Design your pool in 2D.

What You Get From the Pool Designer

This free tool helps you settle the basic choices before you ask builders for prices. Start with a plain pool, watch the plan change, and keep only what suits your yard, budget, and routine.

At the end, you get one clean summary with your choices, the practical case for or against major upgrades, and a list of things to ask builders. Print it, save it as a PDF, or share the link.

The tool does not produce construction drawings. It gives you a consistent brief for builder meetings: what you want, what you are unsure about, and which details still need a professional answer.

How to Plan for the Way You Will Use the Pool

Think about who will use the pool in a normal week. Is it mainly for children, exercise, floating, entertaining, a spa, or some mix of those? Rank the top two uses. Let them drive the dimensions and depth before you choose finishes or water features.

Next, measure the part of the yard that could hold the entire project. Leave room for construction access, drainage, the required barrier and clearances, a useful deck, and the equipment pad. This tool cannot check those constraints for your property. If they are missing from the sketch, a builder may have to redraw it from scratch.

If you are unsure, start with a template and change one thing at a time. Watch what happens to swimming room, gallons, and complexity. You can save two versions and ask builders to price the difference.

For more context before choosing, browse the pool design library. When the concept is close, compare it with the detailed example pool plans to see how equipment, deck space, and project scope change with the layout.

How the Recommendations Work

The Pool Nerd tests pool equipment and publishes independent reviews and maintenance guides. The designer uses the same ownership-first approach:

• Plan for ownership. The pump, filter, cleaner, cover, and equipment access will matter long after installation. Our guides to variable-speed pumps and robotic pool cleaners explain the testing behind those categories.
• Count the extra systems. Another pump, valve, actuator, heater, controller, or basin adds installation work and a future service point. The low-maintenance pool plan shows what a restrained setup looks like.
• Draw features at full size. Steps, shelves, benches, beach entries, and depth transitions all reduce open water. Their footprint should be obvious before you approve them.
• Read water-care labels literally. A salt system generates chlorine, while UV treats only the water passing through the unit. The saltwater versus chlorine guide explains the difference.
• Treat the badges as opinions. Pool Nerd Pick, Higher Maintenance, and Mostly Cosmetic are editorial judgments, not paid placements or survey results.

Some product links are affiliate links. Our recommendations remain editorial, and sometimes the recommendation is to spend less. The products are examples; your builder still needs to size the final equipment.

How to Compare Pool Builder Quotes

Give the same summary to every builder you are seriously considering. Ask each one to price that version first and list any changes separately. Now you are comparing the same pool instead of three vague proposals.

Do not compare only the total. Write down the exact equipment, quantities, finish allowance, deck size, access, drainage, utilities, electrical work, fence, permits, cleanup, schedule, payments, and warranties. A low quote may simply leave more of those items out.

Expect builders to challenge parts of the concept. Ask why, and distinguish a site constraint or safety requirement from a preference for the system that company usually installs. Revise the design after site visits, then issue the same revision to every bidder.

The pool-buying mistakes guide and pool cost guide cover the line items most likely to surprise first-time buyers.

Accuracy, Safety, and Tool Limits

The sketch, dimensions, gallons, feature placement, complexity rating, and equipment ideas are estimates. The tool cannot see your survey, setbacks, access, soil, groundwater, weather, drainage, structure, plumbing, utilities, wiring, fence, or local rules.

Your builder, engineer, and licensed trades need to create the final plan from the actual property. That matters most around diving, suction outlets, electricity and bonding, gas, structure, retaining walls, automatic covers, and barriers. Nothing here is an instruction to build.

After construction, recalculate the volume from the finished dimensions before making a large chemical adjustment. The pool volume calculator can help, but test the water and dose gradually rather than treating any estimate as exact.

Pool Designer FAQ