3D for e-commerce4 min read

3D as a service pricing per product per month

What our monthly per-product price covers and why we don't sell single models, with the point at which building 3D in-house costs less.

By CharpstAR · 21 Mar 2023 · Updated 22 Sept 2026

Part of 3D models for e-commerce: the complete guide

MAR2023

3D as a service pricing: why we charge per product per month

A per-model quote from a 3D supplier usually runs to a few hundred for one asset, and what you get is a file. Hosting it, converting it for iOS, updating it when the fabric range changes, getting it into the product template and ordering it again when the model turns out to be the wrong size are then up to you.

We price per product per month. The tiers and what each one includes are below.

Prices and what each tier includes

Tier	Price	Term	Minimum volume
Basic	From 10 dollars per product per month	12 months	100 variants
Value	From 20 dollars per model per month	24 months	100 models
Enterprise	Custom	Flexible	Flexible

Basic covers 3D asset creation, AR and 3D web integration, CDN hosting, ongoing updates and maintenance, replacement of up to 30 percent of your variants each year, and implementation.

Value has everything in Basic, plus CDN-optimised hosting, custom dimensions, virtual try-on, annotations, five rendered product images, a 360 render viewer, a 3D configurator with colour and texture selection, and custom implementation. The viewer, configurator and try-on are described on the solutions page.

Enterprise has everything in Value with a tailored scope, custom integrations, dedicated support and commercial terms set around your volume. The current list is on our prices page, and if this article goes out of date, that page is the one to go by.

Why we charge monthly and not per model

A 3D model still needs work after it's delivered, and the monthly fee is there to pay for that work.

Hosting

Each product needs two files, GLB and USDZ, served from a CDN with the right MIME types and cache headers, at whatever traffic your product pages get. That hosting bill comes every month, for as long as the product is on sale.

Browser and platform changes

Browsers change, iOS changes what Quick Look accepts, Android changes Scene Viewer's limits and your shop platform changes its theme structure. Models built three years ago need checking and sometimes re-exporting. On a per-model contract that work is billed as a new job each time.

Catalogue changes

Fabrics get discontinued, a leg finish is added, a size is dropped. With per-model pricing each of those is a quote and a two-week wait. Basic includes replacing up to 30 percent of your variants each year to cover changes like these.

Integration

Getting the viewer onto the product template is the hardest part. What a 3D product viewer is and what it needs from the page is in the glossary. It has to be connected to the variant selector so the model shows the colour the shopper picked, load fast on mobile and keep working after a platform update. We set this up as part of implementation in every tier, and we look after it afterwards while the model is on your page.

When building in-house is cheaper

In-house makes sense with a large catalogue that changes slowly, at least one full-time 3D artist you can keep busy, engineers who can own the viewer and the asset pipeline, and enough products that a salary divided by the product count comes in under a per-product fee. As a rough guide, that's a few thousand stable products and a design team that already works in CAD. At that size the software is free, and the cost is the people who know how to use it.

A service fits better when the catalogue is in the hundreds and changes with the seasons, there's no 3D artist on staff, and the engineering roadmap has no room for maintaining a WebGL viewer. Most of the furniture, homeware and speciality retailers we work with are in that position.

Plenty of companies end up with a mix. The service builds and maintains the library and your designers hand over CAD geometry, which brings the modelling cost down and makes the models more accurate.

A freelancer selling single models will usually give the lowest invoice. Hosting, updates and integration then need someone on your side.

Questions to ask when comparing quotes

Does the price include hosting, or is that separate and metered by bandwidth?
Does it include both GLB and USDZ, or only one?
Does it include the integration on your platform, or a file and a link to documentation?
What happens when a variant changes? Included, or quoted?
Do you get the source files, so you are not locked in?
Is the model dimensionally accurate to your specification sheet, or built by eye from photographs?
Who fixes it when Safari breaks something?

Write the answers next to each quote. Where one says "no" or "extra", add the cost of doing that part yourself before comparing it with a monthly fee.

Working out whether 3D pays for itself

Do the sum for your own shop. One product on Basic at 10 dollars a month comes to 120 dollars a year, and the current rates are on prices. Work out how many extra sales or avoided returns on that product would cover the 120 dollars, using your margin and your average return cost.

If you want to measure it on your own page first, send us a product with photos and dimensions and we'll build and host the model for free (free sample).