PlotForge - 2026 Pricing, Features, Reviews & Alternatives

PlotForge is a browser-based site plan generator built for the contractors, remodelers and drafters who have to pull building permits. Type in a property address and PlotForge pulls the real parcel boundary from county GIS data, drops it on current aerial imagery, and gives you a to-scale drawing canvas. Add the deck, fence, shed, pool, addition or driveway you're building, and the setback dimensions to every property line are measured and labeled for you. A permit-ready PDF is typically done in about three minutes. The same drawing doubles as a sales tool, letting you lay proposed work on a customer's real lot at scale while you're sitting at their kitchen table.

Why It's Different

Most site plan tools are either a blank drawing canvas that leaves you to trace a satellite photo by hand, or a service you email and wait days for. PlotForge is neither. The parcel geometry is real, sourced from county assessor and GIS layers with a national parcel database behind it, so the property lines on your drawing are the actual property lines. Everything is deterministic — exact geometry from real data — not an AI guess at where your lot might be.

What You Can Put on the Plan

- Property boundary with bearings and distances, pulled automatically

- Existing buildings placed from county footprint data with one click, no roof tracing

- Decks, sheds, additions, patios, pools, fences and retaining walls with live dimensions as you draw

- Automatic setback callouts from your structure to each property line

- Road centerlines with corner-to-centerline setback dimensions, the number rural permit offices ask for

- Driveway ribbons drawn to width from a single traced centerline

- Topographic contour lines derived from USGS elevation data, at 10, 5, 2 or 1 foot intervals (reference contours, not a survey)

- Point-to-point measurements, curved lines and arcs, area hatching, graphic scale bar and a choice of north arrows

- Multi-line text notes for general notes blocks

- Editable labels throughout

What You Get Out

Export to PDF, PNG or DXF. PlotForge also generates an editable permit cover sheet with parcel and vicinity maps and a sheet index. Existing CAD PDFs or images can be uploaded and become their own title-blocked sheets, so a whole permit package goes to the building department as one document. Save your company name, address, phone and license details once and the title block fills itself on every sheet you produce after that.

Coverage

United States: nationwide parcel coverage, effectively any U.S. address. Dozens of counties are wired directly to their county GIS source for the richest available data, and new counties are added on request, usually the same day. Premium high-resolution and leaf-off imagery is available in select areas, so you can see the ground through tree canopy on wooded lots.

Canada: now expanding, starting with Ontario (the Kingston area and Simcoe County).

Who Uses It

Deck builders, fence contractors, shed and barn dealers, pool builders, landscapers, egress window and foundation contractors, general contractors, remodelers, solar installers, and the drafting and engineering firms that produce permit exhibits for them. Sales teams use it during estimates and design consultations to show customers proposed work on their own property before anything is committed.

Pricing

Start with a 30-day free trial. No credit card required, no watermark, full-quality output. After that, one-time DIY packages start at $29 for a single plan, and monthly plans for contractors and firms scale from there. If you'd rather not draw it yourself, our done-for-you service delivers a finished plan for $149, human-drafted, typically in 48 to 72 hours, with five free revisions included.

PlotForge is patent pending. Desktop or laptop recommended; a large screen makes drafting far easier.