Reality Capture price at a glance
All figures come from Epic's RealityScan license page, checked in October 2026 in USD. Epic renamed RealityCapture to RealityScan with version 2.0 in June 2025, and the pricing carried over.
| Who you are | What you pay | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Individual, student or school | $0 | All features, community support |
| Company under $1M revenue in the past 12 months | $0 | All features, community support |
| Company over $1M revenue | $1,250 per seat per year | All features, documentation, updates for one year |
| More than 25 seats or Epic Pro Support | Custom quote | Negotiated terms |
| Anyone evaluating | 30-day trial | Full product |
The free tier is the reason RealityCapture is so popular with solo pilots and small studios. For a survey or engineering firm, the $1 million line is low. A firm with five or six billable staff usually clears it, which puts almost every established US survey company on the paid seat.
How much does Reality Capture cost for a business?
A business with more than $1 million in revenue pays $1,250 per seat per year for RealityScan. One processing technician is $1,250 a year, two are $2,500, and three are $3,750. The license is a yearly subscription, so you pay again each year to keep using it and receive updates.
Revenue means the company's gross revenue over the last 12 months, not drone revenue alone. If you are close to the line, pull your trailing twelve months from your financial statements before you decide which license applies, because a survey firm that wins one large contract can cross it mid-year.
Is Reality Capture free for commercial use?
Yes, if your company made less than $1 million in revenue in the past 12 months. Epic allows commercial work on the free license under that threshold, including paid drone mapping jobs. Once revenue goes over $1 million, each person using RealityScan needs a paid seat at $1,250 a year.
What the seat price does not include
The license is only the processing engine. A survey team also pays for:
- A Windows workstation per seat. RealityScan needs an NVIDIA GPU with CUDA compute capability 3.5 or higher, 6.1 or higher recommended, plus at least 16 GB of RAM. Survey-size jobs of 1,000 to 3,000 photos run best on 64 GB of RAM or more and a recent RTX card.
- Somewhere to put deliverables. RealityScan exports orthophotos, DSMs, DTMs and models to files. Getting them to a client means a file share, an FTP site or a separate viewer.
- Volume and cut and fill reporting. RealityScan builds the surfaces, and most firms then take the DSM or DTM into Civil 3D or a GIS to report quantities.
- Someone who knows the tool. Classification, ground control and ortho projections are all there, but RealityScan grew out of visual effects and heritage work, so the survey workflow takes training.
Does Reality Capture work on Mac?
No. RealityScan's desktop app runs on Windows, and a Linux build is offered for command-line use. Model and texture creation require an NVIDIA card with CUDA, which Macs do not have. A Mac-based office needs a Windows workstation, a remote GPU machine or a browser-based processor.
What a 3-person survey team pays for Reality Capture over 3 years
Take a survey firm with $3 million in revenue. Two technicians process drone flights and a project surveyor checks the surfaces and signs off contours. They fly about 4,000 images a month, deliver orthomosaics, DTMs and contours, and report stockpile and cut and fill volumes to contractors.
| Cost over 3 years | RealityScan, 2 seats | RealityScan, 3 seats | DroneMapping Team |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software | $7,500 ($2,500 a year) | $11,250 ($3,750 a year) | $4,464 on yearly billing ($1,488 a year), 10 seats |
| Workstations | Two Windows PCs with NVIDIA GPUs, bought and maintained by you | Three of them | Not needed, processing runs in the cloud |
| Volumes and cut and fill | In CAD or GIS after export | In CAD or GIS after export | Built in, with PDF reports |
| Client delivery | Files you send | Files you send | View links, no seat needed |
| GCP and checkpoint report | Yes | Yes | Yes, RMSE in X, Y and Z |
| Known total | $7,500 before workstations | $11,250 before workstations | $4,464 |
With one technician on one machine, RealityScan is $3,750 over three years against $1,764 for DroneMapping Starter on yearly billing with 3 seats. The desktop seat wins only if you are under the free threshold, already own the workstation, or need its photo and LiDAR fusion.
When Reality Capture is the right purchase
RealityScan is a strong engine and the right choice for some firms:
- Your company is under $1 million in revenue, so the license is free.
- You build high-detail meshes for heritage, mining faces, bridges or visual work, not just maps.
- You combine drone photos with terrestrial laser scans in one project.
- You already have a Windows workstation with a strong NVIDIA card and a technician who knows the tool.
When a cloud plan with seats costs less
A cloud processor wins when more than one person needs the result. Every RealityScan seat is $1,250 a year plus a workstation, while a team plan gives the whole crew the same surface in a browser. DroneMapping Team at $249 a month includes 10 seats, GCP and checkpoint reports, DXF and SHP contours, stockpile PDFs and cut and fill software against your design surface. It runs on a Mac or a PC.
What we do not do: we do not process LiDAR or terrestrial scans, and we do not build textured heritage-grade meshes. If that is your main work, keep a desktop engine.
Is RealityCapture the same as RealityScan?
Yes. Epic Games renamed the RealityCapture desktop app to RealityScan with version 2.0 in June 2025. The licensing stayed the same: free under $1 million in yearly revenue, and $1,250 per seat per year above it. RealityScan Mobile is a separate phone app.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Reality Capture for a survey team?
Yes. DroneMapping Starter is $99 per month or $588 per year with 3 seats, and Team is $249 per month or $1,488 per year with 10 seats, contours, GCP reports, stockpile PDFs and cut and fill. There is no workstation to buy, and every plan is on the drone mapping pricing page.
How does Reality Capture pricing compare with Pix4D and Metashape?
RealityScan is $1,250 per seat per year above the revenue threshold. PIX4Dmapper is $3,990 a year and Metashape Professional is $3,499 once per computer. All three need a workstation per seat. See Pix4D vs Metashape pricing for the full desktop comparison.