Pro3D 3D tours for real estate: how to calculate the benefits without made-up percentages

Pro3D 3D tours for real estate: how to calculate the benefits without made-up percentages

A buyer from another city wants to understand how the rooms connect, which way the windows face and how easy it is to move around the apartment. A prospective commercial tenant wants to know where the entrance is, how the floor is laid out and which space is being offered. Photos answer some of these questions; a tour lets people explore the space at their own pace. Pro3D is a software developer; laser scanning is a method of capturing data about a property.

For a business, this may mean more focused conversations and fewer trips to unsuitable properties. But a claim that “a tour increases sales” does little to support a decision without underlying data. It is more useful to assess a specific process: what a viewing costs, which questions keep coming up and what will change once the tour goes live.

What a tour helps people understand

For an apartment, key considerations include how the rooms connect, where the bathroom is, access to the balcony and how the layout feels. For an office, they include circulation routes, meeting rooms, the number of floors and separate entrances. For retail premises, they include the entrance area, the sales floor layout and access to back-of-house space.

Pro3D offers a spatial walkthrough with a model, plans, tags and links. Its page for agencies explains how to organise capture, publication and property portfolio management. Relevant features should be demonstrated to the manager using a real example from their work. Pro3D for agencies and brokers.

Even an easy-to-use tour cannot replace everything else. Street noise, the condition of building services, documents and current transaction terms require separate information and checks. Older imagery does not confirm the property’s current condition. The capture date and a record of changes matter just as much as image quality.

Where to start a financial assessment

Divide the potential benefits into three categories: time saved, reduced direct costs and additional financial returns. The first two can sometimes be measured sooner. The third requires caution: transactions are affected by price, seasonality, advertising, mortgage availability and the manager’s performance.

For each property, record the cost of creating and implementing the tour, along with hosting and update costs. Then define the assessment period. For an apartment for sale, this might be the entire time it is on the market; for a business centre, it might be the period spent marketing several vacant units.

Do not confuse time savings with money received. If a manager spends fewer hours on a task but their salary and number of completed transactions stay the same, this frees up staff capacity. That is useful, but it does not necessarily reduce expenditure.

Model 1: shortlisting an apartment

Below is an illustrative calculation, not Pro3D statistics, a price from 360° Space or a promise of results. All figures are invented to demonstrate the method; replace them with your own agency’s data.

Suppose an apartment would require 20 in-person viewings during its time on the market. Preparation, travel and the meeting take 1,5 hours of the manager’s time per viewing. The agency values an hour of their work at 800 ₽. After launching the tour, assume 6 fewer viewings because some prospective visitors have already seen that the layout does not suit them.

Time freed up: 6 × 1,5 = 9 hours. Its estimated value: 9 × 800 = 7 200 ₽. Assuming direct travel costs of 400 ₽ per viewing, potential savings amount to a further 2 400 ₽. The total estimated benefit of these two components is 9 600 ₽.

If creating, implementing and hosting the tour over the same period hypothetically costs 15 000 ₽, this benefit alone does not cover the cost. That is an honest result from the model. An additional transaction or a faster sale cannot simply be added to make the return look attractive.

Test the sensitivity: with three viewings avoided, the benefit is half as much; with twelve, it is twice as much. But the number of viewings avoided must be supported by observation, not chosen to produce the desired answer.

Model 2: leasing commercial premises

Consider a hypothetical property with a monthly rental contribution of 180 000 ₽ after deducting the variable costs selected by the owner. For a simple model, divide this by 30 days: 6 000 ₽ per day. Assume a total budget of 45 000 ₽ for the tour and its implementation.

The calculated reduction in vacancy needed to cover these costs is therefore 45 000 ÷ 6 000 = 7,5 days. This is not a forecastthat Pro3D will reduce vacancy by that amount of time. It answers a different question: how large the verified effect would need to be to cover the specified costs.

Attributing reduced vacancy specifically to the tour is more difficult. The owner may also have lowered the price or started a new advertising campaign. The manager should therefore record whether the tenant viewed the tour, which questions it answered and what role it played in prompting a meeting. A more reliable assessment requires comparable properties or an experiment.

Staff time savings and reduced vacancy may overlap with other benefits. The same result should not be counted twice under different names.

What to measure on the website and in the manager’s workflow

A website analytics tag alone does not track activity inside every external player. Before launch, agree on which events can technically be tracked and what the CRM will record. Yandex Metrica provides the reachGoal method for sending goal events; verify the setup by completing the actual user journey. Yandex Metrica documentation.

Where you place the tour matters

A tour offers little help if its link is buried at the end of a long email or on a separate page that nobody visits. Place it next to the floor plan, photos and enquiry button. When messaging a customer, explain what they will see: “see how the rooms connect and where the terrace access is,” rather than simply “our innovative 3D tour.”

For property listings, the platform itself confirms the requirements. Pro3D appears on Cian’s published partner list, which can be useful for the relevant use case. However, this does not mean automatic integration with every other platform, CRM or account. Cian’s page on 3D tours, Pro3D use case description.

For customers in other regions, test the link on a typical smartphone using mobile data. If your company operates across Moscow, Minsk and Almaty, testing under these conditions should be part of the launch plan. The server’s physical location does not establish the quality of every user’s network connection.

How to launch a pilot without making questionable promises

Choose a property that regularly prompts the same questions. Document the process before introducing the tour: viewings, hours spent, costs and enquiry sources. Agree on the tour route and where it will be published. After launch, record the same data over a comparable period.

If you have only a few properties, do not try to derive a convincing percentage from two transactions. Share your observations: how often the agent sent the link, which questions it helped resolve and how many meetings became more focused. These are useful results, even if you cannot yet demonstrate an increase in sales.

Questions and Answers

Does a 3D tour guarantee increased property sales?

There is no universal guarantee: results depend on the property, price, audience and enquiry handling process. A tour helps people explore a property in advance, but its benefits should be measured through your own pilot. Percentages from someone else’s case study cannot automatically be applied to an apartment or commercial property in another city.

Which metrics should you compare before and after launching a tour?

Record the number and quality of enquiries, completed viewings, staff time and travel expenses. Compare similar properties and periods, noting any changes in price and advertising separately. This helps you understand which costs have actually changed and which have simply shifted to another stage.

Why does time saved not equal financial profit?

Freed-up time produces a financial benefit if it can be put to productive use or used to reduce paid working hours. With fixed salaries, accounting costs may remain unchanged. Time, direct expenses and additional income should therefore be tracked separately, rather than combined into a single promised ROI percentage.

How does a tour help a buyer from another city?

Before travelling, buyers can assess the room layout and visible features, ask more specific questions and rule out unsuitable options. This makes the in-person meeting more focused. Structural condition, documents and defects not visible in the scan still require an independent assessment by an appropriate specialist.

Next step

For an initial budget estimate, use 360° Space calculator, and include your tour route requirements in your enquiry for a property tour. Software developed by Pro3D is best evaluated as a tool for a specific workflow. This way, your decision to request the service is based on your own financial circumstances, rather than an impressive percentage from someone else’s results.