HomeRelay vs MagicDoor.

Both run the loop. They are shaped for different owners.

MagicDoor says its AI completes the maintenance workflow from triage and vendor dispatch through scheduling, follow-up, invoices, and completion verification, and its Work Order AI page walks through what happens when a vendor declines or no-shows. That is real capability, and any comparison that reduces it to a shared chat is out of date.

The difference is the shape of the business each one assumes. Their product assumes a firm: a coordinator, a portfolio, owners to report to, and an exception that lands on a property manager's desk. HomeRelay assumes you. It is built around a self-managing 1-10-unit owner, does not require a property-management system replacement or rent-stream migration, and keeps tenant and vendor conversations separately mediated. You choose authority per trade. When required authority, delivery, or vendor coverage cannot be proven, HomeRelay stops visibly and returns the job to your attention instead of silently guessing that the loop completed.

Its landlord AI also carries the home's story forward: same-unit outcomes, who did the work, and landlord-recorded warranty dates can inform the next decision. The boundary matters as much as the memory: a past repair is a lead, not a diagnosis, and one unit is not evidence of a building-wide cause.

The clearest split: who picks up a dead vendor.

Both products handle a vendor who declines or does not show. Read their Work Order AI page and the exception has a destination: it is routed back to a property manager, with the chat history, to reassign. That is the right design when a firm employs the coordinator who catches it.

If you are the owner, you are that coordinator. So HomeRelay walks your own backup roster first: the response window closes, the next vendor you ranked gets the job, and the escalation ladder reaches you by text, call, email, and in-app notice only when the roster runs out or a decision is genuinely yours. The work of finding the next plumber at 9pm is the work we are trying to take off you.

We never touch your rent.

HomeRelay is a flat $69 a month for 1 to 5 units, or $99 a month for 6 to 10 units, plus $5 a door past 10. Your rent goes straight to you through Stripe Connect. We add no fee, take no cut, and put no cap on your rent volume. Texts are unlimited.

MagicDoor's model runs rent and messaging through the platform, and the Starter tier meters both: $0.15 per text and $5 per ACH, with a $10k/mo cap on rent volume. Maintenance is text-heavy work, because a single repair carries tenant confirmations, vendor offers, escalation, and scheduling, so on a metered tier the exact loop we run costs a little more every time it runs, and the rent cap is a ceiling you can grow into. Moving up their ladder clears the per-text fee. That is a structural difference in where each business earns, not a coupon.

A tunable autonomy dial, per trade.

HomeRelay's operating rules let you set how hands-off you are, trade by trade. Auto-dispatch the $150 plumbing call, require your approval on the $1,500 HVAC job, and keep a global pause switch for when you want everything to stop. Cost thresholds decide what goes out on its own and what waits for you.

MagicDoor's public Work Order AI page describes configurable rules by company, portfolio, property, and vendor, plus escalation thresholds, and its AI page describes a plain-English Policy Handbook the AI cites when it acts. That is meaningful control, written for a firm setting policy for its staff. HomeRelay's version is written for one person: a mode per trade, cost thresholds, and one global pause, with visible stops when a required proof is missing.

Where MagicDoor is the better pick.

We are not going to pretend HomeRelay wins for everyone. Choose MagicDoor if:

• You want one tool for everything, including accounting, tenant screening, listing syndication, and owner portals. HomeRelay deliberately does none of those.
• You manage property for other owners. MagicDoor's accounting is built around management fees and owner distributions, which is exactly what that job needs.
• You need tenant communication in other languages. Their AI translates messages into the tenant's preferred language, and HomeRelay is English-only today.
• You want the lowest sticker price. Their $20 Starter covers up to 10 leases, which is our entire range, so on the sticker alone MagicDoor is cheaper than us at every unit count we serve. The honest counter is not the sticker: it is that Starter meters the texts a maintenance loop runs on, charges $5 per ACH, and caps rent volume at $10k/mo, while our price is the whole bill and your rent never enters it. Do that math with your own numbers.

Where HomeRelay is the better pick.

Choose HomeRelay if:

• You self-manage your own 1-10 units and want a maintenance system shaped around the owner, without replacing the rest of your setup.
• You want the system to work the dead-vendor problem itself, walking your backup roster before it comes back to you.
• You want your rent and your texts left alone: flat $69 for 1 to 5 units or $99 for 6 to 10 units, rent paid to you direct, no per-text or per-ACH fees, no rent cap.
• You want to tune authority per trade, with a real pause switch and a visible stop when required proof is missing.
• You want your landlord AI to remember the right unit without overreaching from one repair or one resident's report.
• You are fine using separate specialized tools for accounting or screening, and you want maintenance done deeply rather than everything done broadly.

Questions to ask any AI maintenance tool before you sign.

These questions expose the operating model behind any end-to-end claim, ours included:

• Does it charge per text? Maintenance runs on messages, so a per-text fee sits on the core of the job.
• Does it charge per ACH, or cap your rent volume? Tools that route rent can take a fee on every pull and set a ceiling on how much you collect.
• Who picks up the job when a vendor goes quiet or misses the appointment? Ask whether the software works the next vendor itself, or hands the exception to a person, and which person that is in your setup.
• Can you tune authority per trade? Auto for routine work, approval for expensive work, and a way to pause it all.
• How does it use property history? Ask whether it stays on the same unit, distinguishes evidence from diagnosis, and protects details a tenant should not see.
• How does it fail? Ask what proof it requires before claiming a message, dispatch, or handoff happened.

One thing we will say plainly.

HomeRelay is new. We would rather tell you that than dress it up. What we are sure of is the design: maintenance, run end-to-end, for landlords who manage their own units, with your rent and your vendor relationships left in your hands. Explore the demo with sample data and judge it yourself before you pay anything.

More on the boundary: what HomeRelay deliberately doesn't do →