Best walkaround video software for car dealers

The right walkaround video tool depends on two choices: whether someone films each car or software makes the video from photos, and whether you also want an interactive 360 spin. Here's the short version:

• CarShots: best for a walkaround video of every car with nothing extra to film. It turns the car's listing photos into a 15-second 360° video with voiceover and music, in the same $50-a-month plan as your photos.
• Impel (formerly SpinCar): best for interactive 360° WalkArounds with interior panoramas and close-ups, plus a Video Tour generated from that 360 content.
• Spyne: best for AI walkaround video tours with voice narration and interior and exterior car tours on its Pro plan, from one vendor on a quote.
• Glo3D: best for buying video by the feature, with published per-rooftop prices for walkaround and engine video, inventory video tours and 360 spins.
• CarCutter: best for AI videos made from 8 standard photos and exterior spins from 4, for groups that sign a fixed-term order.
• Phyron: best for turning the photos and inventory data you already have into videos and ads for every car in stock, published to your site, marketplaces and social media.
• FlickFusion: best for live walkarounds filmed on a phone, with video texting, email and live video chat for follow-up.
• LESA: best for an HD walkaround with a human voiceover on every car, shot by your team or a lot service in its app.
• Dealer Specialties: best for having its own videographers film LiveLot walkarounds on your lot.

Shopping for photo tools too? Our roundup of AI car photo software covers backgrounds, plates and prices.

Here's how each tool makes its videos, whether you also get an interactive spin, and what it costs. "Not published" means the company doesn't say, so ask before you sign.

A walkaround video plays on its own, like any other video. It circles the car for the shopper, so it works anywhere video does: your website, Facebook Marketplace, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

A 360 spin is interactive. The shopper drags to turn the car, and many spins add interior panoramas and hotspots on features. A spin plays in the vendor's viewer, so it usually lives on your vehicle detail pages, while a video file can go anywhere you post.

If shoppers find your cars mostly on social media and marketplaces, start with video. If you want shoppers on your own site to inspect a car up close, look at a spin platform such as Impel, Glo3D or CarCutter. Several vendors sell both: Impel makes its Video Tour from 360 WalkAround content, LESA takes its spin from the walkaround video, and FlickFusion can make either one from inventory photos.

There are three ways to get a walkaround video of every car, and they differ most in who does the work.

Your team shoots the guided shot list once, on any phone, in the browser or the CarShots iOS app. Each photo comes back in about 20 seconds on one of 20 studio, showroom, outdoor and scenic backdrops. Then CarShots circles the car through those finished photos and makes a 15-second 360° video, with music and a voiceover that names the car. Write your own short script, or turn the voiceover off and keep the music.

The video is a standard MP4 for your website, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and it joins your CSV or XML inventory feed or SFTP upload along with the photos. Walkaround videos are part of the same $50-a-month plan as your photos, and the 7-day trial includes one.

What it doesn't do: there's no interactive 360 spin and no filmed footage, because the video comes from the photos. Here's a real one, made from a Range Rover's listing photos; there's more on our walkaround video page.

Only a few of these tools publish video prices. Here's what each one says:

• Glo3D prices each feature per rooftop: Walkaround and Engine Video is $149 a month, Inventory Video Tour $199 and 360 Car Photography $149, on monthly billing for up to 200 units.
• Spyne quotes by inventory volume, rooftops and plan; its 360 car photography page lists plans from $350 a month.
• Impel doesn't publish prices. Capterra lists it from $99 per feature a month, without saying what a feature covers.
• Dealer Image Pro, which captures video and 360s on an iPhone it supplies, says most dealerships pay $12 to $22 a vehicle, with a 50-vehicle monthly minimum, a $999 setup fee and a $500 refundable deposit on the iPhone.
• LESA lists add-ons such as blurred video backgrounds ($199), AI feature labels ($249) and a Spanish voiceover ($299), but not its video packages.
• FlickFusion, CarCutter and Dealer Specialties price by quote, and Phyron doesn't publish prices.
• CarShots includes walkaround videos in its $50-a-month plan for 333 photos, month to month with no contract.

Contracts matter as much as price. Spyne's and Impel's terms renew automatically unless you give 30 or 90 days' notice, CarCutter's need 14 days' notice, and Glo3D asks for 30 days' notice to cancel, with fees that aren't refunded. For what the photos cost on their own, see our car dealership photography cost guide.

General AI video tools can turn a still photo of a car into a moving shot, which can work for a social ad. A listing is different: the video has to show the car you're selling. Generated motion can change details like wheels, badges or trim, and no video can show damage that wasn't in the photos.

Whichever tool you use, ours included, watch the finished video against the real car before it goes live, and keep the photos on the listing too. Car tools like the ones above start from photos or footage of the actual car, which keeps the video close to what's on your lot.

Six questions sort the options quickly: