Should a 3D scan be in the base package or an upsell? Flip budgets I look at can't agree

Question

I look at draw schedules and budgets on the lending side, so I see the marketing line on a lot of flip and small development budgets. That line ranges from $200 to $1,600 on houses in the same price band, and when I ask what the spread is, the answer is almost always the 3D scan.

So I want to hear it from the people selling the media rather than the people budgeting for it.

The case for putting the scan in the base package: buyers now expect to walk a house before they drive to it, and if a provider treats that as optional, half the sellers say no and the listing looks thinner than the one next door. One price, no menu conversation, and the provider gets scan volume that makes the subscription cost per property small.

The case for keeping it an upsell: the scan is the slowest part of the visit and the one most affected by whether the house is occupied and tidy. If it's baked into one price, the provider eats that variance on every job. Some property types barely benefit. A vacant $130k rural three bedroom with a local buyer pool doesn't need the same treatment as a $700k relocation-market listing, and charging everybody for it means undercharging the hard jobs and overcharging the easy ones.

I don't have a side. I mostly want to know which one holds up when the phone stops ringing for a couple of months, because the budgets I see get thin fast when sales activity slows.

jordan_ellis2 · Accepted Answer

tender, I think the answer depends on who your client actually is, and that's the variable your budget spread is hiding.

If you sell to agents, base package wins. An agent picks one provider and wants one number they can quote to a seller without doing arithmetic on the doorstep. A menu makes the agent do sales work for you, and they won't. The scan going in the base also means the agent can promise it in a listing presentation, which is worth something to them and costs you a fixed amount.

If you sell direct to sellers and investors, the upsell holds up better, because those people are paying out of pocket on one transaction and they compare your number against the cheap guy's number. Bundling makes you look expensive on the only line they're looking at.

On your real question, which is what survives a slow stretch: the base package is more fragile, because when listing volume drops, sellers start shopping on price and a bundled number is the easiest thing to undercut. The tiered version survives best. Two prices, stills-only and stills-plus-scan, so you have somewhere to go when someone says the number's too high without cutting your rate.

And the occupied versus vacant variance parcel skipped is real. Whatever you bundle, price occupied jobs differently or make prep a condition. That's where the hours go.

nicole_adeyemi · Answer

On land I'd say neither, since a scan of a field is a party trick. Drone and a boundary overlay does the work. But for houses I lean base package, for one reason you didn't list: the menu conversation costs the provider time on the phone with every seller, and that time is unpaid. If the answer is always yes, you stop selling and start scheduling.

Should a 3D scan be in the base package or an upsell? Flip budgets I look at can't agree

2 replies