Answers before you order.

An interactive report for an address: hours of sunshine per day and across the whole year, the cast shadows at any time of day in 3D, the view from the façades, the solar potential of the roof, plus the location with noise, public transport connections, natural hazards, surface runoff, groundwater, building zones, surroundings and time travel with historical aerial photos. The report opens in your browser, no app needed.

The orientation in the listing only tells you where the sun could be. Whether it actually gets there depends on neighbouring buildings, the slope, mountains and trees, especially in winter when the sun is low. SunPlot calculates the hours of sunshine for any address in Switzerland across the whole year from official 3D data. More in the guide “How much sun does my flat get?”.

Yes. The sun path section shows the view from the house towards the sun, with sunrise and sunset behind the real horizon of the location, i.e. behind the actual mountains and buildings. You can choose any date and time; the 3D shadow and the hours of sunshine update along with it.

No. The report shows the existing situation based on the official building and terrain data, without planned buildings and without cantonal presentation requirements. Official shadow diagrams, for example for the 3-hour shadow of high-rise buildings in the canton of Zurich, are prepared by specialist firms according to the building regulations. As a preliminary check of how much sun a property gets today, the report is well suited. More in the guide “Shadow diagram and 2-hour shadow”.

Planned buildings are not in the report; it shows the buildings, trees and terrain that exist today. But it does show when and from which direction the sun comes today, and it records the current situation with hours of sunshine and view. This lets you see whether a new building in the planned location would fall within the sun path. More in the guide “Shadow from the neighbouring building”.

For addresses throughout Switzerland, in all 26 cantons. Terrain, aerial photo, trees and all filter maps come from the Confederation and cover the whole country. Liechtenstein only to a limited extent: terrain and aerial photo are available, 3D building models and the hazard map are missing. The detailed 3D building models with roof shapes (swissBUILDINGS3D 3.0) cover all of Switzerland; the data date varies by map sheet, and new buildings put up since then are missing from the model and get their height from the laser surface model. The checker further up shows you what’s available at your address.

The basis is official: terrain, building models and laser point cloud from swisstopo, plus maps from the SFOE, FOEN, ARE and other federal offices. The sun and shadow values themselves are SunPlot’s own calculations — hours of sunshine, annual chart, shadow sources, shadow-hours map, view and comparison are recalculated for each address. SunPlot calculates these figures and charts specifically for your address. The points in the surroundings come from OpenStreetMap.

To your own building: the calculation is done at the roof ridge, or in the middle for flat roofs, in each case 1.5 m above it. This point is comparable across the whole year and independent of whether a flat is on an upper or a lower floor. A ground-floor balcony or a seating area in the garden will therefore usually get a little less sun than the figure in the report; a top-floor flat is closer to it. In the report you can look at the view for each façade and each floor separately, and the 3D shadow casting shows you every hour across the whole property.

Not for every one. sonnendach.ch from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy covers most Swiss buildings, but the entry is often still missing for new buildings. The address checker on the order page tells you before you buy what the situation is at your address. If the data is missing, the solar potential chapter is missing from the report; sun, shadow, view and all other chapters are not affected. On request, we calculate our own estimate per roof surface as a small add-on report, but it is not official.

The hours of sunshine are calculated geometrically: terrain at 50 cm resolution, buildings with roof shapes, trees from the laser point cloud, and the position of the sun calculated astronomically every 10 minutes throughout the year, including mountain shadow. The calculation ignores clouds, so it shows the possible sun on a clear day. These are calculated values, not a substitute for official information or an expert opinion.

No. A traditional expert assessment for a building permit application costs several thousand francs and requires a specialist. SunPlot delivers the preliminary stage of it, usually within 24 hours: for your purchase decision, your flat search, the sales dossier or as an initial check before the expert assessment.

Yes, you can try the app without signing up with two real places, the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne and Lungern church. Other addresses are available with a single report or a subscription.

No. You open the report in your browser, ideally on a computer or tablet. The app is the quick way when you’re out and about and for showing it to others; it runs in the browser and will follow for Android and iPhone in the stores.

With a subscription, yes: in the app you can put two addresses side by side, for example two flats on your shortlist: which one gets more sun in winter, which one is quieter? The single report for CHF 49 covers one address; for two properties you order two reports.

The historical aerial photos from swisstopo, the oldest from the 1920s, laid directly over the 3D scene. With a slider you move through the years and see how the neighbourhood has changed: where there used to be meadow, when the road came, what was built.

Yes. As with the sun path, you look from the location towards the moon, with phase, moonrise and moonset times and the next full moon. This lets you see where the full moon rises and behind which mountain, or whether it shines into the bedroom at night. Moon shadows are deliberately not calculated, as moonlight is too weak for that.

The hazard map is cantonal. It is in the report for 23 cantons; Nidwalden and Obwalden are still pending. The canton of Vaud charges annual fees for it, so this chapter is not offered there. All other analyses are included in every canton.

A single report costs CHF 49 per address, as a one-off payment. There are also two subscriptions: SunPlot Pro with 5 reports per month for CHF 99, SunPlot Team with 20 reports for CHF 199, each per month and, with the monthly subscription, cancellable monthly. If you pay annually, you get two months free; the annual subscription runs until the end of the paid year and is not refunded pro rata. These are introductory prices; VAT is included.

TWINT, Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay, processed via the payment provider Stripe. Payment is always made in advance; we do not offer payment by invoice. All prices are in Swiss francs including VAT.

The single report is charged when you order. With a subscription, you pay at the start of each subscription period, i.e. monthly or annually, always for the upcoming period.

After payment, the report for your address is created and you receive the link by email, usually within 24 hours. The link is valid for 6 months. Save the report as a file and it stays usable even after the link expires; when opened, it loads the maps from the federal geoservices. The file works in any browser, without an app and without an account, and can be printed as a PDF at any time.

Yes. After payment, we email you a receipt showing VAT separately, also for companies. If your receipt is missing, write to us with the date of the order — we’ll send it again.

If something is wrong at your address, get in touch within 14 days. We look into the case and fix it: we correct the affected maps or chapters or create the report again, even if only a single filter is wrong. You get your money back via the payment provider if a fix is not possible, for example with a wrongly assigned building that cannot be corrected. A result that simply turns out differently than you hoped is not a defect. The details are in section 8 of the Terms and Conditions.

A refund is always made via the same payment method you used: for TWINT and card via Stripe, within 5 to 10 working days depending on your bank. If you report a defect within 14 days, we look into the case and fix it; you get your money back if a fix isn’t possible.

After payment, you receive a licence code, which you enter once in the app. After that, you can create 5 (SunPlot Pro) or 20 (SunPlot Team) reports per month for any addresses you like. Unused reports expire at the end of the month; extra reports can be bought at any time. No login, not tied to a device.

At any time, effective at the end of the current subscription period, monthly or annually. A short email with your licence code is enough. The code remains active until the end of the paid period; periods already paid for are not refunded pro rata. There is no minimum term.

You’re not buying the data, but the finished, branded working tool: your logo, created in minutes, ready for the sales dossier, instead of hunting down five maps yourself and estimating the sun.

In the app, the 3D calculation runs directly in your browser; ordered reports are created by our server. For an order, we store your name, billing address and email, the address of the property and the optional house photo (it only goes on the cover page of your report). Payment is handled by Stripe; we never see card details. We delete the report and photo automatically after 6 months; the order data is kept for 10 years as an accounting record. With a subscription, our server stores the time and property address for each report created, so that we can count the quota and improve the report if a property is analysed more than once. We don’t pass on anything for advertising purposes; for hosting, payment and, only with your consent, statistics, we work with Hetzner, Stripe and Google – details in the privacy policy.