The price of AR: why creating AR content might cost a pretty penny?

As a CTO of a studio that develops AR, I find it quite worrying that so many people have difficulties with understanding what forms the cost of AR and what makes it big AR projects so expensive. Even though the technology has entered the stage of mainstream almost a decade ago, there is still a certain gap in understanding among those companies that want to try AR as a part of their marketing mix why quality AR solutions cost more than other digital marketing tools.

1. AR as a marketing tool

Augmented reality (AR) has been around for quite some time now and brands, both big and not as big, have been regularly taking advantage of this technology. With its ability to merge the digital and real world into one wholesome brand universe, AR has been used extensively to impress, excite, and build the connection between the brand and the customer through mobile devices. Sometimes, it was even used to have a go at the competition, just like the Brazilian branch of the fast-food giant Burger King did with its “Burn That Ad” AR advertising campaign where mobile users could overlay digital images of blazing fire on the fast-food’s competitors ad banners and in “burn” them in this way. As a reward, Burger King offered a coupon for a free Whopper sandwich.

Some cases, like Pepsi’s famous AR bus stops in London were real successes and helped to create the so-much-needed buzz around the brand in this or that market. Many, however, were unable to demonstrate even a small fraction of that success and ended up pretty much as a great flop, adding from little to nothing value to a brand or product. Ultimately, as the technology has been becoming more and more mainstream, it has become harder to make a really good us of AR, to make it into a facilitating part of the brand mix, instead of just showing off the latest tech capabilities.

But the most important question that is bugging many of those who consider adding AR to their marketing mix is what forms the price of AR and why it might come with a hefty price tag. Let’s take a closer look and shed some light on these mysteries.

2. Where to find a decent AR vendor?

Every company’s journey into the world of AR begins with a search of a vendor that could deliver AR content matching to the goal and budget. Everybody knows that we live in the world of limited marketing budgets and one needs to think twice before spending a penny if there is a possibility to find a better price/quality deal. There are resources that simplify this search and might save an IT Procurement or Digital Marketing Manager from hours of internal struggle of uncertainties. Here are some of them:

• Crunchbase. Originally created as a catalogue of startups, now it is the biggest open business database that contains exhaustive info about finances, investment, acquisitions, web presence, and a myriad of other bits and pieces on companies. Companies could also be analyzed using third-party data sources.
• Clutch. Ratings and reviews aggregator of IT, marketing, and business services providers, targeted for B2B use and search of vendors. Also includes companies’ portfolios, hour rates, and focus of services. You could find handy TOP-lists for different industries, including AR, and even a graphical Leaders Matrix, which could help you a lot to find a right vendor for your goals. Very scrupulous about reviews (reviews for projects worth more than 10 000 are conducted by phone.
• DesignRush. Another B2B marketplace, but with a bigger emphasis on web design, apps, and branding. Also has a review rating system, hour rate indicators, and minimal budget info. You can even go a bit deeper on a company and take a look at brief bios of its key managers if you wish. Suits best if you are looking for nicely visualized profiles of your potential vendors. Not as scrupulous about reviews as Clutch, though.

3. AR prices in different markets

Just a quick review of AR vendors aggregators shows that the average pricing for AR development starts at $30 per hour in India and goes all the way up to $150 per hour in North America. The full list of rates by region is below:

• India — from $30/hour
• Eastern Europe — from $35/hour
• South America — from $43/hour
• United Kingdom — from $70/hour
• Australia — $110/hour
• North America — $150/hour

What important to realize here is that the most expensive does not necessarily means the best. The average rate is just a reflection of the level of wages in different parts of the world, while the global scale availability of specialized software and hardware for AR development (say, engines and software environment where the content is actually created) makes it possible for companies from different parts of the world to create quality content.

So choose wisely and keep in mind the different components of the total price tag of a project. Below are the two case studies of recent AR projects to demonstrate you the areas on which your money is spent.

4. Case Study: Regal Cinema’s Toy Story AR

• What about it?

A simpler kind of an AR app that serves as a platform for AR experiences released as parts of digital campaign for movies. We’ll take a look at a recent Toy Story 4 AR experience. With its simplicity, it doesn’t require much both from a user and from hardware, while offering 7 well-recognized characters from the latest movie. To bring the good old Sheriff Woody or Buzz Lightyear to life and take a photo or video with them, a user should scan a Toy Story 4 poster. Each character has one unique animation/action and one general “freeze” action should you press the alarming “Bonnie’s Coming!” button.

Developer: Regal Cinemas

• App

As this is a simpler app, we are looking at a pretty basic functionality here, with AR-kit 2.0 (image recognition and flat surface recognition), a nice and tidy user UX/UI, photo/video capture, and social media sharing functionality.

Hours required: 230 to 300 (including marketplace publication)

• 3D Models

The models seem like they just stepped out from the big screen, as they were most likely provided by Pixar themselves specifically for this project. However, they should be adapted for AR environment anyway, which takes 10–20 hours per one model.

Hours required: 70 to 140

• Animations

The animations are pretty smooth and well-done, quality was obviously chosen over quantity here — each character has one unique animation, while the “freeze” animation is the same for all characters.

Hours required: 30 to 50 per one model; 210 to 350 in total

• Optimization

Import of animations into the app, lighting and sound setup.

Hours required: 4 to 8 per one model; 28 to 56 hours

• Additional Costs

These usually include concepting, voiceovers, testing, bug clearance, etc.

Hours required: 100 to 150

Hours required, TOTAL: 638 to 996

5. Case Study: Wonderscope

• What about it?

A more complex AR app with tons of interactive content, cool AR tricks, and stunning visuals. Wonderscope is like a familiar story, but an interactive one, that unfolds right in front of your eyes, no matter where you are: in your bedroom, in a quiet park next to a lake or in a conference room. Here, not only characters come to life in AR, but the entire elaborate scenes unfold and transform within the reach of a user’s hand. Let’s look under the hood of this app using the example of one of the available Wonderscope stories in AR.

Developer: Within Unlimited

Number of locations in the story: 4

Number of characters in the story: 4

Total length of AR animations: 8 mins

• App

An eye-pleasing design full of vivid colors and accents, an accessible and well-thought-out UX, accented by a stylish UI full of 3D objects and animations. It is addictive just to navigate through the app, scrolling between the screens and clicking on menu items. Smooth transitions between screens contribute into a buttery-smooth user experience. In addition to surface recognition functions of AR-kit 2.0, Wonderscope boasts the speech recognition function.

It could be seen with a naked eye that this is a high-end app, which was

developed by an experienced studio that knows how to create an impressive project.

Hours required: 140 to 160 for UX; 350 to 400 for UI

• Models

4 characters (Blob, Ball, Rabbit, and Caterpillar) and 4 high quality locations

Hours required: 350 to 450

• Animations

8 minutes of animations in total with elaborate interactive scripting, involving 4 characters in 4 locations

Hours required: 550 to 650

• Additional costs

These commonly include concepting, voiceovers, testing, and bug clearance. For such a polished app, lots of time was spent on these.

Hours required: 200 to 300

Total required, TOTAL: 1590 to 1960

6. Concluding thoughts (the balance of quality and price, what should be taken into account while looking for an AR vendor)

It is worth noting at this point that these case studies only demonstrate rough estimates of how much does it cost and how long does it take to create an AR-based project. In the end, it is always the client that decides whether it is worth investing in an AR project or an other digital marketing channel should be used. But it does worth to take a look at a couple of examples of how big brands benefitted from adding AR to their marketing mix. 7-Eleven, for example, have been using AR to engage their customers for quite some time now. Their 2018 Deadpool campaign that included 30 unique AR experiences activated throughout the stores received a warm response with over 10 million user interactions and average interaction time of 85 seconds*. The popularity of the Deadpool franchise and a great variety of available in-store AR experiences made this campaign totally worth it for 7-Eleven and won them a prestigious Auggie tech award, in addition to keeping customers in their stores for a longer time.

One thing that could be said for sure is that to really get the result from every penny spent on AR it is absolutely unacceptable to compromise on quality of content. AR is something that should amaze and make your jaw go down with the light of speed. If it’s meh AR it’s not AR at all, hence, spending even a quarter on such “cost optimized” AR is a waste of money. You now know the resources where to look for AR vendors, so make sure that they do not compromise on quality.

*- data provided by Zappar, the developer behind 7-Eleven AR experience

Egor Pavlenko, CTO at AR studio Live Animations