Mortar vs Planify for interior design studios
Planify deserves a look. It's one of the newest tools in the category, it's built around a genuinely good idea (“Your clients deserve better than WhatsApp”), and at about $25 to $29 a month for the whole studio it's the cheapest serious option we've found. If what you need is one calm place for client approvals, mood boards and documents, Planify does that well.
The difference is what happens after the client says yes. Planify is a client workspace. Mortar is that plus the procurement, the finishes schedule and the billing: quotes, purchase orders, lead times, issued revisions, invoices and payments, all on the same item. Below is the honest breakdown.
Comparing more than these two? See our full roundup of interior design project management software.
Written by Darren Clark — Founder of Mortar — 25+ years building software
Last updated October 3, 2026
Quick verdict
Choose Planify if you're a small studio that mainly needs a tidy client portal, mood boards and approvals, and you run ordering and invoicing somewhere else. Choose Mortar if you also order, track and bill the product yourself, and want the budget, the schedule, the client's decisions and the orders on one list.
Side by side
How they stack up
Mortar
$59/user/mo
Unlimited projects, every feature, no onboarding fee — 7-day free trial, no card required
Best for: Studios that order, track and bill the product themselves — and want the budget, the finishes schedule, the client's decisions and the orders on one list
- Paste a product link and the details fill in, plus Save to Mortar for trade portals
- Live room and project budgets: on track, approaching, over
- Finishes schedule with reference codes and issued revisions that can't be edited
- Branded client portal with no login, price visibility per client, supplier hiding
- Quote requests, a Quote Inbox for forwarded supplier quotes, purchase orders, supplier payments
- Lead times on every item, with late items flagged against the build start
- Invoices from approved items, deposit and balance, paid by card or bank transfer
- Payment fees published on the pricing page, including Mortar's share
Planify
$24.49/mo
Billed annually at $293.88/yr (vs $29.99/mo month-to-month); unlimited projects, team members and client portals; 21-day free trial, no card required
Best for: Small studios that mainly need a tidy client portal, mood boards and approvals, and run ordering and invoicing somewhere else
- “Magic Link” client portal — no login, just a link and a PIN
- AI Fetch: paste a supplier product URL and the details fill in, plus a Chrome Web Clipper for browsing
- Smart AI Import: reads an uploaded supplier PDF or Excel estimate and extracts the line items
- “Budget Auto-Sync”: the budget updates live as items are added and clients approve
- Proposal builder: a branded, itemised, signed proposal generated from approved items
- Kanban task board, image annotation, and a mood board canvas with background removal
- Kraków-based; billing in USD, EUR or PLN — no GBP price found on their site
Feature by feature
Mortar vs Planify: feature comparison
Feature | Mortar | Planify |
|---|---|---|
Client portal with no login | ✓ link, optional password | ✓ Magic Link + PIN |
Product details from a URL | ✓ plus Save to Mortar for trade portals | ✓ AI Fetch (URL paste) + Chrome Web Clipper |
Live budget tied to selections and approvals | ✓ | ✓ Budget Auto-Sync |
Client price visibility per client (full / totals / hidden) and supplier hiding | ✓ | Not listed on Planify's site |
Finishes schedule with codes and issued revisions | ✓ | Not listed on Planify's site |
Supplier quote requests + forwarded-quote inbox | ✓ | Not described — their Smart AI Import reads an uploaded PDF/Excel estimate, which isn't a live quote-request inbox |
Purchase orders + supplier payments | ✓ | Their own comparison table checks “Procurement tracking”, but no PO or supplier-payment workflow is described anywhere on the site |
Lead times with late-item flags | ✓ | Not listed on Planify's site |
Invoicing + client payments | ✓ deposit and balance, card or bank | Not listed on Planify's site — closes with a signed proposal, not an invoice |
Payment fees published | ✓ on the pricing page | n/a — no payments product to charge a fee on |
Team members without cost or margin | ✓ redacted everywhere | Not listed on Planify's site |
Pricing structure | $59 per user / month | $24.49/mo billed annually, flat, unlimited seats |
A closer look at Planify
Planify is a studio management platform from Kraków, built for interior designers and architects. Its pitch is the client relationship: replace the WhatsApp threads, email chains and Dropbox links with one calm, branded workspace the client opens with a link. Clients see items, inspiration, proposals, documents and the schedule; designers get AI product import, a clipper, a proposal builder, a task board and a mood board canvas.
The price is the headline: about $24.49 a month billed annually, the same for a studio of one or ten. Reviews are perfect so far — 3 reviews, a 5.0/5 rating, on both Software Advice and GetApp.
Where it stops: Planify's own feature-comparison table checks “Procurement tracking” for itself, but no purchase-order, supplier-payment, or invoicing workflow is described anywhere else on the site — its close is a signed proposal, not an invoice. Studios that order and bill product will need a second tool for that half of the project.
What are our strengths?
Mortar
- The item carries the whole job — the same line is the budget entry, the schedule row, the client approval, the PO line and the invoice line
- Ordering lives in the same place: Quote Inbox, purchase orders raised from approved items, lead times flagged against the build start
- Getting paid lives in the same place: invoice the deposit and balance from what the client approved, with payment fees published up front
- Still a flat, published price — no onboarding fee, no quote-gated tiers
Planify
- By far the lowest price in the category — about a sixth to a seventh of Mortar's per-seat cost for a small team
- No-login Magic Link portal removes all client-side friction
- AI Fetch and a Chrome Web Clipper make adding items from supplier sites fast
- Clean, calm interface, backed by a perfect review record so far (3/3 reviews, 5.0/5) on Software Advice and GetApp
Which one is for you?
When to choose each tool
When to choose Mortar
- You order, track and bill the product yourself, not just manage the client relationship
- You want procurement (quote requests, POs, supplier payments) and invoicing in the same tool as the budget
- You want a finishes schedule with reference codes and issued revisions that can't be edited after the fact
When to choose Planify
- You're a small studio that mainly needs a tidy client portal, mood boards and approvals
- Price is the deciding factor — Planify is a fraction of Mortar's per-seat cost
- You're comfortable running ordering, procurement and invoicing somewhere else
Frequently asked questions
Is Planify cheaper than Mortar?
Yes. About $24.49 a month for the whole studio against $59 per user. For a three-person studio that's roughly $25 against $177.
Can I move from Planify to Mortar?
Mortar imports a CSV or spreadsheet of your items and builds the rooms for you, with column mapping you save once. Planify doesn't describe a project-data export feature on its own site, so check what format they can give you before you switch.
Do both have a client portal without logins?
Yes. Planify uses a link and PIN; Mortar uses a link with an optional password, and lets you set per client how much pricing they see.
The verdict
Where Mortar is different
The item carries the whole job — in Mortar the same item is the line in the budget, the row on the finishes schedule, the thing the client approves, the line on the purchase order and the line on the invoice. Planify is a very good, very cheap client workspace; it stops at the client's “yes.” Mortar costs more per seat — $59 against Planify's roughly $25 — but for a studio that also orders, tracks and bills the product, having procurement, the finishes schedule and invoicing in the same tool as the budget is the gap that matters.
Free template
Not ready for a trial? Take the budget template.
Per-room budgets with live totals, a client-safe view with no trade pricing or margin, and traffic lights that turn amber before they turn red. Excel and Google Sheets, free.
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