Virtual Tours for Estate Agents in the UK: What Works on Rightmove and Zoopla

Virtual tours stopped being a novelty for UK agents in 2020 and became a line in the listing checklist. What has changed since is the choice: three formats, a dozen platforms and a wide range of prices. This is the practical guide for an agent or a lettings team: which tour for which instruction, what the portals do with it, and how to make it pay.

Which format for which instruction

Most sales and lettings instructions: a Matterport 3D scan. Buyers and tenants know the dollhouse view, the floor plan comes from the same scan, and from £350 with stills from £150 it is predictable enough to put in the fee. A development or show home programme: a bespoke 360 tour with the developer's branding, the specification in the hotspots and a plot selector; see the Allison Homes show homes and Matterport for show homes. A flagship instruction: the bespoke tour, with drone views and video. Your own branch: a Google Street View tour, so the office appears inside Google Maps.

What the portals do with it

Rightmove and Zoopla both let you attach a virtual tour link to a listing and show it as a button on the property page, alongside the photographs and the floor plan. The tour itself is hosted by the platform it was made on, so a Matterport tour lives on Matterport and an embed or link goes to the portal, your website, your emails and your social posts. We supply the links in the form each portal expects.

What it does to enquiries

Two things, in our clients' experience and in the research we track in virtual tour statistics: more enquiries from people who have already walked round, and fewer wasted viewings from people who have not. The second is the one agents value, because a tour answers the questions a viewing would have answered badly: the ceiling height, the garden, the neighbour's extension. Are virtual tours still worth it for real estate? goes through the evidence.

Pricing it into a fee

Agents who use tours on every instruction treat them like photography: a fixed cost per property, built into the fee, with the premium instructions getting more. At from £350 for a scan and from £150 for stills on the same visit, with no travel charges, the per-property cost is known before the valuation. A programme price for a branch or a group is quoted once.

What to ask a provider

Turnaround (ours is usually within days of the visit), who holds the hosting and what it costs each year (£60 a scan on Matterport, quoted with the job), whether stills and floor plans come from the same visit, whether the photographer is insured and DBS-checked for occupied homes, and what happens when the property sells. Questions to ask a virtual tour provider has the full list.

For agents in Bristol and Bath who want photography alone, our sister business Property Photo Guy does exactly that. For tours anywhere in mainland UK, ask for a quote with the postcode and the number of properties a month.

Questions people ask

Will the tour work on Rightmove and Zoopla?

Both portals let an agent attach a virtual tour link to a listing, and both show it as a button on the property page. We supply the link in the form each portal expects, and the same tour works on your own website and in your emails.

Matterport or 360 for a listing?

Matterport for most listings: buyers understand the dollhouse view and the floor plan, and from £350 with stills from £150 it is quick and predictable. A bespoke 360 tour suits a development, a show home programme or a flagship instruction where the branding matters.

Can you also do the photos and the floor plan?

Yes, on the same visit: professional stills from £150, floor plans from the Matterport scan, drone views where the plot justifies it. Our property photography business, Property Photo Guy, covers Bristol and Bath for agents who want photography alone.