An academic Nanome Full seat costs $250 a year on the pricing page and covers both the headset app and the browser app. Nanome's volume offer adds 2 free seats for every 8 paid. A class of 30 sharing 10 Meta Quest 3S headsets in groups of 3 comes to about $5,500 in the first year: $2,000 for 10 seats and $3,499.90 for the headsets. After that it's $2,000 a year. Those 10 seats cover the students wearing headsets at any one moment, while the rest follow free in a browser. If all 30 students take headset turns within the same lesson, each needs a seat, and the yearly line rises to $6,000. All prices here are as of October 2, 2026.
A 30-student classroom, totaled
A Nanome seat belongs to a person. The setup guide has every user sign in with their own Nanome account, even on a shared headset, and says headset use takes a Collab or Full seat. On academic plans that means a Full seat, since the pricing page offers Collab on commercial plans alone. The seat count therefore follows the number of students in headsets at the same moment.
With 10 headsets and groups of 3, one student per group wears the headset and holds a seat. The other 2 follow from a laptop on a Free Web Seat, which includes view-only collaboration with headset users. Between units, an admin reassigns the seats by account email, and each new holder confirms the email Nanome sends. Other class shapes are worked through in how many Nanome licenses a classroom needs.
| Line item | Quantity | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Academic Full seat at $250 a year | 10 seats (8 paid, 2 free) | $2,000 a year |
| Meta Quest 3S, 128 GB, at $349.99 | 10 headsets | $3,499.90 once |
| Meta Horizon Managed Services | 10 headsets | $0 since February 20, 2026 |
| First year | About $5,500 before tax and shipping | |
| Each year after | $2,000 |
If every student wears a headset during the same lesson, the class needs 30 seats. That is 24 paid, $6,000 a year, or about $9,500 in the first year with the headsets.
The headset figure is Meta's US list price since April 19, 2026, when Meta raised the 128 GB Quest 3S to $349.99. Meta Horizon Managed Services is the Meta platform that enrolls Quests into device management, and it costs nothing now. The setup guide also compares ArborXR and ManageXR, each starting at $7 a headset per month on annual billing, for schools that want a paid management layer. For shared headsets, the same guide suggests an Elite Strap, a facial interface that wipes clean and a carrying case, priced separately.
A headset comparison sets the device options side by side, and the classroom Quest walkthrough gets a class set running.
Price by number of seats
The bonus stacks: 16 paid seats return 20, and 24 paid return 30, per the May 2026 academic license update. The pricing page prints the per-seat rates, and that post sets out the bonus.
| Seats needed | Seats paid | Yearly total | Per seat |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | $250 | $250 |
| 2 | 2 | $500 | $250 |
| 5 | 5 | $1,250 | $250 |
| 10 | 8 | $2,000 | $200 |
| 12 | 10 | $2,500 | $208 |
| 20 | 16 | $4,000 | $200 |
| 30 | 24 | $6,000 | $200 |
| 36 | 30 | $7,500 | $208 |
| 60 (Department) | 48 at $150 | $7,200 | $120 |
Since 8 paid seats already return 10, a group that needs 9 pays the same $2,000 as a group that needs 10.
The last row is the surprise. Sixty seats at the department rate come to $7,200, which sits below the $7,500 that 36 seats cost at the standard rate. Any group that needs 35 or more seats pays less at the department tier, because 35 seats take 29 paid at $250, or $7,250.
The department tier and web-only seats
Academic (Department) is the plan for institutions and labs deploying at scale, and its Full seats are $150 a year. The pricing page gives the tier a 50-license minimum. The May update says the $150 rate starts at 48 paid seats and that the 2-for-8 bonus keeps applying, which is how 48 paid seats return 60.
This tier also sells the Full Web Seat, a paid browser-only seat starting at $50 a year with the same 50-license minimum. Among academic plans it's sold only at the department tier, and the May update describes web-only seats as an add-on that opens once a group reaches 48 paid Full seats. A department that wants web seats alone can settle that in a quote. The seat carries multi-user collaboration with headset teammates, MCP server calls, autonomous tool use, and unlimited workspaces, projects and chats, per the update, so a student without a headset still gets the whole web app.
Department plans also list syllabus and course implementation assistance, molecular file storage across the academic experience, and headsets that the Nanome support team or a deployment partner can manage.
What one seat includes
The Academic Full seat is web plus XR. In practice that means:
- The Nanome headset app for Meta Quest, Android XR, Windows and Apple Vision Pro, from the versions page.
- The browser app at app.nanome.ai, which since v2.5 carries the full platform, as the new front door to Nanome describes.
- Live sessions between headset and browser users on a Nanome-hosted collaboration server.
- MARA, the AI copilot inside Nanome, with access to 300+ Nanome-built and external tools, a Nanome-hosted tool server and LLM, 100 MCP calls, and room to build custom tools.
The comparison table on the pricing page lists 1,000 credits a month with a Full seat, and external tools run on credits. Any seat type can buy more credits for tool calls, agentic work and MCP calls.
Nanome Classic, the v1.24 app, still runs, and its downloads stay on the versions page. Its Stacks plugin system works with v1.24 and below, and in v2 MARA handles the third-party integrations Stacks used to carry.
License terms
- Yearly. Every academic seat on the pricing page is priced per year and billed annually. The page's Monthly toggle shows the same price divided by 12, and the page offers no perpetual license.
- No listed minimum on the Classroom / Personal plan. The page's Select plan button buys a seat online. Card and purchase-order routes are compared in paying for Nanome.
- Automatic renewal. Seats bought online are recurring subscriptions, and section 2 of the Terms of Service authorizes Nanome to charge the card or payment account on file for each renewal.
- Paid in advance. Section 9.1 of the License Agreement makes fees payable in advance and non-refundable unless an order form says otherwise.
- One end date. Under the same section, a seat added mid-term is billed pro rata for the remaining time, so it renews alongside the seats already held.
- Other term lengths. The same agreement sets each license term in the order form. Only yearly prices are public, so a semester or multi-year term is a question for a quote.
- Personal plan. The pricing page describes Academic (Personal) as meant for individual students and researchers.
For an exact quote, the May update says to email support@nanome.ai with the institution name, who is asking and in what role, and the planned use. The quote PDF that comes back lists paid and bonus seats separately.
What changed in May 2026, and why older prices still circulate
The May 18, 2026 update moved the Classroom / Personal Full seat to $250 a year alongside Nanome v2.5, a price tied to collaboration that now reaches from headsets into the web app. Documents from before the change still turn up, and their figures differ from today's.
| Older figure | Where it still appears | Today's equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Academic License, $199 per license per year, 2-license minimum | The older Academic Licensing sheet | Academic Full seat, $250 a year |
| Stacks plugin packages, sold as yearly upgrades | The same sheet | MARA runs tools in v2, with access to 300+ tools on the Full seat |
| Academic Web seat at $8/mo, Full seat at $21/mo | The April 2026 launch post | Free Web Seat on Classroom / Personal, Full Web Seat from $50 a year at Department, Full seat at $20.83/mo billed annually |
Commercial and enterprise pricing
The current pricing page lists 3 plan families: Starter, Academic (Classroom / Personal and Department) and Commercial. Commercial plans come in 2 forms. Cloud runs on a Nanome-hosted stack with premium support, and Enterprise deploys in a company's private cloud or on its own servers, with custom development and internal database integration. Both are priced in a quote scoped to the team.
If the budget is short
The Free Web Seat costs nothing and covers web visualization, PDB, SDF and CIF uploads, and view-only collaboration with headset users, per the pricing page. It allows 3 workspaces, 1 project and 50 credits, and it keeps the last 5 files and 7 days of chat. New accounts also start a 14-day Full license trial without a credit card. What the free tier holds is laid out in is Nanome free.
In the 10-seat plan, the headsets are the bigger first-year line. One per group of 3, with the others following in a browser, cuts both the headset count and the seat count to a third of the class. Workspace links also open in a browser with no login, which helps when guests or a second section join.
For a large cohort that meets the department minimums, the Full Web Seat at $50 a year and up puts the full web app in every student's hands at a fifth of the $250 Classroom / Personal seat.
FAQ
Is buying 24 seats cheaper per seat than buying 6?
Yes. Twenty-four seats take 20 paid, $5,000 a year or about $208 each. Six seats are 6 paid at $250 each, $1,500 in all, since the bonus starts at 8 paid.
Can we keep last year's rate?
The pricing page lists the current rates alone: $250 a year for a Classroom / Personal Full seat and $150 at the Department tier. No public page mentions holding an older rate at renewal. Renewal quotes are covered in paying for Nanome.
Does MARA cost extra?
No. A Full seat includes MARA with 100 MCP calls, access to 300+ tools and, per the comparison table, 1,000 credits a month. Credits for more tool calls and agentic use can be added to any seat type.
Is there a semester license?
The pricing page prints yearly prices only. The License Agreement lets an order form set the term, so a semester is something to raise in a quote, and it has no public price.
Does every student need a paid seat?
A student who watches needs a Free Web Seat, which joins other people's workspaces as view-only. A student in a headset needs a Full seat on their own account. A student who edits a shared class workspace from a browser needs a paid seat too: the $250 Full seat, or at the department tier a Full Web Seat from $50.