Read also: What Is the Difference between Augmented and Virtual Reality?
Menu development
As in any application, the virtual reality tour requires a menu. The menu can include various options, such as instant switching to a different location without “walking” through all rooms, snapshot downloads, different interactions depending on the complexity and technological level of your virtual reality application.
The menu is developed by the virtual reality developers, and depending on the number and complexity of the menu options, it may take from 8 to 24 hours and cost approximately from 800$ to 2,400$.
Other features
You may also include optional features, such as push notifications, social network sharing, customization options, sound effects, eye tracking that are going to enhance the VR app functionality and create unique and eye-catching user experiences.
The development of optional features, depending on their scope, may require approximately 50-200 hours and add about 5,000$-20,000$ to the cost.
Backend development
In fact, this stage should be the first on our list, as usually the backend is developed before the frontend, but we have placed emphasis on the VR-specific features.
No application exists without the backend structure – the server, the database, the user authentication mechanisms, the data integrations, the security mechanisms.
Developing and implementing the backend usually takes from 50 to 400 hours and costs from 5,000$ to 40,000$.
Total cost
As you can see, a virtual reality app for a real estate company can take about 2 months to develop from the initial plan to the production release. The total virtual reality cost is in the range from 16,000$ to 75,000$.
The cost of the project directly depends on the size of the location that should be recreated in the virtual reality tour and on the functionality that needs to be implemented.
Another major factor affecting the time of development and cost of virtual reality is the platform on which the VR application is going to be run.