AI Try-On for Online Stores

Online shoppers can't feel the fabric or step into a fitting room. So they guess, and when the guess is wrong, the parcel comes back. Clothing has some of the highest return rates in e-commerce, and every return eats into your margin.

AI virtual try-on closes that gap. A shopper adds a photo of themselves, picks a product, and sees it on their own body in seconds. A year ago the results looked like stickers. Today they look like real photos.

Don't take our word for it. Try it below with one of our pieces for women or men, or upload a product photo from your own store. Subscribe to our Insights emails and you get a free AI photo every day. The first 30 people can also try it live on video.

The three kinds of try-on

"Virtual try-on" covers three very different things. They differ a lot in quality and in cost.

• AR overlays. The product is laid over the live camera view and follows the shopper as they move. It runs on the phone and costs almost nothing per use. It works well for glasses, make-up and watches. On clothing it often looks pasted on.
• AI photo try-on. The shopper's photo and the product photo go to an AI model, which returns a realistic photo of them wearing it. That's the demo above. It takes 10 to 20 seconds and costs a cent or two per photo.
• Live AI video. The AI repaints the camera feed in real time, so the shopper can turn around and watch the fit move. It's impressive, and it's expensive.

What it really costs

We built and tested all three. Here is the honest maths at today's AI prices.

• Live AI video is billed by the second, at around $0.02 a second. A 30-second session costs about $0.60. If 1,000 shoppers play with it in a month, that's $600, and most of them were only browsing.
• AI photo try-on costs about $0.02 a photo. The same 1,000 shoppers making two photos each cost about $40.
• AR overlays cost almost nothing per use. You pay in realism instead.

The catch with any AI that shoppers use is that you pay each time someone plays with it, not each time someone buys. So it needs limits: a few free tries per shopper, a daily budget, and a quick email step before it runs. Done that way, it also builds your mailing list. Every try-on in our demo starts with an email address.

Where it pays off

• Fashion and streetwear, where fit and look decide the sale and returns are expensive.
• Merch and custom prints, where shoppers want to see the design on a body, not on a flat mock-up.
• Product photos without a photoshoot. The same technology can dress a model in your new collection, so every product gets on-model photos without booking a studio. You pay once per photo, and every visitor sees it for free.

For many small brands, that last one is the best place to start. It cuts the cost of every product launch, and you can add shopper try-on later.

How to add it to your store

• Shopify. The Shopify App Store has try-on apps. They're quick to switch on, but you pay monthly and per use, and the look is theirs, not yours. A custom setup adds a try-on button to your product page that matches your theme and runs on your own limits.
• WooCommerce. A small plugin adds the button to product pages and keeps the AI key safely on your server.
• Custom-built stores. On Next.js, Laravel or a headless setup, the button calls your own backend, which talks to the AI provider. You keep full control of cost, data and design.

Whatever your platform, a good setup does five things:

1. Keeps the AI key on the server. If the key sits in the website's code, anyone can copy it and run up your bill.
2. Caps spending. Free tries per shopper, per day and in total, so a busy week can't surprise you.
3. Uses clean product photos. The item alone on a plain background gives the best results.
4. Respects privacy. Tell shoppers what happens to their photo. Ours are used once to make the try-on and never stored.
5. Measures results. Compare add-to-cart and return rates for shoppers who tried on with those who didn't. That's how you know it pays for itself.

Mistakes we see

• Launching live video try-on first, then switching it off when the first bill arrives.
• Putting the API key in the website's code.
• Feeding the AI busy lifestyle photos instead of clean product shots.
• Hiding the try-on button where nobody sees it.

Want this on your store?

We're a design and development studio. We build online stores on Shopify, WooCommerce and custom code, and we can add AI try-on or AI product photos to yours, matched to your brand, with spending limits built in.

Book a free 30-minute call and we'll tell you honestly whether it makes sense for your products.