Photos went live six days before the video, and the numbers split cleanly

How was the $860 built? Bundle price or line items? I've been calling around and the a la carte adds are what get you. Stills at $225 then $150 for the scan, $175 for video, $95 floor plan, and suddenly you're at $645 before drone. Wondering whether the bundle actually saved anything or just felt tidier.

The $190 rescan is the number I'd stare at if I were the provider. That's a second trip, drive time, upload, processing, and it barely covers the day. Most of the shooters I've talked to don't have reshoot language in their terms at all, so it turns into a negotiation every time and the client remembers the negotiation, not the photos. I'd rather publish a flat return-visit fee up front and take the friction out. @beacon on your question, bundles usually save the provider more than the buyer, because one drive covers everything.

Does any of this carry over to rentals? I'm not selling, I just want a unit filled without me driving over for twelve showings. If a 3D scan means fewer bodies through the door I'd pay for it, but $860 on a listing that rents for $1,600 is not happening.

I run a shooting team and I'd push back harder on the read than you're pushing on it yourself, @windlass. The open house on day 8 isn't a small confound, it's the whole thing. Open houses get promoted by the portals, they get pushed into saved-search alerts, and the listing gets re-sorted in "recently updated" feeds. Adding media does the same re-sort. You can't separate the two, and the view curve on any listing decays hard after the first 72 hours anyway, so a bump at day 7 to 14 against a decaying baseline is unusual on its own.

What I'd actually take from your post is the 11 showings. Showings are a better signal than views because they cost the buyer time. Views are cheap and the portals count them loosely.

The real argument for the scan isn't view count. It's showing quality. When people have walked the floor plan already, the ones who come are the ones who could live there. We've had agents tell us their showing count went down after adding 3D and their offer rate went up, which is the opposite of what most people expect to hear when they buy media.

Who owns the files? I'm working through licensing right now and the copyright question keeps coming up in the classes. Most photographers license the images for the marketing of that listing, and the license can end at closing, which matters if the next agent wants to reuse them or if a wholesaler pulls them off the portal. Did your paperwork say anything about the scan specifically? The hosted scan usually lives on the provider's account, so when they stop paying, your link dies.

What happens to this if the price was 3% high instead of right? My guess is the media buys you nothing, because everyone who clicks bounces at the number and you just paid $860 to show more people a house they think is overpriced. Views would probably still spike. That's what bothers me about view counts as a measure.

On land the only piece of that package with real value is the drone set, and only if it's flown with the parcel lines overlaid. Interior media is irrelevant when there's no interior. I've seen dirt listings with 30 stills of grass. Four aerials at different altitudes and one boundary overlay does more than all of them.

The four days for the rescan is the number I'd want tracked, more than the $190. If your staging schedule and your shoot schedule are coupled, then every media delay is a listing delay, and a listing delay at your carry cost is probably worse than the fee. What was your daily carry while it sat?

What is Matterport actually? I've clicked those little dollhouse things on listings but I don't know if that's the same product or what it costs the person who ordered it.

@rigging it's a camera on a tripod that spins and stitches the rooms into a walkable model, and yes, the dollhouse view is the giveaway. The shooter pays a monthly hosting fee per active scan, which is why the link dies if they stop paying, like @halyard said.

@windlass I ate almost the exact same rescan. Painter was two days behind, scan showed drop cloths, cost me $150 and a week. It's a scheduling problem and it happens to everyone once. Now the scan is the last thing on the calendar and the trash pull is the day before.

Side note from the loan file end: nice listing media has no effect on an appraisal. Appraisers work off their own inspection and the comps, and I've never seen a value hold up because the marketing photos were good. If anyone reads this thread and thinks better photos will help a refinance, they won't. Confirm with your own lender how they handle the appraisal order, since it varies by shop.

The clause I'd read twice in a media contract is the one about the provider's own use of the images. Most of them reserve the right to use your interiors in their portfolio and ads, which is usually fine on a listing and less fine on a tenant-occupied unit where you have people's belongings on camera. I've asked for that struck twice and both times it was granted without argument, which tells you it's boilerplate rather than something they care about.

The other one is delivery time. @windlass your six day gap was the actual cost driver in this story and I'd guess your contract said nothing about turnaround. Mine now says stills in 24 hours, everything else in 72, and a stated credit if they miss.

Running your numbers as cost per showing: $860 over 14 showings is $61 each. Photos-only stretch was $860 across 3 showings if you charge the whole spend there, which is silly, so allocate the $360 stills-and-floor-plan portion and you're at $120 per showing for the first six days and $45 for the rest. That looks like the advanced media paying for itself, and @cobalt's open house point still eats most of it. I'd want three listings like this before I believed anything.

Naive question from the capital side, is media a deal cost or a sponsor cost? I've been reading offering documents and marketing budgets show up in wildly different places. On a single flip it's obviously the deal, but I've seen a sponsor bill scans back to the property at a rate that seemed high and I couldn't tell if that was normal.

The staging signs off before anyone shoots rule is the one line I'm stealing from this whole thread.

None of this touches what I do. I hold land for a decade and the only photos that matter are the ones I take myself for my own records, twice a year, to see what the treeline is doing. I'm not against the spend for people selling. I just want the newer readers to know there's a whole side of this where marketing media is a rounding error and you'll never buy a scan in your life.

Starting from nothing here, what do you actually ask a photographer when you call them? I don't know enough to tell a good one from a cheap one and I don't want to learn the difference on my first listing. Is it just asking to see three interiors they shot in a similar house?