Plan a home golf simulator that fits your room

How to measure your room

Measure the ceiling to the lowest thing overhead — a beam, a light fitting, a garage-door track — not the highest point, because your club finds the low spot. For depth, measure front to back from where you'd stand behind the ball to the far wall or screen. For width, go wall to wall across your swing. Then do the one measurement no tape can: take a slow, full driver swing where the ball will sit and watch the clubhead at the top. If it feels close, believe the swing over the number.

How the Architect builds your room

First it decides what your room can take. Ceiling height is personal: the swing arc that clips a ceiling scales with your height, so a 6ft golfer genuinely needs more than a 5ft 6in one — and irons always need less than the driver, which is why low rooms often run iron-first. Room depth decides the technology: radar launch monitors need roughly 16ft of flight to read, while camera (photometric) units measure the first foot and thrive in tight rooms. Width decides whether you can centre the ball or offset it. Then it assembles a build for your budget tier and the one thing you care most about — value, data accuracy, immersion or portability — swapping any part your room rules out (a shallow room never gets a radar unit) and totalling the real one-off and yearly cost. Prices are honest planning figures; the live price always lives on the retailer.

Frequently asked

How much does a home golf simulator cost in 2026?

It splits into honest tiers. A practice bay — launch monitor, net, mat, played off a tablet — runs roughly £500–1,500. A starter sim that projects a real course lands around £2,000–4,000. A serious, fitting-grade room with 4K optics and a proper enclosure is about £5,000–9,000, and a dream room with premium everything, a turf floor and a built-in putting green starts around £12,000. This tool builds each tier for your actual room and shows the running cost — the one-off spend plus any yearly software subscription — separately, so you see the true number.

How much ceiling height do you need for a golf simulator?

It depends on your height, not a single magic number. As a rule of thumb, a ~6ft golfer wants about 9ft of ceiling to swing a driver comfortably, a shorter player can get away with around 8ft 6in iron-first, and 10ft or more is worry-free for anyone. Irons need noticeably less than the driver, which is why plenty of low-ceiling rooms run as iron-only sims. The real test is a slow, full swing with a club in hand where the ball will sit — your swing arc clips the ceiling, not your standing height.

How much room depth do you need — and does radar or camera change it?

This is the call most people get wrong. Radar launch monitors sit behind the ball and read ball flight, so they need roughly 16ft of total flight depth (device, ball, and tracking room in front) — many single garages fail this. Camera (photometric) units read the first foot off the face, so they work happily in about 10ft and up. A shallow room isn't a compromise for a camera unit — it's the design case. The planner reads your depth and only builds you a unit your room can actually use.

How much width do you need for a golf simulator?

About 10ft (3m) is comfortable and lets you centre the ball with clearance either side. You can build in less — roughly 8ft works for a single-handed setup if you shift the hitting position toward your lead-side wall, keeping ~18–24in beyond your trail side. A room shared by right- and left-handed players really wants the full 10ft, since you can't offset the ball for both.

What software do you need, and is it a subscription?

The software is what turns launch-monitor numbers into courses and games. GSPro (~£200/year) is the community consensus for realistic play and the biggest course library; E6 Connect (~£350/year) has the prettiest picture and runs on more devices; Awesome Golf (~£120/year) is the easy, tablet-friendly starting point. Some all-in-one units, like the Garmin R50, bundle their own software so there's nothing extra to buy. The planner shows the yearly cost as a separate line so it never hides inside the headline price.

Is this tied to one brand's kit?

No — and that's the point. Manufacturers' own planners only ever build with their own products. This one is brand-agnostic: it recommends the genuinely-best launch monitor, screen, projector, mat and software for your specific room and budget, whoever makes them. Where a part is on Amazon we link it (which is how the site earns), but the recommendation comes first.

Want to go deeper on one part? Pin down the unit with the Launch Monitor Finder or the launch monitor price ladder. Prefer to read first? Start with how to build a garage golf simulator and our garage sim setup guide.