Most 'free' AI floor plan tools aren't. We went through the free tiers of the popular ones and sorted out which let you export real work, which quietly wall off the useful parts, and which are genuinely free with no catch.
Here's the thing nobody tells you when you search for a free AI floor plan generator: most of the tools that show up aren't free in any way that matters. They'll let you draw a plan, sure. Then you go to export it — to actually get the thing out of the browser and into an email, a print, or a CAD file — and that's where the paywall was waiting the whole time.
I don't blame the tools for it. Building this software costs money and a free tier is a sales funnel, not charity. But it makes searching for "free" genuinely confusing, because "free" means five different things depending on who's saying it. So this is the honest version: which of these tools you can actually use for nothing, where the free version stops being useful, and what you give up in each case.
If you just want the short answer: for a real, exportable, no-catch free plan, OpenPlan3D and Sweet Home 3D are the only two here with no strings. Everything else is free to play with and paid to finish. The details are where it gets useful, though, so let me walk through them.
Before comparing anything, it helps to name the three kinds of "free" you'll run into, because a lot of the confusion comes from tools using the same word for very different things.
Genuinely free — open source or a permanent free tier with no meaningful catch. You can draw a plan, export it, and use it, without ever entering a card. There are only two of these here.
Free to try, paid to export — this is the big one, and the sneakiest. The design experience is free and often quite good. But the export — the image, the PDF, the CAD file, the thing you came for — is watermarked, resolution-capped, or locked entirely until you pay. You can spend an hour building something beautiful and then discover you can't get it out without a subscription.
Free credits — you get a small allowance (a handful of generations), and when it runs out, that's it until you pay. Common with the AI-native generators. Fine for testing whether the tool works for you; useless as an ongoing free option.
Keep those three in mind and the table below stops being a wall of "yes, but."
| Tool | What kind of free | Free tier reality | Export on free | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenPlan3D | Genuinely free | Full editor, no account | PNG, SVG, DXF, PDF | None — open source |
| Sweet Home 3D | Genuinely free | Full desktop app, offline | PDF, SVG, OBJ (no CAD) | Dated interface; no DXF |
| Maket | Free credits | 50 credits, no card | DXF, PDF (within credits) | Runs out; then $20/mo |
| Planner 5D | Free to try, paid to export | Draw in 2D/3D free | Watermarked only | Clean export needs paid |
| Floorplanner | Free to try, paid to export | Full library, free design | SD 960×540, watermarked | HD, DXF, extra floors cost |
| RoomGPT | Genuinely free (but different) | Unlimited style renders | Image only | Not a layout tool at all |
Now the part the table can't hold — what each one is actually like to use, and who it's right for.
If you want one recommendation and no reading, this is it. OpenPlan3D is open source, runs in your browser, wants no account, and — this is the rare part — lets you export to DXF for free. That last detail matters more than it sounds. DXF is the format a professional opens in AutoCAD or Revit, and it's the exact thing every paid tool locks behind a subscription. Getting it for nothing is genuinely unusual.
You draw walls, rooms, doors, and windows to real measurements, flip to 3D to check it, and furnish from a small built-in library. There's even an iPhone LiDAR scanning companion if you want to capture an existing room. It's not the prettiest tool here and the furniture catalog is modest, but nothing about it is trying to trick you into paying, which after testing the others is a relief.
The old reliable. It's been around since 2006, it's open source, and it runs offline on Windows, Mac, and Linux with no account and no limits. You draw a plan, drop furniture from a catalog of over a thousand models, and it even does photorealistic rendering built in — for free, which almost nothing else does.
One honest catch, and it's the reason it's not my top pick for everyone: the desktop version doesn't export DXF or DWG. You get PDF, SVG, and OBJ, but not the CAD formats. So if your goal is to hand a file to an architect who'll open it in CAD, Sweet Home 3D makes them redraw it. For visualizing a space, testing furniture, or producing a clean PDF to think with, it's excellent and completely free. For feeding a professional CAD workflow, OpenPlan3D is the better free choice. The other thing to know: the interface looks its age. It's Java, it's from a different era of software design, and it will not win any beauty contests. It works, though, and it never asks for money.
Maket is the closest thing here to a true AI generator — you describe the house in plain language and it produces actual layout variations, rather than making you draw every wall. That's a different and genuinely useful thing, and the free tier lets you test it: 50 credits, no credit card required.
The catch is right there in the word "credits." Fifty sounds like a lot until you learn that generating variations and regenerating both spend them, so you can burn through the allowance faster than you'd expect on a single project. It's enough to answer "does this tool work for me?" — which is exactly what a free tier should do — but it's not a free way to run an ongoing project. Once you're hooked, it's $20/month for 300 credits. If you're doing real residential design work and the tool clicks for you, that's a fair price. If you just want a free plan for one project, the credits will likely run dry before you're done.
Worth knowing: Maket does export DXF and PDF, so unlike the watermark-wall tools below, the credits at least buy you a usable file while they last.
Planner 5D is genuinely nice to use. Big furniture catalog, smooth 2D-to-3D switching, works on basically every platform. You'll build something and feel good about it. And then you'll try to export, and every free export comes out watermarked, with a chunk of the good furniture locked behind the paywall.
That watermark is the whole story. A watermarked plan is useless for the things you actually export a plan for — sending to a contractor, showing a client, posting anywhere. So the free tier is really a demo: it shows you what the paid tool can do, then charges you (roughly $5 to $20 a month depending on the plan and billing) to get clean output. Nothing wrong with that as a business model, but if you came here for "free," know that the free version stops right before the useful part.
Same pattern, slightly different flavor. You get the full design library and can build in 2D and 3D for free — but free exports are capped at a low SD resolution (960×540) with a Floorplanner watermark stamped on them. HD output, watermark removal, DXF export, and extra floors all cost credits. It's a well-made tool. It's just not a free one once you need to get something out of it.
RoomGPT keeps showing up in "free floor plan" searches, so it's worth being clear about what it is, because it's not what most people looking for a floor plan generator want.
RoomGPT is a style redesign tool, not a layout tool. You upload a photo of an existing room and it re-renders that same room in a different style — Scandinavian, industrial, whatever. It's genuinely free and genuinely unlimited, with no account, which is great. But it does not draw floor plans. It can't put walls where you want them, it can't produce a measured layout, and it can't export anything a builder could use. If your job is "show me this room in a different style," it's a lovely free tool. If your job is "design the layout of a space," it's the wrong category entirely, no matter how often it appears in the results.
Match it to what you're trying to do:
You want a real, exportable plan for free, including a CAD file → OpenPlan3D. It's the only one that gives you DXF for nothing.
You want to visualize a space or make a clean PDF, and don't need CAD → Sweet Home 3D. Offline, unlimited, free renders, just an ugly interface and no DXF.
You want AI to generate layouts from a description and you're testing the idea → Maket's free 50 credits. Enough to evaluate, not enough to finish a project for free.
You want to see a room restyled from a photo → RoomGPT, free and unlimited, but that's a different job.
You tried Planner 5D or Floorplanner and hit the watermark → that's the design working as intended. If you like the tool, the paid tier is inexpensive; if you don't want to pay, switch to OpenPlan3D and keep your work exportable.
One last honest note, the same one worth making about any tool in this category: free or paid, none of these produces a construction-ready drawing. They give you a schematic layout — walls, rooms, dimensions, a sense of the space. The structural design, the code compliance, the permit set: that's still a professional's job. What these free tools genuinely save you is the blank page, and for that, the two truly free ones do the job without asking for your card.
If you want the professional-grade side of this — tools with real BIM export and constraint modelling for practice work — see our guide to AI floor plan generators for architects.
And if you're designing a whole home rather than a single space, AI house plan generators covers the tools built for that, and where they stop.
Share this article
Maket is the closest thing to a true text-to-floor-plan AI generator. We look at what the free 50 credits actually get you, where the tool is genuinely good, and where its layouts fall short — so you know before you subscribe.
AI house plan generators turn a written brief into dozens of layouts in under a minute. We compare six tools on free tiers, export formats and real limits — and are honest about where AI stops and a licensed professional has to start.
The best AI floor plan generators in 2026 reviewed for architects and designers. We tested Maket.ai, TestFit, Finch3D, Planner 5D and more — covering free plans, BIM export, zoning compliance, and which tool wins for your project type.