DreamzAR review: $199 a year for AR and photo redesign

DreamzAR is a landscape design app that combines three things its site is careful to list together: a photo redesign, where you upload a picture of your yard and get a redesigned version back; a 2D editor, where you drag plants and features onto the photo yourself; and a 3D AR walkthrough, where you see the design in your actual yard through the camera.

It is on iOS, Android and the web. The site claims 2,000+ plants and garden features, 38+ styles and 10,000+ yards transformed. Those are the vendor's own numbers, and we could not verify them.

We want that at the top rather than in a footnote. DreamzAR has no free tier on its site and we have not yet paid for it, so there are no DreamzAR renders of our test yard here; the home page at the top of this page is what we captured.

What makes it worth a page is the combination. Most photo-redesign tools give you an image. Most AR tools make you place everything by hand. DreamzAR's pitch is that you get the generated design, then edit it on the photo, then walk through it in AR, on Android and in a browser as well as on iPhone.

If that holds up, it is a different offer from iScape (AR but no generated design, 3D on iOS only), from Neighborbrite (generated design, no editor, no AR) and from Sow (generated design plus a hand editor and a planting plan, no AR).

$19.99 a month or $199 a year. The site notes that the annual plan works out to $16.60 a month. There is no free tier listed; the pricing we captured goes straight to the two paid options. We could not confirm whether a free trial exists; look for one on the signup screen and do not assume it.

For context, all checked the same week. IScape Pro is $29.99 a month or $299.99 a year; Neighborbrite is $24.99 a month for Pro and $49.99 a month for Business, with a limited free tier of 4 designs a day; Planner 5D Premium is $59.99 a year; Hadaa is $12 a render with no subscription; Sow is free to start, with Pro from $39.99 a year on the web ($59.99 a year through the App Store) and Pro+ at $99.99 a year. DreamzAR sits in the middle: cheaper than iScape, more than Sow, no free way in.

If you have one yard and one spring, $19.99 for a month or two may be the sensible buy; if you will keep designing through the year, the annual plan is the one the site steers you to.

Not that its site shows. The pricing on dreamzar.app lists Monthly and Annual and nothing at $0. Google attaches the question of whether there is a free app for this at all to searches for DreamzAR reviews, and the answer is not DreamzAR. Neighborbrite has a limited free tier of 4 watermarked designs a day, and we tested it. Sow gives 10 free designs to start and more for taking part. For AR that is also free, we have not found one to recommend.

Taken from its official pages. We are describing claims, not confirming them.

What the pages do not describe, and we have therefore marked No or Unverified: a top-down planting plan, a shopping list or PDF export, live nursery prices, care reminders after planting, plant identification by camera, and client proposal tools.

Here is the checklist to run on day one of a subscription.

If DreamzAR passes that list, it is a strong tool at $199 a year. If it fails on plant data or on getting a list out, the AR walkthrough is a nice way to look at a design you cannot buy.

Both DreamzAR and Sow take a photo and draw a planted version. From there they emphasise different halves of the job. DreamzAR, per its site, is about looking at the design: a 2D editor on the photo, chat edits, and the AR walkthrough.

Sow is about what is in it and what happens next: a catalog of 12,000+ plants with zone, sun, mature size, bloom and care data behind every plant, plant-by-plant editing and a drag-and-drop Editor on mobile, planting plans with quantities and prices, and weather-aware care in the US.

Here is Sow on the test yard. The iPhone app was given the front-walkway photo with Cottage style and part sun. It returned both borders planted and a list of five species with botanical names and quantities: The Fairy Rose x8, Foxglove Sugar Plum x28, Hawera Daffodil x66, Anemone x14 and one more.

On mobile, every generated species can be removed, counted up or down, or swapped, and the Plant Editor lets you drag in plants, furniture, lighting and paving by hand, on a generated design or a plain photo; on the web, Design Studio places plants and objects over the render.

Planting Plans produced a priced schedule from the satellite view of a saved address: 602 plants at an estimated $8,919.70 in the plan we captured, with an editable unit price per species.

And what Sow does not have, which on this page is the headline: no AR walkthrough and no 3D. If walking through the design in your yard is what you want, DreamzAR describes it and Sow does not have it.

Sow also has no hardscape CAD or construction documents; weather-aware care is US-only; outdoor plants only; the web design Shopping List PDF prices each species at the lowest listed nursery price (often the smallest pot) and does not show mature size or spacing.

Catalog size is 2,000+ for DreamzAR (site claim) and 12,000+ for Sow. A bigger catalog only helps if the data behind each plant is good, so judge that on the zone and size questions above, not the count.

Neighborbrite is in the table as the reference point we tested; its full review is linked below.

• DR

  DreamzAR

  $19.99 a month or $199 a year, no free tier shown. Sow: free to start; Pro from $39.99 a year on the web ($59.99 a year through the App Store); Pro+ $99.99 a year. Sow prices in the table are web prices.

• SO

  Sow's free tier, for the record

  10 free designs to start and more for taking part (posting a design earns 25 credits, a referral 100). It is enough to see whether the tool reads your yard well before you pay. DreamzAR's pages give you no equivalent way to find out.