Other
Own-Once Home Record
Homeowners pay once to scan appliance labels and keep every manual, receipt and warranty in one exportable place.
In plain English
- What category is this?
- A software niche that does not fit the usual catalog buckets cleanly. Here the focus is consumer subscription.
- The idea, briefly
Build one purchase, unlimited items and properties: photograph an appliance label and the record builds itself (manual, parts, recall, warranty), with one-tap export of documents and photos, offline access, and no account required.
More ▾- What buyers expect
People comparing tools like HomeZada, Homer (Home Owner AB), Tody expect the basics to work without surprise fees or missing pieces. The loud complaints are: Centriq's export only covered item fields, so photos, receipts and documents were lost when it shut down; and a recurring fee feels steep for a record owners only touch occasionally.
More ▾
- Sources
- 18
- Checked
- 9
- Competitors
- 5
- Gaps
- 8
- Page checked
- 9 · 50%
- Snippet only
- 9 · 50%
- Documented
- 8 · 50%
- Interpreted
- 8 · 50%
- complaint5
- playbook5
- pricing4
- market4
Competitors
5- Homer (Home Owner AB)$3.99/mo
- TodyFree
- Stu$2.99/mo
Parsed from public pricing blurbs (entry paid tier when available). Max in set: $3.99/mo.
| Competitor | From | Free tier | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| HomeZada | Unverified | Yes | homezada.com· |
| Homer (Home Owner AB) | $3.99/mo | Yes | homer.co✓ |
| Tody | Free | Yes | todyapp.com✓ |
| HomeBinder | See notes | — | pages.homebinder.com✓ |
| Stu | $2.99/mo | — | reddit.com· |
What customers complain about
8| Gap | Src |
|---|---|
Centriq's export only covered item fields, so photos, receipts and documents were lost when it shut down. | |
A recurring fee feels steep for a record owners only touch occasionally. | |
There is no keyword search across stored manuals. | |
Capture is unreliable. | |
The Centriq replacement feels bloated. | |
Owners miss warranties and pay out of pocket. Reported (snippet-only) scenario: a homeowner could not find the dishwasher warranty when it broke and paid for a repair that was pro… | |
Multi-property owners are metered per home. Reported scenario: Homer reportedly charges $9.99 per extra property and HomeZada $99/yr per extra property, | |
The shutdown stranded dependent users. Reported (snippet-only) scenario: an owner who kept 100+ items, part numbers and receipts in Centriq asked publicly for any alternative. |
Documented Interpreted
How competitors find customers
3| Tactic | Src |
|---|---|
| Post the build story in niche subreddits (r/SideProject, r/homeowners, r/iosapps) and answer every reply; | reddit.com· |
| Ship a free import tool for a folding adjacent incumbent and get named in that incumbent's shutdown communications - Homer did this for Centriq. | realestateledger.io✓ |
| Earn mainstream home-improvement press or TV; Centriq appeared on Ask This Old House and the resulting demand overwhelmed its identification pipeline. | justuseapp.com✓ |
Your angle & pricing wedge
| Piece | Claim | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Angle | One purchase, unlimited items and properties: photograph an appliance label and the record builds itself (manual, parts, recall, warranty), | |
| Wedge | Mechanism: charge once (target $19.99-$29) for unlimited items and unlimited properties instead of a recurring per-item, per-year or per-home fee, | justuseapp.com✓ |
How others got traction
5| Move | Why | Src |
|---|---|---|
| Centriq's core loop: photograph a product label and it auto-filled the manual, parts, | User-attributed benefit, not a company claim - reviewers describe this as the feature they could not replace. this capture loop, | justuseapp.com✓ |
| Centriq went from free to a paid subscription (about $60/yr for 100 items) and then shut down, | User-attributed: a reviewer directly blames the pricing flip ('we got bamboozled. Now it's pay or have a crippled app'). | justuseapp.com✓ |
| Homer absorbed Centriq's stranded users by shipping a Centriq import tool and being named in Centri… | Documented on a competitor's comparison page and on Homer's own /centriq page; the causal claim that the importer drove adoption is the pag… | realestateledger.io✓ |
| HomeBinder gives the product away free at closing and is funded by the professional partner. | Company-reported on its opened homepage; the channel (partner pays, homeowner free) is documented. | pages.homebinder.com✓ |
| Tody keeps a genuinely free single-person cleaning plan and charges for added scope: Premium ($9.99… | Documented on its opened pricing page; the strategic rationale is not stated by the company. | todyapp.com✓ |
Market heat
HomeBinder reports it is trusted by more than 950,000 homeowners nationwide and is handed to owners free by agents, inspectors and lenders (company-reported, opened homepage).
More ▾Centriq's consumer app shut down around the end of January (Reddit thread says a December 2025 wind-down notice; the opened KeepUp post says 31 Jan 2025, so the exact date is unreconciled), and users publicly asked for alternatives (Reddit thread, search snippet, not opened).
More ▾Homer's Google Play listing shows 50K+ downloads and 246 reviews (platform-reported, opened).
A competitor comparison page asserts Homer absorbed Centriq's base via a Centriq CSV importer shipped 18 Dec 2025 and says Centriq's own shutdown communications directed users to Homer (Real Estate Ledger page, opened on review; the page is itself a competitor and the 'absorbed' framing is its claim, not independently measured).
More ▾Several solo developers launched home-maintenance apps in 2026, including one that claims 2,500 users in two months (Reddit launch post, search snippet, not opened).
More ▾
Revenue signals
6| Signal | Src |
|---|---|
HomeBinder: 950,000+ homeowners (company-reported on its opened homepage; not independently audited). | pages.homebinder.com✓ |
Homer: 50K+ Google Play downloads, 3.6 stars from 246 reviews (platform-reported, opened); consumer Premium in-app purchases reported at $4.99-$69.99. | play.google.com✓ |
Tody list pricing: Free, $9.99/yr Premium, $25/$40/$80 per year for Premium+ by household size. | todyapp.com✓ |
HomeZada list pricing: Premium $99/yr or $15.95/mo, Deluxe $189/yr, $99/yr per extra property. | homezada.com· |
Indie entrant pricing: Stu $2.99/mo or $24.99/yr, CasaCheck $8.99 one-time for unlimited equipment, House Manager $24.99/yr (founder-stated in Reddit posts, | reddit.com· |
Category context: a third-party roundup reported Bankrate 2025 figures of $8,808 average annual maintenance spend and 42% of homeowners reporting costs higher… | dwellpulse.com· |
Should you build this?
Homeowners pay to stop hunting for manuals and warranties: this app scans an appliance label and keeps every manual, receipt and warranty in one place you can always export. Demand is plausible - Centriq wound down its consumer app and its paying users publicly scrambled for a replacement, HomeBinder reports 950,000+ homeowners reached through inspectors and agents, and a solo developer's Reddit launch post claims 2,500 users in two months (snippet-only). The hard part is that the category is crowded and cheap: HomeBinder is free to the owner, HomeZada is reported at about $99/yr, Homer meters extra homes, and several 2026 indie apps already sell for $8.99 one-time or about $24.99/yr - so a new product must win on faster, more accurate label capture and guaranteed full export, not on price. This is not guaranteed to work, and the free floor plus per-item fatigue are real threats.
More ▾
All sources
18| Source | Kind | Status | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| pricing | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| complaint | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| pricing | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| market | snippet only | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | page checked | 2026-10-05 | |
| playbook | snippet only | 2026-10-05 |