a Local Landscape Designer alternatives: the full landscape

Yardzen is the best-known online landscape design service in the US. You pay a fixed fee, fill out a brief, and a licensed landscape designer delivers a custom 2D plan, 3D renderings, a plant list, and a list of local contractors who can build it. It is a one-time service, not a tool, you get a finished design, not the ability to iterate on your own.

Best for

You already know the look you want and are ready to build now

Pricing

$995 (Essential, 2D plans only) to $3,495 (Premium, with exterior home design). Most buyers land on Classic at $1,395 or Signature at $1,995, the tiers with photorealistic renders

Speed

5 to 10 business days from brief to first design, plus revision time

Photorealistic AI redesign of your actual garden photo. Pick from fifteen distinct garden styles (modern, japanese, mediterranean, cottage, and more) and get a share-ready render in under two minutes. Plans start at $19/month yearly for 250 designs.

Best for

Anyone exploring styles cheaply and fast

Pricing

From $19–$199/mo

Speed

Under 2 minutes per design

Tilly was one of the main Yardzen alternatives: human designers, fixed-price packages, a turnaround in weeks. It no longer exists on its own. Bower & Branch, an online marketplace where independent growers sell trees and plants direct to homeowners, acquired Tilly in August 2024 and folded the design team into its own Design Studio. tillydesign.com now redirects there, and the packages are priced under the Bower & Branch name.

Best for

You want a finished plan from a human designer, not a picture

Pricing

Design Studio packages run $559 for a front yard, $699 for a backyard and $1,049 for a full yard; the Native & Beneficial versions, built around regional natives and pollinator planting, run $699, $839 and $1,259

Speed

Two to four weeks from brief to finished design

iScape is the most established AR landscape design app on iOS. You point your phone at your yard and place plants, hardscape, and structures on top of the live camera feed. The output is more like a design mock-up than a photorealistic render, but the AR placement is genuinely useful for getting plant sizes right against the real space.

Best for

You already have a planting plan and want to verify scale in the real space

Pricing

Free tier with a basic plant library; Pro is roughly $30 per month or about $300 per year

Speed

Real-time AR placement, but designs are built by hand element-by-element

HomeDesignsAI is one of the broader AI design tools on the market, it covers interior rooms, exteriors, gardens, and commercial spaces from a single platform. The breadth is the selling point: if you want one subscription that handles redecorating your living room and reimagining your garden, it is a reasonable fit. AI Garden Design is the opposite bet, narrow, garden-specialised, with garden-specific styles, plant guides, and the design knowledge baked into the prompts.

Best for

You also want to redesign your kitchen, living room, or office

Pricing

Subscription tiers in a similar range to AI Garden Design Pro, roughly $20–$100 per month depending on plan and usage limits

Speed

Comparable, under a few minutes per redesign

SketchUp is the de facto free 3D modelling tool for landscape DIY and is also used by many landscape architects for client presentations. It is a true CAD-style tool, you build the model element by element, including terrain, structures, and plants. The learning curve is real, but the output is fully customisable.

Best for

You need accurate scale for hardscape, structures, or grading

Pricing

SketchUp Free is genuinely free with web access; SketchUp Pro is around $349 per year; photoreal rendering plug-ins add roughly $200–$500 per year

Speed

Hours to days per design once you know the tool; weeks if you are learning

ShrubHub is an online landscape design service that delivers a 3D rendering of your yard, a plant list, and a shopping list, produced by a designer from photos and measurements you submit. It is best known for aggressive discount marketing, the list price is rarely what anyone actually pays, which makes its real cost confusing to compare against alternatives.

Best for

You want a shopping list you can order from directly

Pricing

List prices are often quoted in the $1,500–$3,000 range but promotional pricing frequently lands the same packages nearer $500–$1,000; verify the current offer before comparing

Speed

Roughly one to two weeks from brief to first concept

Home Outside is the online design arm of Julie Moir Messervy Design Studio, a well-regarded practice at the design-led, lower-volume end of the market. One thing to know before you compare it: as of late 2026 homeoutside.com is pitched almost entirely at independent garden centers, offering an in-store design tool that turns a one-plant trip into a designed bed. The homeowner design work continues through the studio, but the front door is no longer set up for you, so expect to enquire rather than to pick a package off a page.

Best for

You want a designer's judgement rather than your own directed choices

Pricing

Consultation tiers typically start in the low hundreds; full concept and design packages commonly run several hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on scope

Speed

Typically one to three weeks depending on tier and designer availability, once you have made contact

Houzz is the largest home and garden inspiration platform on the web, combining millions of project photos, a directory of landscape and garden professionals, and a product marketplace. It is where most people start looking for ideas, but it is a discovery and hiring platform rather than a design tool, nothing on Houzz redesigns your own garden.

Best for

You are at the start of the process and still gathering ideas

Pricing

Free to browse and save; you pay professionals and for marketplace products separately

Speed

Instant to browse; hiring a professional runs on their timeline

DreamzAR is a mobile landscape design app that pairs AR placement of plants and features in your yard with AI-generated redesigns from a photo. It is one of the closest direct comparisons to AI Garden Design, with the main differences being platform reach, output style, and how the two handle iteration.

Best for

You want to stand in your yard and place objects in AR

Pricing

Freemium with in-app purchases; subscription and credit packs, typically low tens of dollars per month

Speed

Minutes for an AI redesign; AR placement is real time

Planner 5D is a consumer design tool for laying out homes and outdoor spaces in 2D and viewing them in 3D. It is aimed at people who want to plan a layout themselves rather than commission a designer, and it covers gardens as part of a broader home design offering rather than as a specialism.

Best for

You need measurements to be right because you are ordering materials

Pricing

Free tier with a limited catalogue; paid plans typically in the low tens of dollars per month or a one-off unlock

Speed

Hours to build a scene, depending on how detailed you go

Realtime Landscaping, from Idea Spectrum, is desktop landscape design software sold in tiers from homeowner to professional. It is one of the few tools in this space built specifically for landscapes rather than adapted from general home design, and the professional tiers are used by contractors to produce client presentations and build documentation.

Best for

You are producing documentation a crew will build from

Pricing

One-off licence, typically low hundreds for homeowner tiers up to several hundred or more for professional editions

Speed

Hours to days per project, depending on detail

Neighborbrite is a web-based AI landscape design tool that turns a photo of your yard into a redesign, with an unusually generous free tier. It is the most direct free competitor in this category, and the main reason people arrive at a comparison page like this one is to work out whether paying for anything else is justified.

Best for

You are doing one project and do not want to pay anything

Pricing

Free tier available with no install; paid Pro and Business tiers add customisation and high-resolution export (pricing is not published on the marketing site, check in-app)

Speed

Seconds per render, in the browser

Remodel AI covers both interior and exterior redesign, with garden and exterior design included on its paid tiers. It is a broader product than a garden-only tool, which is its main strength and its main weakness depending on what you need, and it runs natively on mobile as well as the web.

Best for

You are redesigning inside and outside and want one subscription

Pricing

Free tier with 3 designs; Pro $29/month or $349/year for 1,000 designs/month; Premium $49/month or $599/year for 5,000; Ultra $99/month or $1,199/year for 25,000 with a commercial licence and API access

Speed

Around ten seconds per render

Gardenly is a garden-specific AI design tool priced well below most of the category, and it bundles things most AI redesign tools skip: plant recommendations, maintenance schedules, and a seasonal view showing how a planting looks across the year. It is the closest direct competitor on scope and the cheapest credible one on price.

Best for

Budget is the deciding factor

Pricing

Starter $9/month or $54/year for 20 design credits a month; Pro $14/month or $84/year for 100 credits and higher resolution. No free tier, but a 7-day money-back guarantee if you have generated no more than 3 designs

Speed

Minutes per design