Yard Planner vs Deck Planner
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Yard Planner
Design your dream outdoor space with a drag-and-drop interface. Choose from over 800 hand-drawn elements like trees, pools, and structures to create detailed landscape layouts. Share your creations with friends or clients.
- Drag-and-drop functionality
- 800+ hand-drawn landscape elements
- Sketch Tool for free-form shapes
- Google Maps integration for property mapping
- Layer management for complex designs
- Shareable editable designs
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YARD PLANNER is a simple drag-and-drop 2D landscape design app with all the tools you need to mock up your property, create new designs, and share them with friends and family. YARD PLANNER is ideal for homeowners who want to try out fresh ideas for their yard. Useful for landscape professionals to share designs with clients and contractors. Also perfect for children and adults alike to exercise their imagination and creativity! Use YARD PLANNER to select and place over 800 beautiful hand-drawn elements including trees, gardens, pools, patios, hammocks, driveways, houses and sheds, solar panels, and just about anything you might want for your property–even parties and weddings! Features include: • Sample designs to inspire or get you started • Simple drag-and-drop functionality • 34 palettes (800+ hand-drawn elements) to create your landscape design layout • Resize, Rotate, Undo/Redo, Duplicate, Flip, Group • Rotate elements with “Snap to 90” or turn off to rotate more precisely • Snap to grid (elements stick to a re-sizeable grid of guidelines, turn on/off in Settings) • Rulers (visible at edges of design; zoom in to the single unit; user selects feet/meters; can be turned on/off) • Choose from 15 different background colors • Sketch Tool (allows users to draw garden beds and other free-form shapes with an eraser and brushes of different colors, widths and opacity) • Map Tool (This highly accurate mapping tool based on Google Maps allows you to drop pins at the corners of your property and import the map image with measurements into the app as a background.) • North arrow (appears with Map Tool) • Site Analysis palettes to mark the locations of your site’s utilities and light and moisture conditions • Notes (allows users to tag elements in their designs with typed comments or descriptions) • Light/Dark mode (changes Note tags and North arrow from white to black for visibility against light backgrounds.) • Animated Figures (a palette of animated elements—a person, dog, cat, bird, and car—that move through your design on a looped or repeating path, adjustable speed, play and stop animation) • Import a Photo as a background (useful for importing a digital image of your property plan) • Create different Layers of elements in your design. Add, delete, rename layers, make each layer visible/invisible, lock/unlock for editing, and reorder layer position. • In-app step-by-step guide to creating your Property Plan. • Designs automatically save to the app’s Saved Designs gallery • Share designs on social media • Email an editable design so friends can edit one another’s designs and email them back and forth ***As featured in The New York Times, Fox News, USA Today, Gardenista, and more. “Home Outside allows you to create intricate and varied landscapes…And when you’re finished designing your yard or indulging in a little dreamscaping, you can email results to friend.” –Kate Murphy, The New York Times “The app gives you drag and drop tools to create a garden design idiosyncratic to your garden [and] allows you to choose hardscape materials, design paths and patios, and arrange furniture in your outdoor space.” –Dalilah Arja, Gardenista “I can’t imagine a designer who wouldn’t want to have this on their phone or tablet. I’ve tried this app … it’s a great tool for a ‘quickie’ design that you can show clients … and then refine as you like.” –Jane Berger, Garden Design Online
Deck Planner
Easily design a beautiful and safe deck in minutes. Visualize your dream deck with realistic 3D models, customizable options, and augmented reality. Generates a complete materials list for a stress-free building experience.
- Deck design tool
- High-quality material selection
- Customizable dimensions
- Color and hardware options
- Photo Mode visualization
- Augmented Reality (AR) view
- Generates materials list
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Transforming your outdoor space has never been easier with our innovative deck designing tool. In just a matter of minutes, you can create a stunning and secure deck with a selection of high-quality materials, customizable dimensions, and an array of attractive colors and hardware options. Our tool incorporates advanced features like Photo Mode and Augmented Reality, allowing you to visualize your dream deck with remarkable realism. Once you've finalized your design, our tool generates a comprehensive materials list, making it simple and hassle-free to start building your dream deck. Enjoy a seamless and stress-free deck building experience with our powerful deck design tool.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Deck Planner at Free against Yard Planner's $3.99. Yard Planner's advantage is ratings volume (381 vs 15) and review sentiment (40% vs 25%). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Deck Planner is free to download; Yard Planner costs $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 3.4 for Yard Planner against 3.3 for Deck Planner. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Yard Planner has 381 ratings behind it against 15, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 40% of Yard Planner's written reviews are positive against 25% of Deck Planner's.
Yard Planner ships an update every 2 months, Deck Planner every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Yard Planner | Deck Planner |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.4 (381 ratings) — better | 3.3 (15 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 39.9% of reviews — better | 25.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 381 — better | 15 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Best chart rank | #26 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 762 MB | 198 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Home Outside, Inc. | Simpson Strong-Tie Company Inc. |
Customer experience
Yard Planner
Deck Planner
Bugs and requests
Yard Planner
Reported bugs
5 issues- Layers and objects disappearing
- Inability to undo actions
- Inaccurate grid and scale
- Mapping and photo import issues
- Unexpected crashes and freezes
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to change object dimensions independently
- More plant, structure, and hardscape options
- Metric measurement support
- Landscape mode support for iPad
- Export options for high-quality images
Deck Planner
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Yard Planner
No in-app purchases
Deck Planner
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Yard Planner free?
Is Deck Planner free?
Which has better reviews, Yard Planner or Deck Planner?
Do Yard Planner or Deck Planner have ads?
Which is updated more often, Yard Planner or Deck Planner?
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