Spacefit · Buyer's Guide

How to choose AI space planning software

AI test-fit and space planning tools are not interchangeable. They were built by different people, for different buyers, answering different questions. Here is how the market actually splits, and the six criteria that matter.

First, know which question you are asking

The category divides into two families that look similar in a demo and behave very differently on a real project.

1. Development feasibility tools

Built for developers and brokers. Their question: what can be built or leased here? They excel at massing, unit counts and marketing-ready floor plans that help landlords position a building. Their DNA is real estate supply.

2. Workplace strategy platforms

Built for occupiers, architects and design and build agencies. Their question: how will this organisation actually work in this space? They plan from the demand side: headcounts, team adjacencies, the organisation's own space standards, compliance, quantities and budget. Spacefit belongs to this family, built by people who spent twenty years delivering workplace projects. It comes from workplace strategy, not floor-plan marketing.

Quick test: if the tool cannot take your space guidelines as an input, it is planning someone's space, just not yours.

The six criteria that separate the tools

1
Your standards as the engine. The output must follow your (or your client's) space guidelines and furniture libraries, not a generic template. Otherwise every option needs manual rework, which cancels the speed.
2
Multi-floor planning and team adjacencies. Real organisations span floors. The tool should solve which teams sit where, including stacking across levels, not just fill one plate with desks.
3
Compliance built in. Egress distances, occupancy and accessibility checked on every option by the algorithm. A beautiful non-compliant plan is a liability with good graphics.
4
Quantities and budget on every option. Decisions are made on cost. If take-offs and budgets are a separate manual exercise, the bottleneck survives.
5
Iteration speed you can use live. The client moves one team and everything recounts in the meeting. This is where deals are won.
6
Options, not an option. The point of AI economics is comparing real alternatives. Three compliant options minimum, so the decision is best fit, not first fit.

Questions to ask in any demo

Can you run it on our floor plan and our brief, today, in front of us?
How do our space standards get into the system, and who configures them?
Show me a multi-floor scheme with team adjacencies solved.
Where do the quantities and the budget come from on this option?
Change one requirement now. How long until we see the impact?

A serious platform welcomes this list. The demo on your own project tells you more in 45 minutes than any feature matrix.

Run the hardest test: your own project

Send a floor plan and a brief. We run Spacefit live: three compliant options, quantities and budget included. You judge on your reality, not our demo data.

Book a 45-minute session