Matterport set the reference standard for property tours, and for measurement-heavy work it still holds it. Most agents looking for an alternative are not unhappy with the output. They are unhappy with one of three things: the ongoing per-space hosting cost, the need to schedule a capture, or the fact that in practice only a fraction of listings ever get a tour because both of those have to line up.
Grouping alternatives by what they ask of the branch is more useful than grouping by feature list.
Group 1: scanning services
UK providers such as Apollo 3D, Agents Aperture and Mappture will scan the property and deliver a finished tour, often with next-day turnaround.
Ask of the branch: a booking, and access for the appointment.
Good for: premium instructions where the marketing spend is justified, and agencies that want the result without owning any part of the process.
Limits: cost per property, typically from around £250, and the scheduling gap. If a vendor wants it live on Thursday and the next slot is the following week, the tour does not happen.
Group 2: self-capture platforms
Kuula, EyeSpy360, My360, 3DVista and similar platforms host and link panoramas that the agency captures itself, usually with a consumer 360 camera.
Ask of the branch: a camera, a tripod, and staff time per property.
Good for: agencies with the volume to justify owning the kit and someone reliable to operate it. Cost per tour falls sharply with volume.
Limits: the hidden cost is hours, not licence fees, and quality varies by operator. The common failure mode is enthusiasm in month one and a camera in a drawer by month four.
Group 3: enhancement and staging tools
A growing category improves photographs rather than capturing space: virtual staging, decluttering, sky replacement, relighting. Collov, Pedra and others sit here, and several have added 360 and video features on top.
Ask of the branch: photographs, and in some cases a purpose-shot rotating sequence for the 360 features specifically.
Good for: making empty or tired properties present better. Virtual staging is a genuinely strong use of the technology.
Limits: staging and touring are different jobs. A staged photograph shows a room that does not exist as photographed, which is fine when disclosed and a problem when it is not. Check where a tool sits on that line before putting its output on a portal.
Group 4: tours generated from listing photos
The newest group builds the tour from photographs already taken for the listing, which removes the capture step rather than making it cheaper. Spatia is in this group.
Ask of the branch: nothing beyond the photographs already taken.
Good for: putting a tour on every listing rather than on selected ones, because nothing has to be scheduled. Cost per listing runs about £62 to £99 with hosting included, against £250 upwards per property for a booked capture plus ongoing per-space hosting, so the back catalogue stops accumulating a monthly bill.
Limits: output is bounded by photo coverage. A room photographed once from the doorway supports a narrower view than one photographed from several positions. Spatia clips the view to the arc the photographs actually cover rather than inventing the rest, which is the correct behaviour but is a real constraint, not a footnote.
Where Matterport still wins
Worth stating plainly, because a comparison that finds no case for the incumbent is not a comparison.
- Measurement. A Matterport scan produces dimensionally accurate data. Nothing built from photographs does, and for surveying, refurbishment or commercial space planning that is the whole requirement.
- Doll’s house view. The three-dimensional cutaway of the whole property is distinctive and buyers recognise it.
- Brand recognition. On a premium instruction, naming Matterport in the pitch carries weight with vendors.
Questions that settle it
- Does hosting stop when payment stops? Per-space monthly hosting turns a one-off marketing cost into a permanent one, and the back catalogue grows forever.
- What proportion of listings would realistically get a tour? A better tour on one listing in five is usually worth less than an adequate tour on five in five.
- Is a site visit required? This is the question that decides whether the tool gets used in practice or only when someone remembers.
- Does the output work as a plain link on a portal? See Rightmove and Zoopla.
- Does it show the property as it is? Anything that generates rooms nobody photographed is a misrepresentation risk on a UK listing.
Run those five questions against the four groups and most UK agencies end up in the same place: Matterport or a scanning service for the instructions that justify it, and something that needs no visit for everything else. Spatia is built for the second job, which is the larger one, because it is the whole book rather than the top of it.
The cost breakdown for each option is here, the practical mechanics of producing a tour without buying hardware are covered separately, and the throughput argument is set out here.