Every furniture company today, if they haven't already, is starting to feel the need for a 3D configurator. This is a global trend affecting all commerce: in 2024, $1.8 billion was already spent on 3D visualization solutions, and it's expected to grow to $5.6 billion by 2033.
Every furniture company preparing to adopt these tools faces the same question: "Do we develop internally or buy a ready-made solution?"
This choice may seem purely technical, but it actually determines the future of your digital strategy. A wrong decision can force you to start over and compromise online sales or sales through your dealers.
It often happens that companies drastically underestimate the complexity of their business, choosing a solution that doesn't meet their needs. What seems like a simple "change color and material" soon becomes a maze of spatial constraints, assembly rules, and specific business logic.
In this guide, we'll analyze the three main options available, their real costs (not just the apparent ones), and provide you with a decision framework to choose the right approach for your company.
Spoiler: The answer is never as obvious as it seems.
The Three Possible Paths
In the world of 3D furniture configurators, there are essentially three approaches, each with very different costs and benefits from those advertised.
Examples: Angle 3D, Paas3D for Shopify Promise: "3D configurator in 30 minutes" Cost: Monthly between €40 to €200, plus your time invested in learning and implementing or an expert/company that creates Shopify e-commerce or similar products
Reality: Works well for simple products with linear variants. The 30 minutes are true for very simple integrations and for someone who already knows how the service works well.
Hidden costs: Customizations that cost as much as custom development, limitations that emerge only later, migration necessary when you grow.
Examples: VividWorks, 3D Cloud, Threekit Promise: "Complete solution for large companies" Costs: On request, generally annual subscriptions from €5000 upwards plus a significant initial setup fee Reality: Solution suitable for large/medium-large companies, but with high costs and vendor dependency
Promise: "Code control and complete customization" Costs: Custom development from €10,000 upwards (on average around €15,000), followed by assistance and managed hosting from €150/month upwards Reality: It's a one-time investment that becomes a company asset, not a recurring expense, if you rely on a good partner who adequately protects you. Hidden costs: Hidden costs appear - and are often significant - when what you want to achieve is not well defined and is not clearly outlined before configurator development
When Ready-Made Solutions Make Sense
We're not here to push custom development at all costs. There are scenarios where ready-made solutions work perfectly and are the smartest choice.
Plug & play solutions work when your configurator needs to do this:
- Change color and material of a single product
- Handle less than 100 total variants
- Has no spatial constraints or assembly rules
- Functions as an "advanced catalog" rather than a true configurator
- Solutions designed specifically for the environment where your site is located can be found
Practical example: A company that sells only through Shopify a catalog of office chairs, each with 5 fabric colors and 3 base finishes. In total 15 combinations per configurator page, linear logic, no constraints: perfect for a plug&play solution.
Ready-made solutions are often designed for a specific system and specific functionalities. One example above all: the numerous good options available on Shopify are perfect if your main digital tool is precisely this e-commerce platform.
Very often you find yourself trying to use solutions designed for functionalities - like finalizing a sale - for unintended purposes - such as being used by dealers who have completely different pricing and discount logic or having to interact with your internal management system.
Other times you may find yourself trying to insert a tool not designed for that environment into your site, incurring hidden costs, time, and problems.
When Custom Development Becomes Inevitable
Many furniture companies have needs that go beyond the capabilities of standard solutions.
An exemplary case is kitchens which present:
- Spatial constraints: corners, plumbing, electrical connections
- Assembly rules: not all modules work everywhere
- Automatic optimization: how to fill space most efficiently
- Error handling: what happens when customers create impossible configurations
- Dynamic pricing: costs that change based on dimensions and complexity
No standard platform handles all this without customizations that cost as much as (if not more than) development from scratch.
A similar argument applies if you sell modular systems (bookcases, walk-in closets, fitted walls). Standard platforms systematically fail because:
- Thousands of combinations: Not 50 variants, but 50,000+
- Adjacency constraints: Can this module go next to that one?
- Spatial optimization: How to fill an irregular wall?
- Business rules: Quantity discounts, minimum purchase constraints
Even if your product could fall into simple projects manageable with a "ready-made" solution, there are some considerations to make. A configurator doesn't live alone, but must integrate into your business needs.
Every company has its needs, but generally there must be several tools that collaborate efficiently, including:
- Management system for prices, availability, orders
- CRM to allow your customers to save their configurations and personalize their purchasing experience
- Internal databases for managing special permissions such as those dedicated to dealers
- Production to generate automatic production sheets
- E-commerce (if you sell online)
Standard platforms offer "standard" integrations that don't always correspond to your real processes. Even more often, whoever manages the site or e-commerce must do system integration work that is analogous, in effort and costs, to custom development and very often forces adaptation to the system instead of having a system built around your needs.
Do you manufacture and would like to offer custom products? In that case, it goes without saying that custom development is the choice for you, but with distinctions: an article on this coming soon.
When you find yourself in the discussion of the previous point and if internally there's someone who has closely followed the creation of your site and uses it well, you most likely don't need custom development.
More attention should be paid during partner selection and particularly to three things: 1. Deepen and clarify every aspect of what the configurator must do and regarding products and their logic to avoid incurring hidden costs 2. What policy the company developing the software adopts to protect you in case they close or suspend support 3. Clarify how any increases in software support and assistance costs are managed
We'll publish an article on this soon too.
What About Enterprise Platforms?
An alternative option to relying on a selected software house for custom development is to rely on a major player in the sector, with their own enterprise platform. There are several, ThreeKit above all.
The pros of this solution are the same as relying on custom development, but as cons you incur decidedly higher costs, a slightly reduced margin of customization and, above all, you are completely dependent on the supplier.
No enterprise platform transmits its code to third parties, but they work through a subscription model, exposing the customer to possible unilateral increases in fees (especially after paying a non-negligible setup fee) and the risk of losing the entire investment made in case of cessation of operations or supplier policy changes.
In custom development, the customer usually receives unlimited time license to use the developed code and can protect themselves much better against unilateral increases in assistance or hosting service costs and, above all, continue to develop and use the configurator even if the software house disappeared.
Can't this happen with a big company? Unfortunately, it's not so, we'll publish some case studies on this soon.
Enterprise platforms are an excellent choice if you are a large or medium-large company where you have complex processes, need to have a provider with equally structured processes, very strict compliance requirements and the ability to pay a significant premium for this.
The choice between custom and ready-made is not purely technical: it's strategic. It determines how much control you'll have over your digital future and how much you can innovate compared to competitors.
- There is no one-size-fits-all solution: your business complexity determines the approach
- Total cost goes beyond initial price: consider 3-5 years, not just the first year
- Technology ownership is a competitive advantage: standard platforms make you equal to competitors
Every situation is unique, and the right choice depends on many factors specific to your company.
We offer free consultation to evaluate:
- The real complexity of your project and whether you are one of the cases where a ready-made solution is a good choice
- An initial analysis of costs and times for custom development suited to your needs
Then, if you like us and have the need, we can deepen the discussion, prepare a quick free demo to get an idea of what a configurator developed with us would look like and a detailed quote.