Best Electrical Plan Software for Houses in 2026: 7 Programs Compared

What to Look for in Electrical Plan Software

For a house, an electrical plan is a floor plan with an extra layer of information. It does not need to replace the work of your electrician, but it should show clearly what you want and where. These are the features that make the difference:

• A symbol catalog for residential work: receptacles, switches, ceiling and wall lights, data and TV outlets, and the option to add your own symbols.
• A separate electrical layer: the electrical plan should sit on top of the floor plan without cluttering the architectural drawings, so you can show or hide it.
• Real rooms around the symbols: outlets and switches only make sense in relation to doors, windows and furniture. A program that knows where the door swings and where the sofa stands helps you avoid mistakes.
• A 3D check: heights of switches and outlets, light positions above a kitchen island or a dining table are much easier to judge in 3D than on a flat symbol plan.
• Clean output for the electrician: a scaled PDF or a DWG/DXF file that your electrician or engineer can open.
• Your local code in mind: in the United States, the National Electrical Code sets rules such as receptacle spacing along walls, often summarized as outlets no more than 12 feet (about 3.7 m) apart in living spaces. None of the house planning programs in this list replaces the electrician or the inspection. Load calculations and code compliance remain the job of a licensed professional, so check the details with your electrician and local building department.

Symbols on a Drawing vs. Electrical Planning in a House Model: The Key Difference

Diagramming tools like SmartDraw and EdrawMax, and general CAD programs like AutoCAD LT, place electrical symbols on a 2D drawing. The program does not know that a line is a wall or that a rectangle is a door. House planning software places the electrical elements inside a building model, where walls, openings, floors and furniture are real objects. This is what changes in daily work:

1. Plan7Architect: Best Overall Electrical Plan Software for Houses

Price: $259.99 Original price was: $259.99.$169.99Current price is: $169.99. one-time purchase, lifetime license, no subscription
Platform: Windows desktop software
Best for: homeowners, self-builders, contractors and designers who want to plan the house and its electrical layout in one program

Plan7Architect is a house planning program with a dedicated mode for electrical planning. You draw your house with real walls, doors and windows, then switch on the electrical layer and place outlets, switches, cables and lighting elements exactly where you want them. Because every change in 2D also appears in the 3D model, you can check your layout in real proportions before construction starts.

Electrical Symbols from the Catalog

In 2D mode, the symbol catalog on the right side of the screen contains a section with electrical symbols that you place directly into the floor plan. If you need a symbol that is not included, you can import your own image, such as an icon for a specific device, place it in the plan and drag it into the symbol catalog. From then on it is saved and available in every project. Our short answer How Can I Add Electrical Planning Elements in My Floor Plan? shows it step by step, with a video.

Check Outlets and Switches in 3D

Once the 2D layout is done, the 3D view shows sockets, switches and cable routes in the actual rooms. You see at once whether a switch ends up behind an open door, whether the outlets next to the bed are hidden by the nightstands, or whether a pendant light sits above the dining table. You move components based on the furniture layout and use the 3D walkthrough to check the house from the perspective of someone walking through it. More details are in our guide 3D CAD Electrical Planning with Plan7Architect.

Electrical, Heating and Plumbing in One Project

Electrical planning is only one part of the building services. In the same project you also plan heating and plumbing, and with the detailed layer management you keep each trade on its own layer. With plan variants you can try different lighting or outlet layouts and keep the version that works best. The full house model is built with the same tools:

• Walls with thickness, layers and height, plus floors, ceilings and slabs
• Doors and windows that create their openings automatically
• Unlimited floors and buildings in one project
• Automatic roof construction, stairs and foundations
• Extensive furniture and object library, plus import from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse
• Automatic dimensioning and living and usable area calculation
• Metric and imperial units, switchable at any time

Plans for the Electrician and the Building Permit

You can print your plans to scale, save them as PDF or export them as DXF and DWG for your electrician. Sections, elevations and plan sheets with title blocks are created from the same model, and Plan7Architect simplifies the creation of building permit drawings. For photorealistic images of your rooms and lighting ideas, you export the model to Twinmotion with all textures.

Pricing

Plan7Architect Pro costs $259.99 Original price was: $259.99.$169.99Current price is: $169.99. once and can be activated on up to 3 PCs. For comparison: three years of AutoCAD LT cost $1,620 at the annual price, and three years of Chief Architect Premier cost $5,985.

2. SmartDraw: Quick 2D Electrical Plans in the Browser

Price: $7.95 per month, billed annually (introductory price, regularly $10.95); Team $6.95 per user per month with at least 3 users
Platform: web browser
Best for: contractors and homeowners who need a simple 2D symbol plan quickly

SmartDraw is an easy diagramming app with a good library of electrical plan symbols: outlets, switches, junction boxes, dimmers, ceiling and wall lights, fans, data outlets and more. You can draw lines from lights to switches, keep electrical and HVAC information on separate layers and import a PDF or image of an existing floor plan to draw over it.

SmartDraw stays a 2D drawing tool. It has no 3D view and does not know your building, and the vendor itself says it is not a replacement if you need 3D modeling. For a complete house plan, you need a second program.

3. EdrawMax: Low-Cost Diagram Tool with a Perpetual Option

Price: from $89 per year (promotional price) or a perpetual license for $198; a limited free version with watermarked exports
Platform: Windows, Mac and web browser
Best for: users who want inexpensive symbol-based electrical and wiring diagrams

EdrawMax comes with symbol sets for electrical and telecom outlets, switches, audio and video, and templates for residential, kitchen and basement electrical plans. It is easy to use, and the perpetual license is a plus compared with pure subscriptions.

Like SmartDraw, it is a diagramming program. Walls are drawing shapes, there is no connection between the electrical plan and a 3D house model, and sections or permit drawings are not part of the program.

4. Chief Architect Premier: Professional Residential Design with Electrical Tools

Price: $1,995 per year or $229 per month
Platform: Windows and Mac
Best for: professional residential designers and builders who produce construction documents every day

Chief Architect Premier has dedicated electrical tools: lights, outlets and switches from the library, ganged electrical boxes and an Electrical Connection tool that draws circuit connections between objects. Everything is part of the 3D model, together with framing and construction documents.

The program is made for professionals who work with it every day. For a private house project, the subscription is the main drawback: one year costs more than ten times the price of Plan7Architect Pro. If you are comparing both, see our Chief Architect alternative page.

5. Cedreo: Online Home Design for Builders

Price: free plan with one project; Personal $139 per project; Pro about $79 per month, billed annually
Platform: web browser
Best for: home builders and remodelers who create sales plans and renderings for clients

Cedreo is a browser-based home design program with a library of standardized US electrical symbols for receptacles, switches and lights. You can save frequently used symbols as favorites and check the layout against furniture and fixtures in 3D. Its strength is fast floor plans and renderings for client presentations.

Cedreo is priced and built for companies that sell homes. You pay per project or by subscription, and it runs only online, which makes it expensive for a single private house.

6. AutoCAD LT and AutoCAD: The Classic CAD Choice

Price: AutoCAD LT $540 per year or $70 per month; AutoCAD with the Electrical toolset $2,095 per year or $260 per month
Platform: Windows and Mac
Best for: drafters and electrical designers who already work in DWG every day

AutoCAD is the standard for 2D drafting, and DWG is the format most electricians and engineers can open. The full AutoCAD includes the Electrical toolset, which is made for designing and documenting electrical control systems.

For a residential plan, AutoCAD LT means drawing walls as lines and placing symbol blocks by hand. There is no 3D house model to check your positions, and the Electrical toolset targets control panels and schematics more than outlet layouts in a home. Read more on our AutoCAD Architecture alternative page.

7. Revit: BIM Software with Full Electrical Engineering

Price: $3,005 per year or $380 per month
Platform: Windows
Best for: engineering and architecture firms that design electrical systems in BIM

Revit is the most powerful option for electrical engineering: electrical panels, devices and lighting fixtures, circuits, wire and conduit routing, panel schedules, load analysis and cable sizing are all part of the model. For commercial projects and engineering firms, this is the professional standard.

For a single-family house, Revit is far more than you need. It is the most expensive program here, has a long learning curve and is made for teams of trained professionals. See our Revit alternative page for a direct comparison.

How to Choose the Right Electrical Plan Software

• You are planning or remodeling a house and want the electrical layout to fit the rooms: choose a house planning program like Plan7Architect, where outlets and switches are placed in the floor plan and checked in 3D.
• You only need a quick 2D symbol plan for an existing room: SmartDraw or EdrawMax are enough.
• You are a builder who sells homes and needs renderings for clients: Cedreo or Chief Architect Premier, if the subscription fits your business.
• You design electrical systems as an engineer: Revit or AutoCAD with the Electrical toolset.
• You want a complete house plan with electrical, heating and plumbing without a subscription: Plan7Architect is the only program in this list that combines all of it with a permanent license.

Plan Your Electrical Layout with Plan7Architect

With Plan7Architect you plan your house and its electrical layout in one program: place outlets, switches and lights from the symbol catalog, check every position in 3D and hand clean plans to your electrician as PDF or DWG/DXF, without CAD experience and without a subscription. Our video tutorials take you from the first wall to the finished plan. Every purchase comes with a 14-day right of withdrawal: if the software is not what you expected, you can simply cancel your purchase by email.