How much does it cost to develop a VR app? Pricing Guide
Without fogging
„And how much will it cost roughly?“ That's the first question at every meeting we have. Most development studios will answer evasively: „It depends...“ We at VR3D.cz play with open cards. Yes, the price always depends on the scope, but to give you an idea of the return on investment (ROI), we have prepared a transparent guide to VR development prices on the Czech B2B market.
Rough price sessions: what to bounce back from?
Based on our experience and market standards for professional development in Unreal Engine 5, we can divide projects into three categories:
1. Basic applications and visualization (100 000 - 250 000 CZK)
Ideal for a first introduction to VR. Most of the time it is a virtual tour of a scanned environment or a simple showroom with a few products. Interaction is basic (walking, telekinesis, product recoloring).
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Delivery time: 1-2 months.
2. Interactive training and simulation (250 000 - 600 000 CZK)
This is our most common product. The app contains custom logic, physics and „gamification“. The user has to pick up the right tool, disassemble a specific part or go through a safety scenario.
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Delivery time: 2-4 months.
3. Complex Multiplayer & Metaverse solution (600 000 - 1 500 000+ CZK)
Extensive environments, hundreds of interactive elements and above all - support for multiple users at the same time (Multi-user). We'll get to that below.
What makes development the most expensive? (3 main factors)
If you have a limited budget, it's good to know what costs the most money to develop. It's these three things:
1. Multiplayer (Multiple users at once)
Do you want a lecturer from Prague and a student from Brno to meet in the app? Count on the fact that Multi-user mode will increase the price of development by 100 to 300 %. Why so suddenly?
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Code complexity: Every hand movement, every dropped screw has to be synchronized in real time via the internet to everyone else's glasses.
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Testing: Instead of one tester, we have to test the application with a network of headsets.
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Infrastructure: We need to deploy and secure servers for you.
2. Complex interactions and physics
Lifting the cup is easy. But simulating fire spreading as the wind blows, or the physics of liquid overflowing in a flask, takes hours of advanced programming.
3. Hand modelling and animation
If you want to get something into VR that doesn't physically exist or can't be scanned (e.g. a moving animated character, an exploding engine), our 3D graphics designer has to create it from scratch. And that takes time.
Scanning: our weapon to save your budget
Here comes our biggest competitive advantage. The vast majority of studies have to model all environments. We have the cutting-edge technology to 3D scanning and photogrammetry.
If you want to bring your real factory floor into the app, we'll scan it. This will save you hundreds of hours of work by a senior 3D graphic designer, which would otherwise cost you hundreds of thousands.
But beware, don't confuse this with a one-click spell. Scanning is not „take a picture and paste“. A raw laser scan has hundreds of millions of polygons. The Meta Quest 3 glasses would probably explode when it was read. In order to turn this heavy scan into a light, beautiful, and smooth model for Unreal Engine 5, our developers have to do complex optimization (called retopology and texture baking). It's a highly technical job, but the result is significantly cheaper and more visually realistic than hand modelling.
No hidden fees. The app is yours.
We don't like SaaS (Software as a Service) traps. Our business model is straightforward:
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You pay for development: You pay the agreed amount for the creation of the application.
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No monthly licenses: Once the Single-player app is ready and loaded into your glasses, it's yours. You pay us no monthly fees for using it.
The only exception: If you order Multiplayer app, it is necessary to pay for the operation of the server to which the glasses are connected (hosting). However, we try to keep this to the minimum necessary.
How do we get out of this? Start with the MVP!
The most common mistake companies make is that they want to build the „perfect application with 50 scenarios“ the first time. This is a huge risk.
We advise our clients on the approach MVP (Minimum Viable Product). Select the single most painful problem in your company (e.g. assembly of one specific component). Let us create a tight, perfectly working VR simulation on a smaller budget.
Deploy the app to your business. Let your employees try it out. Measure how much faster they learn. Once you have hard return on investment (ROI) data in hand, it makes sense to invest in expanding the app with additional modules. And thanks to Unreal Engine 5, this expansion is completely seamless.
Do you have a project in mind? Write to us and we will give you a no-obligation estimate.