How Long Does a Virtual Tour Take? From Quote to Launch, Step by Step

"How long will it take?" is the second question we are asked, straight after "how much?". The honest answer is that the shoot is the quick part; the calendar is mostly set by how fast decisions are made on your side. This is the sequence for a typical project, with the timings we actually achieve.

1. Quote

Send us the address, a rough idea of the spaces you want to show and what the tour is for, and we reply with a clear price. Bespoke, Matterport and Google Street View tours all start from £350; our pricing page and 2026 price guide explain what moves the number. A short video call helps if you are not sure which format suits, and our format comparison is a good five-minute read beforehand.

2. Scheduling: days to a few weeks

We book the shoot around your building: term time or holidays for a school, before opening for a restaurant, after the show home is dressed for a developer. Because there are no travel charges anywhere in mainland UK, location does not affect the date. Multi-site programmes get a project manager who plans the whole run, as with the 30 properties for Dwell Student Living.

3. Preparation: your part

The step that most affects the result. Rooms need to be tidy, lit and arranged as you want them seen, because a 360 photograph cannot crop anything out. Our preparation checklist and the Matterport preparation guide take about ten minutes to read and save an hour on the day.

4. The shoot: hours, not days

Allow five to ten minutes per scene for a bespoke tour, plus walking time. A ten-scene tour of a nursery or clinic is done in under two hours; a secondary school in a day; a large college over two or three. A Matterport scan of a show home takes one to two hours because every space is captured; a whole office floor takes a morning. A Google Street View shoot of a small premises is 30 minutes to an hour. Drone scenes add half an hour and depend on the weather, so we agree a fallback date for exteriors.

5. Production and delivery

• Matterport: the tour is usually live within 48 hours of the scan. Floor plans and BIM files follow within a few days if ordered.
• Google Street View: imagery is blurred, connected and published within seven days of capture; Google can take a little longer to show it on every surface.
• Bespoke 360 tours: each scene is individually edited, so allow one to four weeks depending on size: a small tour sits at the short end, a large campus with custom interface design and interactive maps at the long end. You review a draft, we make changes, then it goes live on 360 Studio or as a self-hosted build.
• Still photography from the same visit is delivered within one to two working days.

What slows a project down

In our experience: waiting for a space to be finished or dressed, gathering the content for hotspots (welcome videos, PDFs, copy), and sign-off queues with several stakeholders. The fix for the last two is to decide who signs off and to start collecting hotspot content while the shoot is being booked. On 360 Studio you can also launch with the scenes and add hotspots afterwards, since your team can edit the tour at any time.

What speeds it up

A clear scene list, one point of contact, and combining deliverables into one visit: a Matterport scan, still photography and a drone 360 captured on the same morning is faster and cheaper than three appointments, which is the basis of our show home package. If there is a hard deadline, such as an open day or a launch weekend, tell us at the quote stage and we will plan backwards from it.

Ready to start the clock? Tell us about your building and we will come back with a price and a date.