Comparison

Yard Planner vs Garden Planner+

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

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

About

Garden Planner+

Design and organize your ideal garden with intuitive tools. Visualize layouts, track plantings, and document your gardening journey with notes and harvest records. Create the garden of your dreams with ease.

Highlights
  • User-friendly garden design tools
  • 2D garden visualization
  • Comprehensive plant database
  • Planting tracker
  • Garden journal with note-taking
  • Harvest tracking
Features
Read full description

Welcome to Garden Planner+, where creating and organizing your ideal garden has never been easier. Say goodbye to the frustration of traditional planning methods and hello to a streamlined, efficient gardening experience. Our app offers a comprehensive solution to your gardening needs. Design your garden with ease, visualizing every detail to ensure everything fits way you want it to. Add garden beds, borders, rows, and planters. Experiment with different plant arrangements until you achieve your desired layout. Keeping track of your plantings is simple with our planting tracker. Stay organized by adding plants to your garden plan and use the journal entries to keep track of what you’ve done. Our garden journal feature allows you to document your gardening journey. Take notes on your progress, track weather conditions and keep track of your harvest for review next year. Key features: - User-friendly garden design tools - 2D garden visualization - Comprehensive plant database - Garden journal with note-taking Download our garden planning app now and create the garden of your dreams with ease. You can read our privacy and terms at https://quilled-yellowhorn-245.notion.site/Garden-Planner-Privacy-and-Terms-327a6cbf7d85423ca3aef9a2e9489693

Screenshots

Yard Planner4 screens
Garden Planner+4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Garden Planner+ at Free against Yard Planner's $3.99. Garden Planner+ also leads on rating (4.5 vs 3.4) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). Yard Planner's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and chart position (#25 vs unranked). On review sentiment, ratings volume, ads and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Garden Planner+ is free to download; Yard Planner costs $3.99 up front. Garden Planner+ sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per year. Yard Planner asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Garden Planner+ holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 381 and 184 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 40% of Yard Planner's written reviews are positive against 33% of Garden Planner+'s, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Yard Planner ships an update every 2 months, Garden Planner+ every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and August 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Yard Planner versus Garden Planner+: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterYard PlannerGarden Planner+
Price$3.99Free — better
Rating3.4 (381 ratings)4.5 (184 ratings) — better
Positive reviews39.9% of reviews — better33.3% of reviews
Number of ratings381 — better184
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#25 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS14.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size762 MB17 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperHome Outside, Inc.Ben Noland

Customer experience

Yard Planner

All ratings381 ratings
Positive58.0%
Neutral5.2%
Negative36.7%
Written reviews193 reviews
Positive39.9%
Neutral10.4%
Negative49.7%

Garden Planner+

All ratings184 ratings
Positive88.0%
Neutral3.3%
Negative8.7%
Written reviews6 reviews
Positive33.3%
Neutral16.7%
Negative50.0%

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

Garden Planner+

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Yard Planner

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Garden Planner+

Subscriptions1
  • Garden Planner Yearly7 Days trial$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Garden Planner Lifetime$59.99

Questions

Is Yard Planner free?
Yard Planner costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Garden Planner+ free?
Garden Planner+ is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Yard Planner or Garden Planner+?
Garden Planner+ is rated higher. Yard Planner averages 3.4 out of 5 from 381 ratings, while Garden Planner+ averages 4.5 from 184 ratings.
Do Yard Planner or Garden Planner+ have ads?
Neither Yard Planner nor Garden Planner+ shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Yard Planner or Garden Planner+?
Yard Planner ships an update every 2 months, and Garden Planner+ every 3 weeks. Most recently, Yard Planner was updated on September 23, 2026 and Garden Planner+ on August 20, 2026.

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