Landscape Software

What is landscape design software?

Landscaping software is a software platform that helps users design and plan landscaping projects. It allows users to create detailed 2D and 3D designs of their landscaping plans, including spaces for gardens, walkways, backyards, and patios.

Some landscaping solutions come with tools for estimating materials and costs, scheduling and managing projects, and communicating with clients. Landscaping software can be used by professional landscapers and gardeners as well as homeowners and do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiasts.

How much does landscape design software cost?

Most landscaping software solutions on the market are priced on a “per user, per month” basis and can be divided into the following pricing tiers based on their starting price*:

• $49 - $87

• $88 - $234

• $235+

The above list includes pricing for the base plans of most landscaping software tools. An enterprise or premium product that is priced higher may include additional features such as built-in chat, automation, 3D rendering, and proposal generation.

What are the common features of landscape design software?

Listed below are some of the common features of landscaping software:

• Job management: Use a centralized dashboard to manage the job requests you receive and organize all job-related information. View scheduled appointments and keep track of the materials required for jobs.

• Billing and invoicing: Track project costs, create invoices for completed projects, and send invoices to clients via email.

• Customer database: Manage multiple clients and store their contact information, including name, address, and email.

• Quotes/estimates: Create quotes for labor, material, and equipment; share the quotes with clients; and maintain a cost book that reflects project estimates.

What are the main benefits of landscape design software?

Using landscape design software offers various benefits, including:

• Save time on landscape design development. Manually developing layouts and blueprints for an outdoor space is a time-taking process for any landscape designer. With landscape software, you can create digital versions of such blueprints with greater accuracy. You can also edit and rework the layouts to create designs that best reflect your client's needs.

• Get multiple landscape design choices and outputs. Landscape software provides various pre-built design templates and layouts to choose from. This allows you to be more creative and explore multiple design options before finalizing any landscape floor plan or layout.

• Collaborate easily with teammates. Most landscaping software solutions offer a centralized dashboard so you and your team can work on projects together. This feature not only helps monitor the progress of various project processes but also leads to better team planning when creating any new landscape design layout.

• Access version control for designs. A landscaping design tool lets you store multiple versions of a 3D model at different stages of its completion, allowing you to roll back if a particular design stage isn't going the way you want. This feature increases overall accuracy for your landscaping project and prevents you from starting over if there are any mistakes.

• Maintain overall landscape design consistency. Creating consistent designs can get complicated, especially if you’ve just started working on landscaping projects. Landscaping design software offers pre-built templates to help ensure overall consistency in your designs.

How to choose the right landscape design software

These are some considerations to keep in mind to ensure you choose the best landscape design software:

• Check whether the software offers maintenance scheduling. The landscape design software you shortlist should not only help create landscape design layouts but also let you schedule landscape maintenance jobs for your clients. Ask vendors whether such a feature is available with their product.

• Ensure the software lets you create quotes. An ideal landscaping tool should provide a built-in dashboard to create quotes for the designs you make for your clients. Ask vendors whether their product has such a feature or provides integrations with third-party accounting software tools to help you achieve this.

• Look for software that supports multiple file formats. An important consideration when buying landscaping business software is to check the types of files it supports. Ideally, you should get software that’s compatible with multiple file formats, such as CAD, DWG, DXF, DGN, and STL, so you can easily export and migrate your designs.

How does landscape design software help small businesses?

As a small landscaping business, you can use a landscape design tool for the following purposes:

• Monitors job progress: Once the landscape planning, design, and development phases are over, the software can also be used to monitor project progress through a centralized dashboard that helps ensure no specific tasks are lagging.

• Centralizes communication: Landscaping software solutions often provide a built-in communication channel that simplifies collaboration between stakeholders. This feature helps send messages in real time to communicate to your landscape designer any last-minute changes you receive from clients.

• Enhances customer service: Most landscaping solutions let you send SMS texts and emails to customers to notify them of project completion. Some tools even feature a customer portal where clients can monitor their properties, sign new proposals, and send e-payments.

Sources

Products evaluated for the pricing calculation were taken from GetApp’s landscape software directory. The pricing ranges exclude freemium versions of the products. The features highlighted were identified based on their relevance and the percentage of products in the GetApp’s directory that offer them.

*The pricing included is for the entry-level/lowest-priced offerings found on vendor websites as of December 13, 2022. These ranges correspond to the 25th, 75th, and 100th percentiles of pricing information gathered from vendor websites of sample products.