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It's a split decision.
Choose Live Home 3D for home floor plans, furnishing, and real-time 3D at a lower listed annual price. Choose SketchUp for broader 3D modeling, LayOut documentation, and extensions. Live Home 3D Standard works out to $2.08 per month annually; SketchUp Go is $10.75 per user monthly, billed annually. Their free plans differ: Live Home 3D limits projects and exports, while SketchUp’s free offer is for K–12 schools.
01Side by side
| Live Home 3D | SketchUp | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (annual billing) | $2.08/month equivalent for Standard | $10.75/user/month for Go |
| Free plan | One project, two stories, watermarked exports | Free for K–12 schools; education account required |
| Best for | Homeowners planning layouts and interiors | Professional 3D design and documentation |
| Core strength | 2D plans linked to real-time 3D | Broad 3D modeling and LayOut documentation |
| Learning curve | Not published | Not published |
| Integrations and data | Exports OBJ, FBX, USDZ; PDF and images | Extension Warehouse, 3D Warehouse, cloud collaboration |
| Team and seat costs | Team or per-seat pricing not published | Per-user plans; volume pricing custom |
| Support | Support details not published | Support details not published |
Live Home 3D Choose Live Home 3D if
- Choose Live Home 3D for 2D home plans and walkthroughs.
- Choose Live Home 3D for lower listed annual pricing.
- Choose Live Home 3D for home-focused exports and furnishing.
SketchUp Choose SketchUp if
- Choose SketchUp for desktop modeling, LayOut, and extensions.
- Choose SketchUp for 3D Warehouse models and materials.
- Choose SketchUp for published per-user plans and volume purchasing.
02Pricing compared
Live Home 3D is cheaper on the listed annual price: Standard works out to $2.08 per month, or $59.99 for a lifetime license. Its monthly subscription is $6.99. Pro is $4.17 per month annually, $14.99 monthly, or $129.99 for a lifetime license. Standard removes export watermarks and allows unlimited projects and stories; Pro adds larger image and video exports, panoramas, elevation views, and terrain editing.
SketchUp’s listed prices are annual-billed equivalents: Go is $10.75 per user per month, while Pro is $33.25. Go is limited to iPad and web; Pro includes the desktop modeler and LayOut. SketchUp has a free offer for K–12 schools, not a general-purpose free plan. Live Home 3D’s free plan allows one active project and two stories, with watermarked exports and no 3D model export. These plans are not like-for-like: choose by workflow, not price alone.
03Features and depth
Live Home 3D is the more focused choice for planning and presenting a home interior. It combines 2D floor plans with a real-time 3D view, and its listed library includes more than 2,400 furniture and decor models and 2,100 materials. Rendering options include geographic lighting, offline ray tracing, and cloud AI rendering with over 260 style presets. It also supports walkthrough videos, panoramas, AR on supported mobile devices, and exports including OBJ, FBX, and USDZ.
SketchUp is broader 3D design software. Its feature set includes modeling, LayOut for 2D documentation, photorealistic visuals, cloud sharing, and extensions from Extension Warehouse. The 3D Warehouse offers millions of pre-built models and materials. Pro adds a desktop modeler, LayOut, and 1,000+ extensions; Studio adds Revit import, point-cloud modeling, rendered animations, and 360° panoramas, and is Windows-only. For home layouts and furnishings, Live Home 3D is more specialized. For varied modeling and documentation workflows, SketchUp has more breadth.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Live Home 3D’s 2D-plan-to-3D workflow is aimed at homeowners and remodelers as well as design professionals, so it is the more direct fit when the job is arranging rooms and furnishing a home. Its free plan is a way to try the basics, but the one-project limit, watermarks, and lack of 3D model export make it restrictive for ongoing work.
SketchUp has a wider scope, from quick sketches to complex models, and Pro adds desktop modeling and documentation tools. That flexibility can mean more to learn if you only need a floor plan. Our review scores rate ease of use at 6.5 for Live Home 3D and 8 for SketchUp, but those scores do not establish which is easier for your specific task. Match the interface and plan to the work you need to do.
Questions people ask
What are people saying about Live Home 3D in reviews?
The published review describes it as good for interior layouts and 3D presentations, but less convincing for exterior design and unrestricted free exports. Its overall score is 7 out of 10, with ease of use scored 6.5 and value 7.5. Treat those as review ratings, not a guarantee for every workflow.
What are alternatives to SketchUp?
Live Home 3D is an alternative if your work centers on home floor plans, furnishing, and real-time 3D presentation. It is more specialized than SketchUp’s broader modeling and documentation toolset. The available product information does not provide a wider list of SketchUp alternatives to compare here.
Is Sweet Home 3D really free?
The published pricing information does not include Sweet Home 3D, so we cannot confirm its current free-plan terms or limits. For comparison, Live Home 3D has a free plan, but it limits users to one active project and two stories, adds export watermarks, and does not include 3D model export.
Which software is better for interior design, Revit or SketchUp?
The available information covers SketchUp, not Revit as a product, so it is not enough for a fair comparison. SketchUp supports 3D modeling, LayOut documentation, and extensions; some plans include Revit import. If you mainly need home interiors, Live Home 3D is the more specifically focused option in this comparison.