Not sure which of these you need?

Describe the product and the problem. If the answer is a service we do not sell, we will say so and point you at who does.

Book a demoTry the configurator

We reply to every enquiry within one business day, in your timezone — with a frame budget, not a brochure.