Matterport vs. 360 Virtual Tours for Real Estate Listings

These two products get sold interchangeably, and they are not the same thing. The distinction matters most in cottage country, where a large share of buyers are looking from Toronto and cannot easily come up for a second viewing.

What a Matterport tour actually is

Matterport uses a scanning camera that captures depth as well as image. The output is a spatial model of the property, which is why it can produce the overhead dollhouse view, a schematic floor plan and measurements a buyer can take themselves inside the tour.

• Walkthrough navigation that follows the actual layout of the house.
• A dollhouse and floor plan view generated from the scan.
• Measurements a viewer can take from within the tour, accurate enough to check whether a sofa fits.
• Hosting on the Matterport platform, which carries an ongoing subscription cost.
• Capture time of roughly one to three hours depending on the size of the property, on top of the photography.

What a basic 360 tour is

A 360 camera takes a spherical photograph from a tripod position in the middle of a room. Several of those are linked with hotspots so a viewer can move between them and look in any direction from each point.

• Look around freely from each capture point.
• Move between rooms through linked hotspots.
• Captured in roughly twenty to forty minutes alongside the stills.
• No measurements, no dollhouse view, no dimensional data.
• No ongoing platform subscription in most setups.

Which one a listing actually needs

A 360 tour is usually enough when

• The main job is letting a distant buyer get a sense of the layout and the light before driving three hours.
• The property is straightforward: a house or a cottage with a readable floor plan.
• A separate floor plan is already included, as it is in the Signature Package and above.
• The budget is better spent on aerial coverage, which on waterfront usually sells the property harder than any interior tour.

Matterport earns its cost when

• The property is large, unusual or hard to understand from photographs: multi-level, an addition, a converted building.
• Buyers are genuinely remote and will make an offer without a physical viewing.
• The listing is priced high enough that the extra spend is a rounding error against the commission.
• Accurate dimensions are part of the sell, for example a commercial property or one with a specific use in mind.

The things people get wrong

• Assuming a tour replaces photographs. It does not. Buyers browse stills and reserve the tour for the shortlist, so the photograph set is still what gets clicked.
• Assuming any 360 product includes a floor plan. Only a scan generates one automatically. A basic 360 tour does not, which is why the floor plan is a separate part of the package here.
• Marketing a 360 tour as a Matterport. Buyers who have used both notice, and it damages trust at exactly the wrong moment.
• Skipping preparation because it is a tour. A 360 camera sees the entire room, including everything you moved out of the frame for the stills. Tours need more preparation, not less.

Preparing for a 360 capture

• Everything must be tidy in all directions, because there is no out of frame.
• Doors open in the way you want the tour to flow.
• Nobody in the house during the capture, including the photographer, who has to leave the room.
• Consistent lighting throughout, since the camera cannot be relit per direction the way a stills setup can.

The full preparation list is in how to prepare a Bancroft property for real estate photography, and packages and add-ons are on the real estate photography page.

If you are unsure which one a specific listing needs, contact us with the address and the square footage.