Is Matterport losing the fight for 3D tours?
A business conflict between two industry giants has agents caught in the middle - read below.
As of late 2025, Zillow removed Matterport 3D tours from Zillow.com. The move followed new licensing terms after Zillow’s major competitor CoStar Group’s $1.6 billion acquisition of Matterport and what appears to be a broader dispute over how listing content can be used across competing platforms.
For years, Matterport has been the gold standard in 3D tours: clean, immersive, and genuinely useful for understanding a space. But steadily, Zillow has been building an advantage of its own: giving preferential treatment to listings that use its native tours. That tension finally boiled over.
Inside baseball. When CoStar Group (which also owns Homes.com) acquired Matterport for its premium virtual tour capabilities, it wasn’t just buying a camera system, it was buying a massive library of spatial data. They thought this data could become a strategic asset inside their larger ecosystem, and they thought they could leverage the reality that Matterport had barely turned a profit in recent years (according to industry insiders).
But in trying to tighten control over how that content was used on competing platforms, things went sideways. CoStar changed the terms of their API when it comes to how competing sites could access Matterport. Zillow pushed back hard and ultimately pulled the plug on Matterport tours altogether.
So… is Matterport on the verge of a total knock out? Or more specifically, are their tours still a good investment? Depends. But two things are now undeniably true:
1. Matterport is no longer a neutral platform. It’s now part of a much larger competitive ecosystem, and that changes things.
2. Matterport tours no longer display on Zillow. And that matters. A lot.
Whether we like it or not, Zillow is still the biggest distribution channel in residential real estate.
Where Matterport still wins
Your website
Property management and rental listings
Complex homes where layout clarity matters
Marketing channels outside of Zillow (email, social, listing pages, etc.)
Where it loses
Zillow visibility
Native integration on the real estate platform that drives the most buyer traffic
How Zillow’s 3D Home tours are competing. Zillow’s Home Tours are designed to win on Zillow, but they’re not just stuck there. Agents can still share unbranded tour links, embed them on websites, and use them in email and social. They’re built for Zillow’s ecosystem, but they can live elsewhere too. This is a huge advantage.
The takeaway. Zillow, love it or hate it, is still the biggest game in town. It dominates consumer traffic, and as marketers, we have to pay attention to what actually drives inquiries. And because of that, Matterport may have lost its title as the preferred 3D tour. As a result, we’re now recommending Zillow’s home tours to our clients in Altitude's media bundles.
So what should you do? Like with all media decisions, it comes down to strategy. If your goal is maximum visibility on Zillow, their 3D home tour is the safer play. If your goal is a more premium, immersive marketing experience across all channels, Matterport is still worth considering. And most listings now live somewhere in between.
One thing to watch: Pricing. As demand for Matterport becomes more situational, and while hosting costs remain high for photographers, you’ll likely start to see pricing increase for these tours.
The bottom line. Matterport may not be a sinking ship, but it’s no longer the obvious choice it once was. And in today’s market, the question isn’t “What’s the best tool?”, but rather “What are we optimizing for?” (social, MLS, Zillow, etc.). And, if your marketing budget is tight, costs/benefits are a real part of the equation.
Hope this helps,
-Michael
For questions or thoughts, send me a note. Altitude Property Media is based in Boulder, Colorado.
