Custom AR experiences can cost anywhere from £3,000 to £25,000 to create for brands. The costs can run higher depending on the project scale, objectives and brand reputation.
Pricing Range for Custom Augmented Reality Experiences
For custom augmented reality experiences, the price brackets can be segregated into three distinct compartments.
Social AR
WebAR
Standalone iOS or Android app
Cost range for custom Social AR experiences
Social AR experiences are the most cost effective and usually range from £3,000 to £25,000. In most cases, this will be the only cost involved since these are one time projects that don’t require timely updates or have extensive backends.
Social AR experiences are limited to select social media platforms and cannot be used on the web or within a web app. On the other hand, the volume of daily active users on these social media sites makes it too enticing to pass.
Billions of people use social media every day and this makes it an interesting proposition for brands to spend on custom Social AR experiences.
Platforms on which you can develop and publish Social AR include Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, Snapchat and TikTok. Each platform has their own limitations and policies which studios must adhere to when creating custom AR effects for brands.
Costs can be higher when developing for brands that operate on a global scale or when a brand decides to convert multiple SKUs into usable AR effects for their campaigns.
Pricing for custom WebAR experiences
WebAR has no platform limitations like social media apps and therefore you are free to develop under a framework’s capabilities as long as your brand is in line with privacy and data policies.
A user does not have to download an app or register to create an account using WebAR and therefore the friction of using an AR experience on the web is reduced.
Custom WebAR experiences usually start from GBP 10,000 and can go up to GBP 50,000. An important thing to note is that Web AR is not limited to just the development cost mentioned here.
A brand will need to pay for server usage, updates, a custom dashboard, analytics, etc. There are some platforms that take care of these for you but then your brand’s access to data becomes limited.
Scaling WebAR for multiple SKUs can easily push the costs higher and the development time is also substantially increased. WebAR also requires a lot of performance and usability testing before it can be published.
We at Oraar Studio recommend that you always start first with a Social AR experience, increase offerings to more SKUs and then move to WebAR once you are comfortable with the costs involved and the time it will take to develop these effects.
Quotations for standalone apps with AR experiences
If you wish to build a standalone app for Android or iOS with embedded AR experiences, the costs will run significantly higher compared to Social AR or WebAR.
Of all available options, standalone AR apps are the riskiest in terms of investment. If you are building an AR app, it is likely that it is for one of the following reasons:
Games where AR is used mostly or partially.
Fashion or clothing or beauty try on apps.
Education apps for different age groups.
Training app for employees or students.
In order to run apps of this magnitude, you will need to invest over GBP 500,000 in order to get to a point where you can have a polished AR app. Of course, there are many alternatives and SDKs you can use to lower costs but they too take away some of the control you have with your own backend and systems in place.
For assets used inside your AR experience, you will need to pay for every time these assets are requested by a user and the servers required for uptime will eat into your margins.
Therefore we highly recommend that you perform cost analysis, take quotations from a few studios and see if it’s worth the hassle for your team.
What you get for spending on custom AR experiences.
It only makes sense to ask what your brand gets in return for spending a ton of money on custom augmented reality experiences. We have simplified all of these for you.
Brand awareness and organic reach
For Social AR effects, you can increase your brand awareness and organic reach with user generated content from your AR experiences.
This leads to a trickle down effect where users post content created with your custom AR experience and then their friends want to try the same.
User trust is built from the ground up
A user that has never heard about your brand can easily try out your AR effects to see how well the brand integrates with their values.
Users can try products in AR and make purchase decisions. They can check product quality from the comfort of their couch and appreciate the work put into educating them.
Increased sales and conversions
Social AR and WebAR can easily lead to more sales and conversions once the user trust is acquired. Users seem to reciprocate more with brands who put the effort to bring a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) experience to users.
A set of AR experiences can easily help you determine if sales are improving when compared to traditional marketing efforts.
You can also use AR campaigns to build your email list, provide discounts and host giveaways.
Want custom AR experiences for your brand? Feel free to get in touch with us and we will suggest the right augmented reality campaign for your brand.
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