The truth about "free" site plan tools
Let's be straight about what you actually get when you sign up for the free tier of most tools that advertise as a free site plan maker or free site plan software. Canva's free plan gives you a design canvas and shape stencils. SmartDraw gives you a time-limited trial with floor-plan templates. Edraw and the rest of the diagram apps are the same idea: a blank page, a shape library, and a line tool. They are genuinely useful drawing tools — but a drawing tool is not a site plan maker.
The difference shows up the moment you sit down to draw. A site plan is a scaled drawing of your legal property: the boundary lines from the county's records, the recorded lot dimensions, the existing structures, and the setbacks from those boundaries. None of those tools know anything about your property. You supply the property lines. You dig the dimensions out of your deed or plat. You set up a scale and hope you held it across the whole sheet. There's no county data behind the canvas — there's just the canvas.
And that's where "free" gets expensive. Permit reviewers measure things. When a reviewer scales your lot at 60 feet and the county's records say 75, the application comes back with a correction notice and you've lost a week — sometimes a re-review fee too. Most rejected DIY site plans fail for exactly this: not drawn to scale, no true property lines, missing dimensions. We break down the common rejection reasons in our guide to site plans for permits, and compare the tool landscape in detail in our site plan software guide. If you're weighing a DIY tool against a done-for-you drafting service, the site plan creator comparison puts both side by side on price and turnaround.
None of this is a knock on Canva or SmartDraw. They're fine drawing tools, and if you need a flyer or a rough floor-plan sketch, use them happily. They're just not site plan makers, no matter what the ad said.
What's actually free in PlotForge
Here's our offer, stated as plainly as we can. Create a free PlotForge account — an email address, no credit card — and use the entire tool free for 30 days. Not a watermarked preview. Not a locked export behind an upgrade screen. Real plans of your actual properties, generated from your county's parcel records, with the full export: a dimensioned PDF and PNG sheet plus the DXF CAD file.
The free trial, in one sentence
Thirty days of real site plans of your actual properties — boundaries and dimensions from county GIS, existing buildings placed automatically, a permit-style sheet with title block, north arrow, and scale — exported as PDF/PNG + DXF. Free. No credit card. No watermark games.
"Use the entire tool" means exactly that: the same editor paying subscribers use, with nothing grayed out. Poke at the setback tools, move buildings around, practice on the built-in demo properties. Then point it at your own address and export the real thing.
Why give away 30 days of the real thing? Because a sample plan of somebody else's lot proves nothing. The only demo that matters is your property, on a sheet, done. We think that once you've watched a site plan take minutes instead of a Saturday, you'll stay past the trial. After that, it's $29 for a self-serve plan, $149 done-for-you, or subscriptions from $199/month if you're pulling permits every month. That's the whole model.
How it works
Four steps, start to export. Coverage spans most of the US, and it works the same whether your county calls the document a site plan or a plot plan — same drawing, different name (our plot plan generator guide covers that naming mess).
- Create the free account. Email address, no card. You're in the full tool — not a demo, not a feature-limited shell.
- Enter the property address. That's the input. Not a template choice, not a stencil — the address of the actual parcel you're working on.
- The parcel loads from county GIS. Boundary lines and dimensions come straight from the county's own records, drawn to scale automatically, with existing buildings placed on the lot for you where footprint data is available.
- Adjust, add the proposed work, export. Drop in the addition, deck, fence, or ADU, add setback lines, nudge labels — then export the finished sheet: PDF/PNG for the permit desk, DXF if you or your engineer want it in CAD.
Step 3 is the whole difference between a site plan generator and a drawing app. If a tool can't load your parcel, then you are the parcel data — and that's the job you were trying to avoid.
Free vs. free: an honest comparison
"Free" means very different things across your options. Here's the feature-by-feature version:
| What you get | PlotForge Free | Canva Free | SmartDraw Trial | Hand-Drawing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real parcel data from county records | ✓ Loads automatically | — | — | — you find the plat |
| To-scale automatically | ✓ | — you set it up | — you set it up | Only if you're careful |
| Setbacks | ✓ Auto-placed | — draw your own | — draw your own | Look up, measure, draw |
| Permit-style sheet (title block, north arrow, scale) | ✓ Generated | Build it yourself | Build it yourself | Draw it yourself |
| What "free" actually gets you | 30 days of real plans (PDF/PNG + DXF) | Templates only | 7-day trial, then paid | Your Saturday |
And to be fair to the other columns: if you already have a surveyed plat in hand, a steady drafting arm, and one permit to pull in your life, hand-drawing on graph paper is genuinely free and plenty of counties will accept a clean one. The table isn't saying those routes can't work. It's saying you're doing the site plan maker's job yourself — and the tool taking credit for "free" contributed a canvas.
When free isn't enough
One honest note about where the free plan stops making sense. If you're pulling a permit every month or two — fence crews, deck builders, pool installers, foundation repair — a free trial is a taste, not a workflow. A $29 Single Plan, $49 Starter Pack (3 plans) or $144 Job Pack (12 plans) covers the occasional one-off jobs; if it's every month, the Contractor subscription is $199/month for 20 plans — about $9.95 per plan at full volume. Need more than that? Contact us for a high-volume plan. Run your own numbers on the plans page. And if you'd rather never touch software at all, that works too: order a single plan for $149 and a finished, permit-ready PDF lands in your email within 48–72 hours, done for you.
Free site plan maker FAQ
Is there a truly free site plan maker?
Most tools advertised as free site plan makers are actually free drawing tools — you get a blank canvas and shape stencils, and you supply the property lines, dimensions, and scale yourself. PlotForge is free in a more useful way: the account is free, no credit card required, and for 30 days you make real site plans — generated from your county's actual parcel records — with the full PDF/PNG and DXF export included.
What's the catch with the free trial?
There isn't one. For 30 days you get the real tool and real exports — the same output paid customers get. We're betting that once site plans take minutes instead of a Saturday, you'll stick around when the trial ends. That's the whole business model.
Do I need a credit card to try PlotForge?
No. You create a free account with an email address — no credit card required, and nothing to cancel when the 30-day trial ends. You only enter payment details if you later decide to buy a plan or a subscription.
Can I use Google Maps or a satellite screenshot as a site plan?
Usually not. Permit desks routinely reject satellite screenshots because they aren't to scale and don't show legal property lines — an aerial photo shows rooftops and trees, not the recorded boundary. The aerial is context; the county records are the plan. PlotForge draws your plan from the recorded parcel geometry and uses the aerial only as a reference layer.
What happens when the trial ends?
Nothing automatic — there's no card on file, so there's nothing to charge. Your account stays open and your exports are yours to keep. When you need more plans, a $29 Single Plan covers it in the same self-serve tool ($49 covers 3 plans, $144 covers 12) — or order it done-for-you for $149 (delivered in 48–72 hours), or subscribe for $199/month for 20 plans if you're pulling permits regularly.
Are trial plans full permit-ready exports?
Yes — trial plans are the same output paid customers get: a dimensioned, to-scale PDF/PNG sheet plus the DXF CAD file. Like every PlotForge export, it's non-certified — not a stamped survey or engineering document. Most residential permits don't require a stamped plan; when yours does, your jurisdiction will say so.
Make real site plans — free for 30 days
Free account, no credit card, full exports of your actual property. If it saves your Saturday, you know where to find us.