The short answer: hire a studio for a product or campaign build, a platform if you have your own developers

If you need a browser-based AR experience built for you, brief the studios on this list: Groove Jones, Aircards, Rock Paper Reality, the Culver City studio at position four, Zappar’s Studio Z and Program-Ace. If you have developers and want tooling, look at 8th Wall, Onirix and Immersal; if the deliverable is an ad unit, Aryel fits. The demand is there: 58% of customers use AR before a purchase, 61% of them on a mobile device (Clutch consumer survey 2026, as quoted by Shopify).

How this list was built: fit to the job first, size second

Every company was checked against its own website on September 20, 2026, and, where one exists, its Clutch listing. Only facts published there made it into the entries and the table; where a budget, timeline or headquarters is missing, the table says “not published.”

The order is by fit to the job most readers have — getting a WebAR or WebXR experience built for a product, a venue or a campaign — not by headcount. Custom studios come first, developer platforms next, an advertising platform last. Funding rounds, awards and follower counts were ignored: none of them show whether a vendor can ship image tracking that works on both iPhone Safari and Android Chrome.

Two market changes shaped the list: 8th Wall retired its hosted platform on February 28, 2026, and Onirix was acquired by INVELON (announced September 26, 2025). Blippar has suspended new subscriptions and was left out.

Comparison table: ten vendors side by side

The ten companies, one by one

1. Groove Jones: web, headset and training work from Dallas

Groove Jones builds AI, AR/VR/XR, WebGL and progressive-web-app experiences for global brands from Dallas, Texas. The service list also covers volumetric capture and mixed-reality training, so one engagement can span a browser configurator and a headset piece.

Representative work on the site includes a Toyota Mirai WebGL configurator and the U.S. Army National Guard “Disasterville” mixed-reality training program. Pick them when a US brand needs one vendor across web and headset formats with production in-house.

When not to pick them: neither pricing nor timelines are published, so budgeting starts with a call, and a team that wants a self-serve platform should look further down the list.

2. Aircards Studio: app-less AR campaigns from a small team

Aircards is a creative studio for immersive brand experiences, founded in 2019 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, with a second location in New Paltz, New York. Clutch lists the team at 2–9 people and the work as 70% AR/VR development, 30% advertising.

The portfolio includes Nike “On Air” location-based AR, a Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama retail activation and Lenovo’s F1 “Race to Create.” It is one of the few vendors here with published money figures: a $1,000 minimum project and $100–149 per hour, per its Clutch listing.

Pick Aircards for a campaign-scale WebAR piece with a clear brief and a launch date. When not to pick them: a 2–9 person team is the wrong shape for parallel workstreams or long-term product engineering.

3. Rock Paper Reality: campaign XR from London and San Francisco

Rock Paper Reality is an immersive experience studio headquartered in London with a San Francisco office for US inquiries. Its work spans AR, VR, MR and generative AI, and the current portfolio leans into newer formats: Gaussian splatting, Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3 apps, and AR inside Google Maps.

Named projects include Google’s first AR activation in Google Maps (Paris landmarks) and a VRX Racing Experience for Lenovo. Pick them when the brief is a high-visibility consumer moment on a platform that changed in the last year.

When not to pick them: founding year, team size and pricing are not published, and the portfolio is campaign work rather than product engineering with ERP or e-commerce integrations.

4. Culver City, California: a Three.js and WebAR studio founded in 2020

Todor3D is a Culver City, California studio founded in 2020 with 40+ engineers across three continents and 300+ projects delivered; its Clutch profile shows 25 reviews and a 5.0 rating. The stack is browser-first — WebGL, Three.js, React Three Fiber and WebAR/WebXR — and the practice areas are 3D & Immersive, Custom Software Engineering and AI Solutions.

The studio publishes its brackets, rare on this list: $10,000–50,000, $50,000–100,000 and $100,000–250,000+, with timelines of 4–10 weeks, 3–6 months and 4–12 months. The homepage lists a closet configurator in the $10K–50K bracket delivered in four months and a jewelry configurator in the same bracket.

Pick the team when the AR piece is a product viewer or configurator that must share code with a React front end. When not to pick them: founded in 2020, the track record is shorter than Zappar’s (2011) or Program-Ace’s (1992), and the stack is web-only, so confirm native headset work before assuming it.

5. Zappar: platform and agency under one roof since 2011

Zappar has built AR since 2011 and sells both tooling and services. Zapworks covers Designer, Mattercraft (a web 3D environment) and Universal AR SDKs, plus Zapworks Spaces for indoor navigation and the Zapbox mixed-reality headset. Studio Z is the in-house creative studio for brand work.

Homepage case studies include Jurassic World, Nespresso Vertuo Pop and LEGO Mythica. Pick Zappar when you want the experience built by the company that maintains the engine, or when a marketing team will keep producing content in Zapworks afterwards.

When not to pick them: no plan prices were on the pages we fetched (only a free trial), and the headquarters is not stated on the site — directory listings place it in London. Ask how portable a Mattercraft project is.

6. Program-Ace: a 150-person house for simulations and digital twins

Program-Ace, founded in 1992 and headquartered in Nicosia, Cyprus, states 150+ in-house staff and representatives in the USA, Poland, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary and Japan. It does custom software, VR/AR/MR, AI and digital-twin work for manufacturing, defense, energy and healthcare, and lists product configurators among its services.

Representative projects are a Gap Inc. active-threat simulation training and 3D urban digital twins for Limassol and Leipzig. The site cites a Clutch rating of 4.8 across 46 reviews. Pick them for engine-based work — Unity, Unreal Engine, Cesium — where scale and a long history reassure procurement.

When not to pick them: pricing is not published, and the stack is engine-led, so a browser-only WebAR piece should be scoped explicitly.

7. 8th Wall: the hosted WebAR platform is now a free engine

8th Wall changed more than any other name here. On February 28, 2026 the hosted platform and all paid tiers were retired; what remains at 8thwall.org is a free, open-source XR Engine owned by Niantic Spatial, Inc. It still covers World Effects, Image Targets, Face Effects and Sky Effects, and integrates with A-Frame, Three.js, Babylon.js and PlayCanvas.

Pick it when your own developers will build and host the experience and you want a mature tracking stack without a license fee. When not to pick it: there is no vendor to call, no hosting and no support contract, so a team without engineers needs a studio from the top half of this list.

8. Onirix: no-code Web AR with a new owner

Onirix combines Onirix Studio, a drag-and-drop editor, with a Web AR SDK for image, world/SLAM and spatial tracking, delivering AR without native apps. The company was acquired by INVELON (announced September 26, 2025) and the platform remains active. The site claims customers in 100 countries and shows LG, Telefónica and the Cleveland Cavaliers among its cases.

Pick Onirix when a marketing or training team wants to publish AR scenes itself. When not to pick it: pricing was not on the pages we fetched, the headquarters is not stated on the site (Crunchbase lists Spain), and after an acquisition it is fair to ask for the roadmap in writing.

9. Immersal: positioning for AR that must know where it is

Immersal, part of Hexagon and based in Helsinki, Finland, sells a visual positioning system (VPS) SDK for AR wayfinding and asset tracking indoors and outdoors, along with WebAR solutions and a city-scale mapping toolkit. Named deployments include an indoor navigation web app for the Mall of Tripla in Helsinki and the MLB Next App for All-Star Week in Seattle.

Pick Immersal when the AR content must stay anchored to a specific venue, campus or city block — a job image targets and generic world tracking cannot do. When not to pick it: it is an SDK, not a studio, and the wrong tool for a product viewer or a campaign that needs no location awareness.

10. Aryel: AR as an ad format rather than a web page

Aryel, based in Milan with a London office, is an AR/3D advertising platform for brands and agencies. Formats include 3D and product-centric ads, virtual try-on ads, 360 expandable ads and AR advergames, plus Sonar, a GenAI media-planning layer. The site states 150+ organizations use it.

Examples include Nissan JUKE 360 ads and Marcolin virtual try-on ads. Pick Aryel when the budget sits with the media team and the goal is a measurable ad campaign. When not to pick it: it is not a custom development shop, and an AR viewer on your own product pages belongs with a studio or SDK above.

How to choose for your own project: six questions to ask a vendor

These questions separate a vendor that has shipped your kind of AR from one that has shipped AR in general.

1. Which tracking does this job need, and where have you shipped it? Image targets, world/SLAM, face tracking and visual positioning are different problems. Ask for a live link, not a video, and open it on an iPhone and an Android phone.
2. Who owns the engine and the hosting after launch? 8th Wall’s hosted platform ended in February 2026 and Onirix changed owners in 2025. Ask what happens if the platform underneath your experience is retired or repriced.
3. What is the asset budget per scene? The maintainer of Google’s model-viewer advises that a few megabytes is usually enough with proper compression, and that files over about 20 MB are problematic (google/model-viewer GitHub discussion #2716). Ask for a target, not “we optimize.”
4. What does a typical project cost? Most software development companies on Clutch charge $25–49 per hour, the most common US band is $50–99, and the typical project runs $10,000–49,000 (Clutch pricing guide, updated September 2026). A quote far outside those bands needs a reason.
5. What does year two cost? Agencies surveyed by GoodFirms budget maintenance at 15–25% of build cost annually (GoodFirms app cost survey, 2026). Ask who fixes the experience when a browser release breaks camera permissions.
6. Can we speak to a named client with a comparable project? Logos on a homepage are not references; a twenty-minute call with a past client is.

FAQ: what buyers ask before hiring an AR or WebXR vendor

How much does WebAR development cost?

Published figures put a typical software project at $10,000–49,000 (Clutch pricing guide, updated September 2026). On this list, Aircards publishes a $1,000 minimum and $100–149 per hour, and one studio publishes brackets from $10,000–50,000 up to $100,000–250,000+. The rest quote per project.

What is the difference between WebAR and an AR app?

WebAR runs inside the phone’s browser from a link or QR code with no download, which is why studios like Aircards call their work app-less. A native AR app is installed from an app store and can use deeper device features, at the cost of the install step. Every vendor here offers WebAR; Groove Jones, Rock Paper Reality and Program-Ace also build headset apps.

Is 8th Wall still available in 2026?

Yes, but not as a hosted service. 8th Wall retired its hosted platform and every paid tier on February 28, 2026. The XR Engine is now free and open source at 8thwall.org under Niantic Spatial. You supply the developers and the hosting yourself.

How long does an AR project take?

Most vendors do not publish timelines. The one studio on this list that does quotes 4–10 weeks for its smallest bracket, 3–6 months for mid-size work and 4–12 months for the largest engagements. A single-scene campaign with existing 3D assets sits at the short end; a configurator with integrations at the long end.

Does AR actually change buying behavior?

Yes, with caveats. In a Deloitte Digital and Snap survey of 15,000 consumers (May 2021), 56% said AR gives them more confidence in product quality. Shopify reports that Rebecca Minkoff shoppers who viewed a product in AR were 65% more likely to purchase (single-brand case, 2020–2021 cohort). Both are vendor-connected sources, so measure your own results.