Features
The mood board that knows what everything costs
You made the board in Canva, the budget in a spreadsheet, and the approval over email. Three versions of the truth, and you maintain all of them. In Mortar the board, the budget, and the client's yes are one artifact — and it looks like a designer made it.
The board is your taste, in public
Designers rebuild the same board twice: once in the project tool because that's where the products are, and once in a design app because the project tool's version isn't good enough to send. The second board is the one the client sees. The first one is the one that's true.
That double work has a cost beyond the hour it takes. The pretty board doesn't know a price changed. The true board doesn't get an approval. And the moment a client asks "so what does this room come to?", you're back in the spreadsheet.
Mortar's board is built to be both: a canvas you'd be happy to send, on top of the products, prices, and approvals the project already holds.
Boards that look designed, not assembled
The difference between an amateur board and a professional one is mostly craft defaults — and Mortar applies them for you.
Product images get a grounding shadow the moment they land on the canvas: a soft drop shadow, a thrown shadow, or a "sitting on the floor" puddle, each adjustable for blur, opacity, and light angle. The colour palette on a board is sampled from the actual images on that board, not a preset rotation, so the swatches match the room you're proposing. Need an exact tone? Click any product photo with the eyedropper and pull the colour straight into a new swatch. One click on "Make hero" resizes and places a piece as the board's anchor, with everything else demoted to supporting cast. And instead of a flat white canvas, choose Warm paper, Linen, Soft plaster, or Dark charcoal for a tactile, editorial feel.
None of it is gated. If your studio has boards, it has all of this.
The board is the budget
Every item on a Mortar board is a real product from the project — with its vendor, its price, and its approval status. A live budget bar sits on the canvas, so as you swap the sofa or add the pendant, the room's total moves with it. Nothing to reconcile later, because there is no "later": the board and the budget are the same thing.
That's the part no design app can do and no other project tool shows on the board itself. It's why a Mortar board can go to a client with a number on it that's true.
Read more about budget tracking and procurement.
Say yes from the board
Share a board to the client portal and your client can tap any item on it to approve or decline — from the board, not from an email thread with the board attached. Each decision lands on the item, dated, in one place.
When a supplier or contractor needs the list, any board exports as a tearsheet PDF: a designer version with the product list and prices, and a client version without them.
Start from a sentence
Ask the assistant for "a concept board for the living room" and Mortar produces a real, editable draft board from the project's own products — a starting point you refine, not a picture you admire. The assistant only ever works on drafts: nothing it makes reaches a client until you've shaped it and shared it yourself.
One board, concept to spec
Use the same board across the life of a room. Start loose — inspiration, textures, a palette. As decisions land, swap inspiration for the products you've sourced, and by the time the client signs off, the board that started as a feeling is the board you procure from. No re-creation between phases, no "which version is current?".
Keep Canva for inspiration
Canva and Milanote are genuinely good at inspiration boards — fast, beautiful, free-form. Keep them for that. Mortar boards are for the version with real products and real prices on it: the one that becomes a budget, a set of approvals, and an order list. See how that compares with Mydoma, Houzz Pro, and Studio Designer.
Questions designers ask
Can clients approve from a mood board?
Yes. Share the board to the portal and clients tap an item to approve or decline it. Draft boards stay private to you until you share them.
Does the board update when prices change?
Yes. Items on a board are the project's real items, so the budget bar reflects the current price of everything on the canvas.
Is any of this on a higher plan?
No. Shadows, palette extraction, the eyedropper, hero layout, textured backgrounds, portal sharing, tearsheet export, and AI drafts come with boards on every plan.
Put a real room on it
Pricing is $59 per user, per month, published in full on our pricing page. Load a live project into the trial, build one board, and send it — with the number on it.
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