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PanoCool vs Clear Pano: Your Tour Photos Don't Need to Go to an AI Company
PanoCool's AI tools send the photos you choose to outside AI companies, and its plans are priced by storage. Clear Pano edits on your phone, never sends your photos to an AI company, scans floor plans with your iPhone and starts at $5 a month.
PanoCool is a web-based platform for 360° virtual tours, packed with AI tools: retouching, AI Auto Connect, AI floor plans, 3D views and tour translation. It's a capable product, and it has a free plan.
But before you upload a client's home, two things are worth knowing: where your photos go when you press one of those AI buttons, and what you'll really pay once your tours start filling up storage. I make virtual tours on my phone with Clear Pano. Here's how the two compare.
Full disclosure: I'm the founder of Clear Pano. Everything about PanoCool here comes from PanoCool's own website, pricing page, privacy policy and guides, checked on 9 November 2026, in US dollars before tax. PanoCool's storage limits change on 10 November 2026, and this article uses the new ones. Prices change, so check before you buy.
PanoCool vs Clear Pano at a glance
| PanoCool | Clear Pano | |
|---|---|---|
| Where you build the tour | In a web browser | In the app on your phone |
| When you use AI | The photos you choose go to outside AI companies | It runs on your phone, and nothing goes to an AI company |
| What the price is based on | Storage: 500MB free, 20GB on Cool | Live tours: 10 on the $5 plan |
| 10 live tours | $9 a month, or $90 a year | $5 a month |
| AI tools | Paid for in credits: 60 a month on Cool | Remove has no credits: use it as often as you like |
| Floor plans | Worked out by AI from your photos, paid for in AI edits | Scanned with your iPhone's LiDAR, included in your plan |
Where your photos go when you use AI
PanoCool's AI is spread across the product: retouching and object removal, upscaling, 3D views, AI floor plans, AI Auto Connect (which works out where each photo was taken) and tour translation. Its privacy policy says these run only when you start them. When you do, PanoCool sends the photos or text you chose to AI service providers, and it names them: Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, through Vercel AI Gateway, plus Replicate and World Labs.
PanoCool also says: "We don't use your content to train AI models." Even so, every time you use one of those tools, your client's home leaves PanoCool and goes to another company to be processed.
Clear Pano works differently. Its one AI tool is Remove, which takes tripod legs, people or clutter out of a photo, and it runs on your phone. The AI model is inside the app, so the photo isn't sent anywhere to be edited. Clear Pano never sends your photos to an AI company. When you publish, your tour is stored on Clear Pano's own hosting on Amazon Web Services, and our privacy policy lists every company we work with.
PanoCool charges for storage, Clear Pano charges per tour
PanoCool's plans are priced by storage. The free Hobby plan gives you 500MB, Cool gives you 20GB for $9 a month ($90 a year), and Super Cool gives you 200GB for $39 a month ($390 a year), according to its pricing page. Every photo you upload counts towards it.
That's hard to plan around. Say each 360° photo is 15MB and a tour has 50 photos. That's 750MB a tour:
- The free plan's 500MB can't hold even one tour.
- Cool's 20GB holds about 26 tours.
- Bigger photos, from higher-resolution cameras, fill it faster.
When you run out, uploads stop until you delete something or pay for more. An extra 200GB is $15 a month.
Clear Pano's plans are set by how many tours you have live, not by how big your photos are: 10 tours for $5 a month, 50 for $10 and 100 for $15. Unpublish a tour and its slot frees up straight away.
Here's what each costs a month, with 50 photos of 15MB in every tour:
| Live tours | PanoCool | Clear Pano |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $9 (Cool: the free 500MB is too small) | Free |
| 10 | $9 (Cool) | $5 (up to 10 tours) |
| 50 | $24 (Cool + 200GB) | $10 (up to 50 tours) |
| 100 | $24 (Cool + 200GB) | $15 (up to 100 tours) |
| 200 | $24 (Cool + 200GB) | $20 (up to 200 tours) |
| 500 | $54 (Super Cool + 200GB) | $35 (up to 500 tours) |
To be fair, there are numbers where PanoCool works out cheaper, as long as your photos stay around 15MB: from 11 to about 26 tours, Cool's $9 is a dollar less than our $10 plan, and from 201 to about 290 tours, $24 beats our $35. Paying PanoCool yearly also takes two months off its prices.
PanoCool's AI tools cost credits too
On top of storage, every PanoCool AI tool is paid for in AI edits, its credits. The free Hobby plan includes none, Cool includes 60 a month and Super Cool 200. Here's what some of them cost:
- Removing a tripod: 1 AI edit a photo in the Normal mode, or 5 or 8 in the Fast and Pro modes
- AI Auto Connect and AI Floor Plan: 1 AI edit a photo
- Translating a tour: 1 AI edit a language
So one 50-photo tour, with the tripod removed from every photo and an AI floor plan, uses about 100 AI edits: more than Cool's 60 for the month. After that, 200 more AI edits are $24, or the AI Plus plan adds 300 a month for $29.
Clear Pano's Remove doesn't use credits. It runs on your phone, so you can use it on every photo, as often as you like, on any plan, including your free first tour.
Floor plans: scanned on your iPhone, not worked out from photos
In Clear Pano, you open Floor Plans on an iPhone or iPad with LiDAR and walk through the property room by room. The LiDAR scanner reads each room as you go, the scan is processed on the phone by Apple's RoomPlan, and Clear Pano draws the plan when you finish the floor. You can move walls, type a room's size, add doors and windows, share it as a PDF or picture, and link it to your tour. Your plan includes as many floor plans as tours.
PanoCool can't scan a room: it runs in a web browser and doesn't use your phone's LiDAR scanner. Instead, its AI Floor Plan works the plan out from your 360° photos. AI Auto Connect first works out where each photo was taken, then the AI draws the walls, doors, windows and room sizes. You check the drawing and fix it by hand in its editor.
Like PanoCool's other AI tools, it's paid for in AI edits: one for each photo, so a 50-photo floor plan uses most of Cool's 60 a month.
When PanoCool is the better choice
PanoCool does things Clear Pano doesn't. It makes a 3D view of a home from your photos, exports tours to host on your own website or as a Windows or Mac app, handles 360° video on Super Cool, and translates tours into other languages. If you want AI to place and connect hundreds of photos for you, and you're happy for them to go to those AI companies, it's built for that.
For the wider picture, here are seven virtual tour tools compared.
The verdict
If you want your clients' photos kept away from AI companies, a price you can work out before you start, and floor plans scanned on your iPhone and included in your plan, Clear Pano does it all on your phone from $5 a month. And your first tour is free.
Frequently asked questions
Does PanoCool send my photos to AI companies?
When you use one of its AI tools, yes. Its privacy policy says it sends the photos or text you chose to AI service providers, naming Google, OpenAI and Anthropic through Vercel AI Gateway, plus Replicate and World Labs. It says the tools run only when you start them, and that PanoCool doesn't use your content to train AI models.
Does Clear Pano use AI?
Only in Remove, which takes tripod legs, people or clutter out of a photo. It runs on your phone with an AI model that's inside the app, so the photo isn't sent anywhere to be edited. Clear Pano never sends your photos to an AI company.
How much does PanoCool cost?
On 9 November 2026, PanoCool's Hobby plan was free with 500MB of storage, Cool was $9 a month or $90 a year with 20GB, and Super Cool was $39 a month or $390 a year with 200GB. An extra 200GB was $15 a month. Clear Pano starts at $5 a month for 10 live tours, and your first tour is free.
Does PanoCool charge for its AI features?
Yes. They're paid for in AI edits, PanoCool's credits: 1 a photo to remove a tripod in the Normal mode, 1 a photo for AI Auto Connect and AI Floor Plan, and 1 a language to translate a tour. Cool includes 60 a month, Super Cool 200 and the free Hobby plan none. Clear Pano's Remove has no credits, so you can use it as often as you like.
Can PanoCool make floor plans?
Yes, with AI. Its AI Floor Plan works the plan out from your 360° photos and is paid for in AI edits. It can't scan a room. Clear Pano scans each room with the LiDAR scanner on an iPhone 12 Pro or later Pro model, or an iPad Pro (2020 or later), and floor plans are included in your plan.
Is Clear Pano a PanoCool alternative?
For 360° virtual tours with floor plans, yes. You build the tour on your phone with any 360 camera, remove the tripod on the phone, scan the floor plan with your iPhone and publish, from $5 a month. If you need a 3D view or 360° video, PanoCool does those and Clear Pano doesn't.
