7 best remote landscape design studios in the USA
It is the first warm evening of the year and you have carried a drink out the back door without thinking about it. The paving is still holding the heat of the afternoon. There is a low hedge you no longer have to look past, a tree throwing a shadow across the lawn at exactly the angle you hoped it would, and somewhere behind you the sprinklers tick on.
Nobody built that. Not yet. It exists on a screen, on a plan somebody drew for your property while sitting two thousand miles away, and it is the reason people who have never met their designer end up with the garden they wanted.
Remote landscape design has gone from a curiosity to an industry in about seven years. There are now studios in the United States that have designed tens of thousands of yards without a designer ever standing in one of them.
Quick answer: The best-known remote landscape design services in the USA are Yardzen, Tilly Design, ShrubHub, Bacqyard, Home Outside, Water Efficient Gardens and Online Landscape Designs. Expect roughly $200 for a basic single-yard concept up to about $3,500 for a full property with 3D renders, against $2,000 to $7,000 for a designer working on site.
How does a designer work on a garden they have never stood in?
From measurements, photographs, video and a long conversation.
The process is much the same wherever you buy it. You fill in a questionnaire about how you live outside, upload photos and a video walk-around of the property, mark up a survey or a satellite image with boundaries and levels, and talk to a designer on a video call. What comes back is a plan, a plant schedule and, on most packages, a 3D visual of the finished space.
The obvious question is what gets lost. Honest answer: the things a designer picks up with their feet. How wet the bottom corner stays in August. Which way the wind actually comes across the lot rather than which way the map says it should. Whether the neighbour’s maple is going to shade half the vegetable beds by 2035.
Those gaps are closable, and every good remote studio closes them the same way, by making you the eyes. A twenty minute video with commentary, taken slowly, in the morning and again in the evening, is a better site survey than most designers get on a one hour visit.
What separates the services from each other?
Four things, and the price mostly follows them.
Who draws it. Some services put a named designer on your project and let you talk to them. Others put a design team behind the project that you never meet by name. The second is cheaper and faster and works fine on a simple layout.
What you get handed. A concept image is a picture. A build-ready package is a dimensioned plan, a planting schedule with quantities and sizes, and enough detail for a contractor to price it without inventing anything. The gap between those two deliverables is where most of the disappointment in this industry lives.
Local plant knowledge. A national service designing in all fifty states is working from a plant database. That gets you a plausible planting. It does not always get you a planting suited to your county’s soil, water restrictions or homeowners association rules.
Revisions. One round, three rounds, unlimited for thirty days. Ask before you pay, because a design you cannot adjust is a mood board with an invoice attached.
The seven to look at
Listed by what each one is strongest at, not in rank order. Prices are as published by each service and change often, so treat them as a planning range and confirm before you commit.
1. Yardzen (national)
Founded 2018 and the biggest name in the category, with tens of thousands of projects behind it. Packages start at about $295 for a small space and step up through $995, $1,395, $1,995 to around $3,495 for a full property, with a finished plan usually two to three weeks out. You get a real designer, photoreal 3D renders, build-ready plans, plant and materials lists, CAD files on the upper tiers and matching to a vetted local contractor. Expedited turnaround has been offered at an extra $395.
Best for: homeowners who want the most polished, most buildable package on the market and can absorb the price.
The catch: reviewers consistently describe the plant palettes as generic rather than regionally specific, and the designs lean on artificial turf more than some buyers want.
2. Tilly Design (national, plus parts of Canada)
Founded 2019. Tilly leans on the relationship with a named designer, including a video walk-through of your space and post-design support. Published packages: The Front $375, The Back $525, The Full $775, with full-property plans from around $929 for a small lot, $1,179 for larger and $1,579 for estate size. 3D renders are an add-on at roughly $250 to $350, lighting plans $100 to $150, extra spaces $150. One round of revisions is included. They design yards up to about two acres and now offer plant delivery, quoting off your plant list at what they describe as 10 to 20 per cent below retail.
Best for: buyers who want a designer’s judgment on plants and layout without a premium price, and who like the idea of one person owning the project.
The catch: the 3D visual is an extra, so compare the total rather than the headline package price.
3. ShrubHub (national)
The budget end. Front yard from $197, back yard $227, both for $297, with packages topping out near $997. For under $300 you get a 3D design, virtual consultations and a shopping list.
Best for: fast visual inspiration and a plant list when the lowest upfront price is the deciding factor.
The catch: reviews are mixed and this is the one to go into with your eyes open. Reported problems are inconsistent design quality, square-footage limits that push the real price above the advertised one, and revisions charged as extras. Treat the output as inspiration rather than a document you hand a contractor.
4. Bacqyard (all fifty states)
Founded 2019, one-to-one designer consultations by phone or video, and a first draft usually inside 10 to 14 days. Comparison data puts front-yard projects in a $425 to $1,895 band, back yards $775 to $3,095 and full properties $1,175 to $3,495, with revisions ranging from one to unlimited for thirty days depending on the package.
Best for: buyers who want unlimited revisions and a named person to argue with, on a mid-market budget.
5. Home Outside, by Julie Moir Messervy Design Studio (Vermont, working nationally)
The original. Julie Moir Messervy pioneered remote residential landscape design in the States, and the service is built on her book Home Outside, walking homeowners through measuring their property, describing what they want from it and identifying their own taste before a designer starts drawing. The studio behind it does serious in-person work as well, so the pedigree is the draw.
Best for: buyers who care more about design thinking than turnaround time.
The catch: the custom design service was reported as paused while the studio built a self-serve tool.
6. Water Efficient Gardens (national, strongest in California)
A native-plant and water-wise specialist rather than a general design service, with more than a decade in native landscape design, Zoom calls with the designer, and support through homeowners association approval and municipal turf-replacement rebates. That last piece matters in states where turf-replacement rebates start around $3 a square foot and where new rules restrict non-functional turf on commercial and HOA land.
Best for: anyone converting lawn to a low-water or native planting, and anyone whose plan has to survive an HOA committee.
The catch: much of what is published about them is on their own site, so ask to see designs from your own climate zone.
7. Online Landscape Designs (Colorado Rocky Mountains)
The regional specialist in the list, offering 3D online design with virtual tours during the design meetings, for mountain properties. Included because the regional option is the one people forget to look for.
Best for: a property with a climate or terrain that a national plant database handles badly. Altitude, snow load, wildfire setbacks, deer.
What if the designer is not in America at all?
Then nothing changes except the time zone.
Everything a remote designer works from is already a file: photographs, video, a survey, levels, a plant list, a recorded call. None of it gets better for being carried a shorter distance. Once a national service is designing a yard in Georgia from an office in California, the argument about distance has already been settled, and the remaining difference is what time your designer answers the phone.
Full disclosure, since we are one of them. DesignLab designs gardens for clients wherever they are, and the drawing and the 3D visualisation come from the same hands. We are not on the list above because the list is about American studios. If you want somebody who can be on your site next Tuesday, we are the wrong call and one of the seven above will suit you better. If what you want is a considered design and a proper visual of it before anyone breaks ground, distance has stopped being the obstacle it used to be.
One thing we will not fake: a designer working from another country has to be told about local plant availability, planting seasons and any rules your county or association applies. We ask for it. So should you, of anyone you hire remotely.
What does it cost against a designer who comes to the house?
Less, by a wide margin, on the design fee alone.
Hiring a landscape designer in person in the States commonly costs $2,000 to $7,000, with an average in the mid $4,000s. The remote services above start at $197 and top out near $3,500. So the saving is real, and on a straightforward property it buys you most of the same thinking.
Where the arithmetic changes is complexity. Retaining, drainage, grade changes, pools, anything structural. On those projects the design fee is a small fraction of the build cost, and a designer who has walked the levels earns back their fee in problems that never happen. Spending $600 to save $3,000 on the design of a $150,000 build is a false economy, whoever draws it.
The number people forget is the build. A design is a set of instructions. What follows it is paving, planting, irrigation, lighting and labour, and that is where the real money goes, whether the plan came from three miles away or three thousand.
So what does a remote designer need from you?
But that evening on the paving does not come without your input – here is the material that separates a design that fits your property from a design that fits any property.
A survey or site plan with boundaries and levels. If you have the file from your build, that alone lifts the quality of what comes back.
Photographs from every corner, and a slow video walk-around with you talking. Say what you like, what you hate, where the sun lands in the afternoon, where the water sits after rain.
Which way is north. Along with anything you know about your soil, and whether the property is on a well, town water or restricted supply.
Your rules. Homeowners association conditions, local planting restrictions, setbacks, easements, tree protection. Send them at the start rather than after the concept.
How you actually live outside. Dogs, children, the number of people at the table when everyone comes, whether you will do the maintenance yourself or pay for it, whether you want to eat out there in winter.
A budget. Not a comfortable one, a real one. A designer told the number designs to it. A designer left guessing designs something beautiful you cannot build.
Three or four images you like, with a line each on why. This closes the gap between what is in your head and what comes back faster than any questionnaire.
Common questions
Will a remote designer actually know which plants grow where I live?
Only if they check, and you can ask them how they do it. Good services work from regional plant lists and hardiness data, and the better answer from any designer is that they will confirm availability with a local supplier before finalising the schedule.
Can I hand the plan to my own landscaper?
Yes, and that is what most people do. Ask before you buy whether the package includes dimensioned plans and quantities, because a contractor cannot price a picture.
How long does a remote design take?
Commonly two to three weeks from the point you have supplied everything, with first drafts on some services in 10 to 14 days. The wait is usually caused by the client, not the studio, because the design cannot start until the photos, survey and answers are all in.
Do I need a professional survey?
Not always. Many services will work from a marked-up satellite image and hand measurements on a simple flat property. The moment there are levels, retaining or drainage involved, a real survey stops being optional.
Is this the same as one of the AI yard apps?
No. An app restyles a photograph of your yard in a few seconds and can be a good way to test a look. It has no idea what your soil is, where your services run or what the drop across your section is. Use one to explore taste, then hire a person to design the thing you are going to build.
What if I do not like the design?
Check the revision policy before you pay, because it varies from one round to unlimited for thirty days across the services above. Then use the round you have got properly: specific, written, one list, rather than a trickle of small changes.
The design is the cheapest line in the whole project, and every expensive line afterwards is spent against it. Pick the studio whose published work already looks like the evening you have been imagining, then give them enough about your property to make it yours.