A MagicDoor alternative built for a few units, not a management company.

What is a good MagicDoor alternative for a landlord with a few units?

HomeRelay is a MagicDoor alternative aimed squarely at independent landlords with roughly 3 to 10 units who manage their own places. It handles the part that eats your evenings, the maintenance requests and the vendor back-and-forth, without pulling you into a property-management suite built for companies with dozens of doors and their own back office. MagicDoor is a strong broad platform, and its own page description says it is for companies scaling past 100 units. If that is the business you are running, start there. If you are the owner and intend to stay the owner, start here.

Does HomeRelay charge per text message or per rent payment like some tools?

No. HomeRelay is one flat price for your whole account, $69/mo for 1 to 5 units or $99/mo for 6 to 10 units, with no per-text and no per-payment charges. Past 10 units it's $99 plus $5 a door, which is a door count, not a usage meter. Some AI property tools meter the exact things a maintenance workflow uses most: MagicDoor's Starter tier lists $0.15 per text sent and $5 per ACH rent payment, with a $10k monthly cap on rent volume, and moving up to their Advanced tier clears the per-text fee. HomeRelay runs a text-heavy coordination loop and does not bill you by the message on any plan, so a busy month does not cost you more. Pair that with a rent stream we never touch and your whole bill is the subscription.

Is HomeRelay for property managers or for landlords who manage their own units?

HomeRelay is built for landlords who manage their own units. The broad AI property platforms, MagicDoor included, are built around a management company: owner distributions, management-fee accounting, trust accounting, and owner portals sit in the core because that is what a firm reporting to other owners needs. That is a real product for a real buyer, and several of them serve small landlords too. HomeRelay picks the other buyer. It assumes you are the owner doing the work and hands you leverage rather than a back office you did not ask for.

How is HomeRelay different now that MagicDoor also claims end-to-end maintenance?

MagicDoor's current public pages say its AI handles triage, vendor dispatch, scheduling, follow-up, invoices, and completion verification, and its Work Order AI page describes rerouting or reassigning when a vendor declines or no-shows. HomeRelay is different in who the operating model is built around: a self-managing 1-10-unit owner who does not want to replace a property-management system or move a rent stream just to get maintenance help.

The sharpest version of that is who picks up a dead vendor. Their page routes a declined dispatch back to a property manager to reassign, with the chat history attached, which is the right design when a firm employs that coordinator. If you are the owner, you are the coordinator, so HomeRelay walks your own backup roster first and only escalates to you when the roster runs out or the call is genuinely yours.

HomeRelay keeps tenant and vendor conversations separately mediated, gives the owner authority settings per trade, and fails closed when required authority, delivery, or vendor coverage cannot be proven. The result is a visible stop for the landlord to handle, not a silent assumption that the job moved.

Does HomeRelay remember what happened at the unit before?

Yes. The landlord AI can use same-unit outcomes, the vendor who did the work, and landlord-recorded warranty dates to inform the next decision. A past repair is a lead, not a diagnosis, and one unit is not evidence of a building-wide cause. Tenant-facing triage stays anchored to the current report and receives no prior-ticket history. Vendor, cost, warranty, and prior-outcome details stay private to the landlord.

Do my vendors need an account or an app to use HomeRelay?

No. Your vendors never need a HomeRelay account, an app, or a login. You bring your own plumber, electrician, and handyman, and HomeRelay reaches them by text and phone with the job details. They reply to accept, and that is it. Your vendor relationships stay yours, and if you leave HomeRelay they are unaffected because HomeRelay was never in the middle of them.

Can I control how much HomeRelay does automatically?

Yes. Operating rules give you three modes to set per trade: Full Auto, where AI handles the whole request and sends you a summary; Approve First, where AI triages and waits for your go; and Manual, where you handle it yourself. There is also a global pause for everything. Safety instructions lead on an emergency; vendor outreach proceeds only with proven authority and delivery, and otherwise stops visibly for the landlord.

Does HomeRelay take a cut of my rent?

No. HomeRelay never holds your rent and never takes a cut. If you collect rent through HomeRelay it runs on your own Stripe account and lands with you directly. The only thing you pay HomeRelay is the flat subscription: $69/mo for 1 to 5 units, or $99/mo for 6 to 10 units, plus $5 a door past 10.

Compare HomeRelay to hiring a property manager →