Trying to find a configurator for tiny home designing, pricing, and quoting straight on your website but not sure where to start? We're sure you're also tired of only showing static images, complex blueprints, or 2D renders of your designs on your websites that your customers may not always understand or trust that they are representative of the real end product.

This is why 3D product configurators are so important. They display your product, in this case, a small home or tiny home on wheels, in 3D and allow your customers to customize them and see the changes they make in real time. This is much more trustworthy than some photos that may be outdated or potentially edited to look more alluring than their real-life counterpart.

But which 3D configurator is the best for tiny homes, modular homes, tiny homes on wheels, and ADUs? We think two options are very strong contenders: Tiny Easy and SaleSqueze. We're going to compare and contrast these two and outline their strengths, weaknesses, and main differences, specifically for selling small homes and tiny homes on wheels.

Tiny Easy

Tiny Easy's 3D sales configurator is sleek, simple, intuitive, and easy to follow. They created the configurator with your customer in mind—so there are no overly complex buttons or menus. Buying and customizing a house can have tons of options and overwhelm your customer. However, their Configurator is a clean, guided, step-by-step solution that allows for easy customization without overwhelming your customer.

It's designed to simplify and streamline the design and sales process so that you and your customers can bring their tiny home, tiny house on wheels, modular home, or ADU to life. Tiny Easy's 3D configurator is purpose-built for the tiny home industry specifically to help tiny home builders market and sell more homes and streamline their production and sales process.

The interface seamlessly guides the user through designing and configuring the home in the builder’s product range, so there's little to no room for confusion or error for maximum conversions.

For example, the customer starts out with choosing from your range of staple models/designs. Then they’re guided through exterior options & finishes, move onto picking their interior layouts & styles, and finally submit their details to start the sales process with you!

Main features

Tiny Easy's 3D product configurator has a guided 3D system that moves with the user as they go through the steps. For example, when picking out cladding or exterior colors and materials, the 3D model shows the outside. When picking doors, it moves towards the door area so you don't have to guess where to go.

This makes it much easier for your customers as they don't have to overthink or click around the model to figure out what change they just made (and changes are automatically updated in the 3D model). The hard work is done for them, and they can directly see how the house changes based on their choices!

Not only that, but the configurator also has a unique waypoint system—certain points in the home that you can click on so you can see areas in further detail as if you were there in person. Really useful if your business specializes in certain detailed work that you want to show off.

The 3D model isn't photorealistic, as it’s optimized for load speed and performance. However, it's still very detailed and accurate to show your customers what to expect, as the materials and textures accurately mirror the real thing.

The 3D viewer is also great because it allows for change in the future. Behind the scenes, it's easier to make changes to a 3D model compared to static or stitched together images relying on pre-rendered pictures, and it'll be less work to update any materials, layouts, etc. you may add to your catalog in the future.

Pros

• Made specifically for the tiny home & small home industry

• Intuitive, step-by-step user interface

• Waypoint system is great for guided exploration

• 3D model is fully 3D and can rotate, zoom, and show changes in real time

• More advanced 3D viewer

Cons

• Not a great fit for other industries except tiny homes, container homes, modular homes and ADUs.

Client Example

Our client, Nordic and Spruce, offers several different layouts for their homes (be it different kitchen layouts, an addition of a loft, different bathroom layouts, etc.). The Tiny Easy 3D configurator has accommodated all these different layouts, easily displaying anywhere from ten to 30 layouts, depending on skylights, windows, frames, etc.

Nordic and Spruce has several detailed layouts that we've accurately recreated to—even down to small details like special handles that are unique to them!

The Tiny Easy 3D configurator (and our sophisticated in-house software) has been instrumental in bringing Nordic and Spruce's customers' dream tiny homes to life.

SaleSqueze

SaleSqueze caters to several industries, so their configurator can differ slightly depending on your configurable products. They do offer tiny home configurators for some clients, and, while there are some differences, there's a lot of overlap too.

In general, SaleSqueze has great configurators across multiple industries. Their configurators for less complex products like manufacturing, pergolas, fencing, and lighting are especially impressive.

Some of their configurators for smaller price-point products also directly tie to the sales process, as you can add your configured product to cart as soon as you're finished customizing. Your customers may like this feature, as it simplifies the sales process and lets them purchase straightaway, no mess, no fuss, which is great for an e-commerce industry approach.

Main features

We noticed that simpler products work much better with the SaleSqueze configurator—they look amazing and very accurate. Many of them are in 3D and can rotate easily. Changes reflect quickly too.

But more complex products like homes aren't quite in native 3D and are a little more finicky to work with and customize. They do lose detail, even with their hyperrealistic imaging. They're 2D pre-rendered images stitched together in a 360 panorama, so you can't rotate or zoom in and out of the model as seamlessly.

Additionally, the system isn't as intuitive. There is a partial step-by-step purchasing process like Tiny Easy's configurator, but more often than not, your customer will have to figure out where the change was made, as it's not always immediate either.

For example, you can make multiple changes in one step, like choosing from 5-10 upgrades on a single page making the user interface slightly more complex and possibly overwhelming.

In general, changing integral parts of a design is tricky in 3D complex products like tiny homes—it can often become clunky, or more significant layout changes simply can’t be shown. This is likely why they stick to an image-based system, as they can display more.

This is a great solution for simpler products, however, if your business has more than five to ten layout or material options, this can become very hard to set up. For example, if you have 20 different siding colors, this would be almost impossible with a pre-rendered 2D photo-based system or would require a lot of setup and maintenance work.

Pros

• Simpler products are in 3D, and are very accurately represented

• There's a lot of options they can include

• Their configurator platform is built for a multitude of industries, like manufacturing, building materials, furniture, lighting, etc.

• If hyperrealism is what you prefer, their tiny home configurators are just that

Cons

• Complex tiny home configurators are not fully 3D and are less intuitive

• Loading times for compex 2D image based configurations can be long

• 3D native configurators can only have limited detail

Example

One of their configurators specializes in modular homes. While their attention to detail is fantastic, the amount of it that goes into the configurator can be taxing on load times and browsers. It takes a bit before I can swipe right or left on the model as well, since it's 2D images stitched together rather than a totally 3D image.

The interior is similar, with a 360 panorama stitch of static images this time. While it's effective, it does feel less dynamic.

It's also hard to tell what changes have been made, as the model doesn't move with you where that change was applied. So it's a bit of guesswork, too.

This configurator only has limited options that change in the interactive image which is a great fit for this example since the product displayed only has a limited range of options.

What we did like was that the models and layouts were tastefully rendered, and gave us a very realistic picture of what the end product would look like. It was also easy to get a quotation.

Verdict

If you're looking for product configuration for smaller, less complex products, SaleSqueze is a great option.

However, if you're looking for a 3D sales configurator purpose-built for the tiny home or small home industry, Tiny Easy is the best option out there. It's sleek, intuitive, and streamlines the process for you and your business so your customer can have the keys to their dream home so much faster.

If you want to learn more about our 3D product configurator, schedule a call with us or book a demo. We'd be happy to discuss what we can do for you!

Why is Product Configuration Important?

There are several reasons you should consider product configuration for your business:

Your Customer Gets What They Want

As a business, you want to ensure that your customer gets what they want, or at least the closest approximation. Product configuration (especially in 3D) ensures that they can fully customize the product they're eyeing and transform it into something they've always wanted or dreamt of and know exactly what they’re getting before buying.

Enhanced Order Accuracy Means Less Dissatisfaction

Because a 3D configurator empowers your customer to choose and display the product in its most accurate form, there's a smaller chance that your client will feel dissatisfied with the end result.

Happier customers mean more customer loyalty, and loyal customers mean more conversions.

A Personalized Customer Experience

The engaging experience of creating your own home can be rewarding and a lot more engaging than a simple sales page with a few pictures and a list of inclusions and options. It can be really fun to make your own home and see how you can customize it, especially if you're tailoring it to become a long-term home for yourself and your loved ones. This helps you stand out from the competition and makes it more likely for you to sign up a new customer!