Best floor plan app for iPhone: LiDAR vs camera

Search for a floor plan app on the App Store and you'll find dozens that look the same in the screenshots. The thing that actually separates them isn't the drawing tools. It's how they measure the room: with the LiDAR sensor that only some iPhones have, with the ordinary camera, or with a person tracing walls by hand.

This guide sorts the main options by that question, says what each costs (prices checked October 2026), and covers when an app is good enough for a property listing and when you need a measured survey.

Best floor plan app for iPhone: the short answer

You have an iPhone Pro (12 Pro or later): use a LiDAR app. magicplan if you want plans, reports and estimates in one place; Polycam if you also want 3D models; RoomScan Pro for quick room-by-room plans.
You have a standard iPhone: CubiCasa, where you walk the property with your phone and their team produces the plan, or magicplan in camera mode.
You need a plan you can stand behind on a listing: a measured survey from a floor plan company or surveyor. Apps are getting close, but if the dimensions are wrong, it's your name on the listing.
You just want a rough layout to go with a virtual tour: you may not need a separate app at all (more on that at the end).

Floor plan app with LiDAR or with the camera?

LiDAR is a depth sensor that fires light at the room and times the return, so it measures distances directly instead of estimating them from images. According to Apple, only the Pro and Pro Max models have it, from the iPhone 12 Pro through the iPhone 17 Pro. Standard iPhones, the Plus, the mini and the Air don't.

That matters because Apple's own scanning framework, RoomPlan, "utilizes the camera and LiDAR Scanner" to build a 3D floor plan with the dimensions of walls, windows, doors and furniture. Many of the "scan to floor plan" apps on iPhone build on it or on the same sensor, which is why their LiDAR features are greyed out on non-Pro phones.

Camera-only apps estimate distances from the image and the phone's motion tracking (ARKit). They work, but small errors add up across a room, and plain white walls or reflective floors make it harder.

Floor plan app with LiDAR: the main options

magicplan. The most complete option for people who plan or price work, not just draw. Its pricing page says LiDAR scanning is available on iOS Pro devices, and new users get 2 free projects. On the US App Store the plans are Sketch at $12.99 a month or $129.99 a year, Report at $39.99 a month and Estimate at $89.99 a month. Overkill if you only need a plan for a listing.

Polycam. Best known for 3D scanning. Its floor plans page says floor plan capture requires a LiDAR device (iPhone Pro or iPad Pro 2021 or later). Since January 2026 it can do 3D scans without LiDAR on an iPhone 13 or newer, but non-LiDAR floor plans were announced as "coming in 2026" and Polycam still doesn't present them as available. 2D and 3D floor plans sit in the Business plan at $400 per user per year. The free plan is for trying the 3D capture, not for floor plans. Pick it if you want a 3D model of the space as well.

RoomScan Pro (Locometric). Uses Apple's RoomPlan plus its own LiDAR mode, and also has a Touch Mode that works on any device, even in dim light. LiDAR features are on a subscription: the US App Store lists the LiDAR subscription at $9.99 and an annual one at $119.99.

All three produce a plan in minutes per room. In practice the result still needs a quick tidy: a cupboard detected as a wall, a door in the wrong place.

Floor plan app using the camera (no LiDAR)

CubiCasa. The common choice for agents without a Pro iPhone. You walk through the property recording with the phone, upload the scan, and CubiCasa returns the drawn plan. It works on most smartphones. In 2022 HousingWire reported that basic plans were free in the US, delivered in about 24 hours, with $15 add-ons such as fixed furniture and $10 for six-hour delivery. Pricing outside the US and today's terms differ, so check before you rely on the free tier.

magicplan, camera mode. The App Store listing says you can make plans "using just the camera of your mobile device". Fine for a sketch; slower and less reliable than LiDAR.

CamToPlan. Measures with the camera plus motion tracking and exports plans to PDF, PNG or DXF. It's free to download; editing and exporting plans needs a purchase, listed on the US App Store at $4.99 to $49.99 depending on the option. The developer's own listing says "the accuracy is not guaranteed". Treat it as a smart tape measure.

Whichever you use, measure two or three walls by hand and compare. If they're off by more than a few centimetres, don't publish the dimensions.

Floor plan app free: what you actually get

"Free" usually means a trial with limits:

magicplan: 2 projects with full features, then a subscription.
Polycam: the free tier covers limited 3D captures; floor plans are a Business feature.
CubiCasa: free basic plans have been offered in the US; outside the US, expect to pay per scan.
Draw it yourself: Sweet Home 3D is free and open source (desktop, browser and mobile), and Floorplanner lets you keep up to 5 projects free, with low-resolution, watermarked exports.

If you only need one plan for one home, drawing it from tape measurements is free and often more accurate than a camera-only scan.

3D floor plan app for iPhone

A "3D floor plan" can mean two things. One is a dollhouse model you can rotate, which you get from Polycam, from RoomPlan-based apps (as a USDZ file) or from Matterport. The other is a 2D plan drawn in perspective with furniture, which magicplan and CubiCasa offer as extras.

For listings where buyers expect a walk-through dollhouse, Matterport is still the reference. It's the better choice if you need that measured 3D model, and it sells schematic floor plans as a paid add-on per floor (check the current price on Matterport's site). For a single flat, a LiDAR app is cheaper.

When you need a measured survey (UK listings)

There's no legal requirement to put a floor plan on a UK listing. A 2022 petition asking for floor plans with metric dimensions on all listings was rejected with the reply that "the Government is not responsible for the individual decisions of how people market their properties."

The market expects one anyway. In Rightmove's 2013 survey, more than a third of buyers said they'd be less likely to enquire about a property without a floor plan, and one in five would skip the listing or only come back to it if nothing else caught their eye. Room dimensions were the part buyers valued most. The figures are old, so treat them as a direction rather than a current number.

The other reason to be careful is material information. National Trading Standards guidance for listings asks agents to state the size of the rooms, and you're expected to check what you publish. So:

A measured survey (a floor plan company or surveyor) is the safe choice when you're quoting room sizes or total floor area, for higher-value homes, or when the vendor or landlord may dispute a figure.
An app plan is fine for the layout, as long as you either check the key dimensions or label them as approximate.

Where RoomTour fits: a floor plan that comes with the tour

RoomTour, our app, isn't a floor plan app. It makes 360° virtual tours with an iPhone, no LiDAR or 360 camera needed, and the floor plan is a by-product of that capture:

You capture each room by following the on-screen guide: about 30 shots, one target at a time. The phone stitches them into a 360° panorama.
ARKit tracks where the phone is while you do it. From those positions the tour places each room in the layout and draws an approximate floor plan.
Buyers use it to find their way around: the plan shows which room they're in and how the rooms connect, which is what a listing needs.
It isn't for measuring. Expect drift of around 10 to 20 cm, so no square footage or room dimensions. For those, use a LiDAR app above or a measured survey; for a measured 3D dollhouse, a Matterport-style scanner.
You share one link to the tour and its plan, by WhatsApp, email, on your website or as a QR window poster.

You can see it in the example tour. It's iPhone-only, on the App Store and free for early users. For the tour side, see how to make a virtual tour for real estate with your phone.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best floor plan app for iPhone?

It depends on your phone. On an iPhone Pro with LiDAR, magicplan, Polycam and RoomScan Pro all scan rooms quickly and fairly accurately. Without LiDAR, CubiCasa (you walk the home, they draw the plan) or magicplan's camera mode are the usual picks.

Is there a floor plan app that uses the camera instead of LiDAR?

Yes. magicplan says it can draw plans with just the camera, CamToPlan measures with the camera and motion sensors, and CubiCasa works from a camera scan on almost any phone. Expect more error than with LiDAR and check a couple of walls with a tape measure.

Is there a free floor plan app?

Free tiers exist but are limited: magicplan gives new users 2 free projects, Polycam's free plan doesn't list floor plans, and CubiCasa has offered free basic plans in the US. For drawing by hand, Sweet Home 3D is free and open source.

Do I need a floor plan to list a property on Rightmove?

It isn't a legal requirement: a 2022 petition to make floor plans mandatory on listings was rejected. But Rightmove's own research found many buyers skip listings without one, so most agents include it.