When comparing WebAr platform for your project, comparing price, ease-of-use and features are important factors. Hololink comes out on top, alongside Zappar and 8th Wall.
As the AR space continues to expand beyond niche applications and into mainstream marketing and creative campaigns, platforms like Hololink, 8th Wall, and Zappar (Zapworks) are often top of mind for those looking to create WebAR experiences. Each offers a unique approach to building, hosting, and tracking augmented reality on the web, but which one strikes the best balance between ease of use, power, and cost-efficiency?
Let’s walk through how these three compare—especially from the perspective of teams looking for value, flexibility, and scalability.
For small creative teams, marketers, and agencies who want to move fast without hiring developers or managing complex codebases, Hololink stands out as a streamlined, no-code WebAR editor. Built around a storyboard-style interface, Hololink makes it easy to design interactive, image-tracked or world-anchored experiences with minimal technical knowledge. Everything is visual, making it an excellent choice for creative professionals who prefer designing over coding.
Perhaps most importantly, Hololink offers a refreshingly transparent and scalable pricing model. On its entry-level plan (€9/month), users can try all features and even at the Basic plan (€29/month) you can publish unlimited experiences with unlimited views—a rare feature in the WebAR world. The Pro plan (€99/month) includes unlimited simultaneous live experiences, white-labeling, a custom domain, and collaboration for up to 10 team members. Higher tiers bring more analytics and seat capacity, making it easy to scale up when needed.
Unlike other platforms, Hololink does not charge for additional views or enforce hidden limits, which helps users avoid unexpected costs. That predictability is a breath of fresh air for teams managing budgets carefully.
If you’re building AR with serious technical depth—SLAM tracking, face effects, location-based AR, or integrations with custom frameworks like A-Frame or Three.js—8th Wall remains one of the most powerful WebAR engines available. Now owned by Niantic, 8th Wall includes support for geospatial AR, sky segmentation, and other features that cater to cutting-edge projects.
However, that power comes with a cost. While 8th Wall does have a free tier via Niantic Studio for non-commercial use, any commercial deployment starts at $700/month per project, and each published experience requires its own commercial license. That means if you’re planning to publish several experiences—or run multiple campaigns—your costs can balloon quickly.
For developers or companies that need full control and are building one-off, high-impact AR installations, the investment may be worthwhile. But for marketing teams and educators, it can be overkill—especially given that Hololink and others now support many of the same tracking capabilities for a fraction of the cost.
Zappar’s Zapworks platform offers a middle ground, combining a visual designer tool with a developer-friendly SDK. It’s a solid option for teams who need more customization than a no-code platform allows but don’t want to dive fully into complex frameworks. Zapworks also supports a wide range of tracking types—image, world, and face—and has a handy WebAR embed tool for integrating AR directly into existing websites.
That said, Zappar’s pricing model introduces some hidden complexity. On the Commercial Pro plan (€240/month), you’re limited to 12,000 views per year. If your experience goes viral—or simply performs well—you’ll pay about $20 per extra 1,000 views, which adds up quickly. For high-traffic campaigns, this can significantly inflate your costs over time.
While Zappar does offer unlimited projects and publishing under the license, the per-view charges can be a limiting factor for campaigns with unpredictable or growing audiences—especially when Hololink offers unlimited views from the start.
If you’re building enterprise-scale, deeply technical AR projects and have the resources to match, 8th Wall is a clear contender. Its tracking capabilities are top-tier, and its integration with Niantic adds a powerful dimension to location-based AR.
If you’re looking for SDK flexibility and are okay managing view quotas and occasional overage costs, Zappar is worth considering. It’s a robust platform that strikes a balance between visual tools and developer freedom.
But if you’re focused on speed, simplicity, and cost-efficiency—without sacrificing the professional quality of your AR experiences—Hololink is arguably the most accessible and budget-friendly choice on the market today.
Its unlimited view model, clear pricing tiers, and easy-to-use interface make it an ideal fit for most commercial use cases, particularly in marketing, education, and events. For teams that want to launch and iterate quickly—without worrying about developer resources or surprise costs—Hololink makes WebAR production more approachable than ever.
