Comparison
DownsizeRoute vs SmartMoving
SmartMoving is aimed at moving companies running trucks and crews, while DownsizeRoute is aimed at the manager who has to decide what fits the new unit before any truck is booked.
Comparison
DownsizeRoute vs Magicplan: drawing the unit versus fitting the household
Magicplan is a field capture tool for producing a floor plan of a space, while DownsizeRoute is a decision tool for choosing which of a client's furniture that space can hold.
The short answer
Magicplan comes out of the contracting and inspection world, where a professional walks a space and needs a usable plan of it. That is genuinely useful on a two bedroom apartment tour, and some senior move managers capture the unit that way. DownsizeRoute starts one step later and one step wider: the plan is only the container, and the work is matching a fifty year household against it, ranking keepers, and giving every released piece a route out of the house. If you mainly need a drawing, draw it. If you need the decision, come here.
DownsizeRoute and Magicplan side by side
| What you are deciding | DownsizeRoute | Magicplan |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose of the plan | A container for keep and release decisions on a specific household | An accurate record of a space for professional field work |
| Who it was designed for | Senior move managers downsizing older adults into smaller homes | Field professionals across trades who need a plan of a site |
| Furniture the client already owns | Measured keeper pieces tested against wall runs, doors, and turns | Approach centers on the space itself rather than a client inventory |
| Access path to the unit | Doorways, elevator car, corridor turns, and truck to door route captured | Scope is the space being drawn |
| Disposition of the rest | Channels, dates, and consent for everything that did not fit | Outside the purpose of a plan capture tool |
| Family output | A room by room plan adult children can approve before move day | A plan document, which families read differently than a decision list |
| Move day use | Placement map the crew works from as boxes come off the truck | Built for documenting a space, not sequencing a move |
What follows on the right is the shape of Magicplan as a category: the workflow it assumes and the buyer it is written for. Any product moves on, so confirm the live details on their own pages first. DownsizeRoute is published by MLJ, SASU and this page is written by Jimenez Julien.
Choose DownsizeRoute when
- When the argument is about the sectional, not about the shape of the living room.
- When you need a written record of who agreed to release the dining set and when.
- When the elevator window and the corridor turn matter as much as the room dimensions.
- When the crew needs to know which wall the bed goes on before they carry it in.
Choose Magicplan when
- If your main need is a clean, accurate drawing of a unit you toured once, that is what Magicplan is for.
- If you also do work outside senior moves where a general space capture tool earns its keep.
- If the community gives you nothing and you have to produce the plan of the apartment yourself.
A drawing is not a decision
A floor plan tells you the second bedroom is eleven by twelve. It does not tell you that the client sleeps badly without her mother's dresser, that the dresser is fifty four inches wide, and that placing it on the only free wall blocks the closet swing. That last sentence is the actual work of a downsize, and it is arithmetic plus judgment plus a conversation with a daughter.
This is why managers who capture beautiful plans still end up with a legal pad. The plan lives in one place and the decisions live in another, and on move day the crew has neither. Keeping the container and the contents in the same document is the whole point.
What you actually have to measure
The measurements that break a downsizing job are rarely room dimensions. They are the apartment door width, the turn out of the elevator lobby, the stair landing in a walk up cottage, the sill height under the window where the recliner was supposed to go, and the radiator that eats eight inches of the only sofa wall.
Communities will often hand you a marketing plan of the unit that is close but not exact, drawn without the radiator and without the door swing. Whether you capture the unit yourself or start from what the community gave you, the numbers that decide the job are the ones you take on site with a tape.
Using both on the same job
Some managers capture the unit with a phone app on the community tour, then bring those dimensions into the fit plan and work from there. That is a reasonable division of labor and nothing about it is wasted.
The test is where the keeper list lives. If your furniture decisions, release channels, and family approvals sit in a drawing tool, they are hard to hand to a crew and harder to defend later if a family member asks what happened to the highboy.
Questions people ask before they choose
Do I need a drawing app to use DownsizeRoute?
No. Most managers work from the dimensions they take on the walkthrough plus whatever plan the community provides. If you prefer to capture the unit with a phone app, the measurements transfer fine.
Is a marketing floor plan from the community accurate enough?
Treat it as a starting sketch, not a source of truth. Sales plans often omit radiators, door swings, and the exact width of the entry. Verify the walls and doorways you intend to place furniture against.
What measurements matter most on a downsize?
Door widths and the turns leading to them, then usable wall run per room after windows and radiators, then elevator car depth. Those three decide more keeper arguments than square footage ever does.
Other comparisons on downsizeroute.com
Comparison
DownsizeRoute vs Jobber
Jobber is general purpose field service software for small home service businesses, while DownsizeRoute is narrow software for the specific work of moving an older adult into a smaller home.
See the same numbers on your own senior move management
Send us the way you run it today and we will walk through what DownsizeRoute changes, what it leaves alone and what the first month looks like.