Plot2Plan vs Planner 5D
A 2D/3D home and interior design tool: draw or upload a plan, furnish it from a large catalogue and render it. Plot2Plan is a narrower thing: it starts from a plot in Chennai, computes what the by-law allows on it, and drafts a plan inside that envelope which a validator has to pass. Below is what each tool says it does — with the pages we read and the date we read them, so you can check us.
Who each one is for
- Planner 5D. Furnishing and decorating a space you already have — room by room, in 3D, with a catalogue big enough to shop from.
- Plot2Plan. Someone with a specific plot in Chennai — bought, or about to be — who needs to know what the by-law allows on it and wants a plan that respects that before an architect is engaged.
These are different jobs, and plenty of people should use both. This page is here so you can tell quickly which one your question belongs to.
Feature by feature
We read Planner 5D’s public pages on 4 September 2026 and recorded only what those pages say. Where they say nothing, the cell reads “Not stated” rather than guessing, and “Not on the pages we checked” means exactly that — not that the product cannot do it. Products change fast: if something here is wrong or out of date, email vinodhec@gmail.com and we will correct it.
| What you might need | Plot2Plan | Planner 5D |
|---|---|---|
| What you start fromHow much you have to know before the tool is useful. | YesPlot size, road width and facing — three taps. Or paste the listing text, or a photo of an existing plan, or a walkthrough video of a house that already stands.see for yourself | Yes“Draw a floor plan and create a 3D home design in 10 minutes”, or upload an existing plan; AI floor plan recognition on paid tiers.source |
| Legal envelope for your plotSetbacks, FSI, height and the number of floors your plot actually allows. | YesComputed, not guessed: for Chennai (CMA-R) plots, setbacks, FSI, coverage, the height cap and the resulting floor count come from deterministic code reading TNCDBR 2019, with the rule and clause cited (the guides publish the figures themselves). Outside Chennai you enter your own setbacks and we label them as yours, never as a by-law.see for yourself | Not on the pages we checkedNothing on the pages we checked describes setbacks, FSI, coverage or a permitted floor count for a specific plot.source |
| Refuses a plan that breaks the rulesA drawing is only worth having if something checked it. | YesEvery plan is checked before you see it: rooms inside the setbacks, no overlaps, coverage and FSI within the limit, the main door on the road-facing wall and actually reaching the road, staircase aligned across floors, wet rooms stacked, and every room reachable on foot from the front door. Failures go back for repair, and anything left over is listed on the plan rather than hidden.see for yourself | Not on the pages we checkedNothing on the pages we checked describes a design being checked against building rules.source |
| Editable geometryWhether you can move a room, or only regenerate and hope. | YesDrag a room, resize it, or ask in plain words (“swap the kitchen and the bedroom”). Every edit goes back through the same validator.see for yourself | YesDirect drawing and editing of walls, rooms and furniture is the core of the product.source |
| 3D view and walkthroughSeeing the massing and walking the rooms before you build. | YesA shaded 3D model of the validated plan and a first-person walkthrough that can only walk where the validator agrees a door exists. Massing and daylight, not a photoreal interior render.see for yourself | Yes3D design throughout, 4K renders and 360° walkthroughs on the Professional tier, plus mobile and Apple Vision Pro apps.source |
| CAD file and approval-drawing hand-offWhat your architect or draughtsman can actually open. | YesA sanction-style A1 approval sheet (dimensioned plans, site plan, elevation, section, area statement, door/window schedule, title block) as PNG, SVG, print or DXF. Signature boxes stay blank — it is a starting document for a licensed professional, not a submittable drawing.see for yourself | PartlyCAD export is listed on the Professional tier ($49.99/mo or $399.99/yr). No approval or sanction-style sheet is described.source |
| Indian units and road widthsPlots here are quoted in feet, cents and grounds, on a 30 ft road. | YesFeet and ft² by default with a metric toggle, plot sizes as 30×40, road widths in feet, cents and grounds in the guides, and costs in ₹ at Indian rates.see for yourself | Not statedNo India-specific land measures or road-width bands are stated. |
| Vastu guidanceGuidance, never a legality claim — but it decides layouts in India. | YesA derived design-checks card: pooja, kitchen and master-bedroom placement by compass quadrant, plus natural light. Advisory guidance shown beside the plan — it never decides whether a plan is legal.see for yourself | Not statedVastu is not mentioned on the pages we checked. |
| PriceAs published on their own pricing page on the date we checked. | YesFree during the beta. No credits, no card: plans, validation, 3D and the walkthrough, the approval sheet and the DXF all cost nothing today.see for yourself | YesFree (unlimited projects, about half the catalogue), Premium $19.99/mo or $59.99/yr, Professional $49.99/mo or $399.99/yr, Enterprise on request.source |
| Usable without an account or creditsWhether you can see the output before you sign up or pay. | YesNothing is behind a sign-in except saving. You can generate, drag, validate, walk through and export while signed out.see for yourself | PartlyA free tier exists with unlimited projects and roughly half the furniture catalogue.source |
Pages read: planner5d.com · planner5d.com/pricing.
What Plot2Plan does that Planner 5D doesn’t
- Legal envelope for your plot. Computed, not guessed: for Chennai (CMA-R) plots, setbacks, FSI, coverage, the height cap and the resulting floor count come from deterministic code reading TNCDBR 2019, with the rule and clause cited (the guides publish the figures themselves). Outside Chennai you enter your own setbacks and we label them as yours, never as a by-law.
- Refuses a plan that breaks the rules. Every plan is checked before you see it: rooms inside the setbacks, no overlaps, coverage and FSI within the limit, the main door on the road-facing wall and actually reaching the road, staircase aligned across floors, wet rooms stacked, and every room reachable on foot from the front door. Failures go back for repair, and anything left over is listed on the plan rather than hidden.
This list is generated from the same table — it can only name rows where our column is a plain yes and theirs is a sourced absence, so it cannot drift into a claim the table does not support.
The short version: for a Chennai (CMA residential) plot, the setbacks, FSI, height cap and the resulting floor count are computed by code from the Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules, 2019, with the clause cited — the AI is never allowed to invent a legal number, only to arrange rooms inside an envelope it cannot change. A plan that breaks it does not reach you.
What Planner 5D does that we don’t
- Interior design proper: 10,000+ furniture and decor items, mood boards, shopping lists and cost estimates. We draw rooms and a few schematic furniture glyphs, nothing you can shop from.
- 4K photoreal renders and 360° panoramas of a finished interior.
- Native apps across Windows, Android, iOS and Apple Vision Pro. Plot2Plan is a website — it works on a phone browser, but there is no app.
If that is what you are after, Planner 5D is the better tool and you should use it. We would rather say so than win the click and waste your afternoon.
What our output actually looks like
Not a screenshot — the drawing below is rendered live by the same code the app uses, on a 30×40 ft Chennai plot with a 30 ft road, so this page cannot advertise output the product no longer produces.
The 3D model, the first-person walkthrough, the A1 approval sheet and the DXF come off this same geometry. See the 3D walkthrough guide or the importer guide if you already have a house.
Other comparisons
Frequently asked questions
Is Planner 5D good for planning a new house on an empty plot?
It will happily let you draw one, but it does not know your plot's rules: on the pages we checked (4 September 2026) there is nothing about setbacks, FSI, height or how many floors a given plot allows. So you can draw a house that no municipality would sanction and the tool will not mind. Planner 5D is at its best on a space that already exists and needs furnishing.
Planner 5D vs Plot2Plan for a Chennai plot?
Different jobs. Plot2Plan starts from the plot: size, road width, facing — then computes the legal envelope for Chennai (CMA residential) under TNCDBR 2019 and drafts a plan inside it that a validator has checked. Planner 5D starts from a room and makes it look real. Plenty of people would sensibly use both, in that order.
Which is cheaper?
Plot2Plan is free during the beta — no credits, no card, and no sign-in needed to generate, validate, view in 3D or export. Planner 5D has a free tier, with Premium at $19.99/mo and Professional (4K renders, CAD export) at $49.99/mo when we checked.
Does Planner 5D work for a plot outside Chennai?
Planner 5D is not city-specific, so nothing stops you drawing any plot anywhere in it. Plot2Plan is the opposite trade-off: our computed setback, FSI, height and floor-count numbers cover Chennai (CMA residential) only, because that is the one zone whose rule data we have verified. Bengaluru is deliberately paused until its by-law rows are verified, and for any other location you can enter your own setbacks — we then label every number as yours rather than as a by-law. We would rather cover one city honestly than fifty vaguely.
Try it on your own plot
Enter the plot size, the road width and which way it faces — the envelope, the plan and the validator’s verdict take about a minute, and nothing is behind a sign-in.