magicplan Reviews

by Ak2520

This one star rating is not because magicplan is not a great app, in fact this is definitely a powerful tool to create plans and share to more robust applications for further development and completion.
But when I have already paid for many plans on magicplan platform, which was required in order to get the pdf etc and to share and to export, and now you require me to pay the second time for something that i have already paid for, that’s extortion.
This is where i kiss magicplan goodbye and use something else like 5d, which has a much better 3D rendering of plans.
Once before you would just pay for the plan you design for like $2.99, or you could pay for multiple plans for a higher amount which was entirely reasonable, seeing that this is not a app that i use on a daily basis, drawing plans is actually a hobby for me, now they’re forcing you to subscribe on a monthly basis for something that i do not use that regularly, perhaps they have changed their business model, but the option should remain to be able to pay for plans individually, not everyone uses it as a daily driver. But to pay for plans, and then magicplan shut you out from the plans that you have created, is extortion.

by Asdfqwerttuuj Fsghf

I had great hopes for this program. Finally an easy to use software program that could help me reduce bid times. I have been remodeling for over twenty years and I can crank out room remodel drawing by hand faster than I can make a set of stairs rotate in this program.

Issues that real remodelers face in the field with magicplan

1. Rooms are seldom free of items such as cabinets, furniture, toilets, stuff etc. The LIDAR can not tell the difference between a corner of a room vs the corner of a cabinet. Magic plans solution was go buy a laser ranger finder with Bluetooth.

2. LIDAR can not figure out there is a jog in the wall. Instead it draws it at an angle. Ultimately you have to create a drawing in magicplan .

3. Not accurate. Routinely off by 4-6". DO NOT use this for cabinet orders etc

4. The rotate feature is a joke. It's 2021 and the ability to rotate something on an app has been solved for over ten years. I guess magic plan missed this. The interface is random and frustrating. Frustrating to the point you leave a 1 star review and request canceling your subscription.

We live in a world where stuff has to work. We are all moving too fast to have to deal with buggy programs. Hopefully magic plan can get this fixed.

by Neno Videnovic 12112122

I’m an architectural designer and my firm does many remodels. Part of this process is drawing As Builts in Revit which we then use to design. I’ve used professional laser scanning services before which were accurate to within .01 inches and captured literally everything. It plugged into Revit and if I wanted to know exactly where and what size and attic access panel was, for example, I can go into the laser scan point cloud and confidently measure it. Magic Plan, on the other hand, doesn’t give me this confidence. It’s measurements are way too far off to be used professionally and I don’t feel comfortable basing a design off it. If there is a lot of furniture or the room is messy (which happens to be the case sometimes with clients) Magic Plan does a poor job of locating corners and walls. It doesn’t take advantage of the device’s LiDAR Scanner to capture as many things as I thought it might. I wish it worked more like the Contour KAARTA.

by Kristalynne84

The developer stated in a response on Feb 8 that “with the two free plans, you can unlock any of your old plans, up to two, and have normal free user access on your device to all this app features for those projects.” This is completely untrue. You do not get to choose what two plans are unlocked. It chooses for you and you cannot change them. Lots of work I can no longer access. Don’t give money to a company that changes what they initially offered to customers. It’s fine if you want to change things moving forward but how dare you lock prior plans made before these new policies. Your claim that this was to provide free users a more comprehensive experience, is ridiculous. There’s not a user on earth that would choose what you are now offering in the free version over what you did before. I was happy to pay for floor plan bonuses like exporting and 3D on the ones I wanted. Your forced subscription plans demonstrate shady businesses practices.

by EANMII

This used to be a fantastic app but I’ve been having a lot of problems lately. I reached out to customer service a number of times and continually emailed them with no response. There is no phone number to call just email. I finally got one response months latter and the response was sarcastic and no help whatsoever. Their reply was telling me to change a setting that in numerous emails I had already explained I had tried and it was not solving the problem. When I replied to their email letting them know it did not solve the problem, no response. Their customer service is nonexistent. Sad, because I used to love magicplan and I pay a lot of money for it each year. If you’re looking to create floorplans were just the foot measurement shows, (not foot and inches) on the printed PDF, currently this not the option to pick. It shows correctly on the screen, just not when printing. Hopefully they can fix this problem in the future and provide some type of customer service.

by Camuti02

One way to improve would be to allow AI scan to identify corners from the ceiling; right now it can only start at the floor. If a room or house is empty that is fine, but I am not using this in a bare house- my house and houses I work in have objects in corners and all around the floor. The ceilings have far fewer objects, so I would love to see the accuracy improve by starting with corner identification on the ceiling, then set height by scanning down to floor level.
Current version is imperfect. More an amusement, all measurements are a few inches off, oftentimes rooms don’t come out as square and all have to be corrected. Or I am putting too much hope in AI scan feature and should just draw rectangular rooms.
Honestly, quicker to just sketch on a notepad with a pencil and tape measure.

by ThereIsNoRoot

Update: you have to turn off “Sensor Capture” in settings for LIDAR to work. The only reference to this is a single sentence in the docs that is very hard to miss.

After that, it works and works pretty good. But you can’t edit the placement of the walls or edges, so unless it happens to be spot on, all your measurements will be off and you’ll have to manually measure and edit. Still, the LIDAD scan is better than standing in place and drawing corners.

The docs and name of “sensor capture” are still very poor so it’s still 3 stars.

Original review: I have an iPhone 12 Pro Max. When I try to use the camera to scan a room, it only uses the corner method where you have to stand in the same spot. There’s no option to switch to LIDAR. There’s no reference to LIDAR other than in magicplan updates. No help screen or knowledge base article describing the new LIDAR UI; this is only visible in a video where a this app dev scans his studio apartment (nice balcony BTW)

I’m on the latest version of magicplan . I went to my profile and ran the data migrations or whatever the notification was.

Other apps like 3D Scanner App use LIDAR and I can confirm it’s working on my device.

I’m really confused why a well-loved, quality app like this app would drop the ball so badly. this app is probably the best use case for LIDAR, but right now it’s just not available.

by Lindsay Fuller

I have had magic plan on my ipad for years and I loved to design house plans for fun and in my free time. It has great features that are easy to use and this was my favorite house design app. However, with the recent updates, I lost access to all of my house plans because they are now locked and I have to subscribe to see any of them. I got to keep two of them but I didn’t get to pick the ones I wanted. This was very disappointing because I worked on them over 3-4 years and now can’t even see them. I wish that there could be a version of magicplan that had only the floor plan design feature and not all the professional features that was free—just like it was before the updates.

by CtheRose1

The old version was a 4.5-5 star app for the casual user. It had some limitations if you room had some extra corners or hidden corners or had an unusual stair arrangement. But overall great. BEST OF ALL you didn’t have to pay a lot of money until your plan was good and then you could buy just that plan and do more in depth work. LOVED it. Then they changed to a subscription only services. For a casual user like me that is TOO expensive. They did give you a token so you could still try before you had to subscribe, but that is only good if you never change your phone. Over the last 10-12 months I have been playing around with my new kitchen design. And since I upgraded my phone I have lost all that work. Just when I thought I had everything ready. Not happy at all.
Was going to give a 2 stars, but raised to 3 since from some research today it might still be the best thing available. Would be very willing to pay a reasonable fee for 1 plan.

by Fergmg

Easy to use, but of course you need light and a somewhat unobstructed corner so you can use the AR measurement. Otherwise it’s a bit difficult to tell where the pointer depth is... not a complaint, just something you have to know before you measure. Since most of my rooms are already furnished, it would be cool if you could use ceiling corners instead of floor.

Also, iPhone 8 Plus and the posture calibration crashes as soon as the last picture is taken. Talk about inconvenient crash... after I got a tape measure and laid it out and took 16 pictures at various lengths... it crashes. Not before I spent 15 mins setting that up and trying to take precise pictures. Oh well, don’t let that that detract you from using it... it is amazing!

by WoolfsRedd

Being able to turn off the sound of magicplan without having to turn off the ringer of your phone would be really great. Also, when choosing colors for tiles/carpet, after purchasing a plan...why is white and grey not an option? If I'm doing tiles in my laundry room, I'm not going to use pink or green on the floor...it would be wonderful to include the full color spectrum for flooring, and maybe have a way to change wall colors/materials as well. I may want tiles on my shower walls rather than glass, but no option that I've found for doing so.
Having options for exterior siding, deck materials, etc would really be great as well. Seeing the house in 3D really helps me to visualize my ideas, and fix any fine tuning issues. But I have no way to tell if my deck or shed are going to work well with the rest of the space, as they do not show up in 3D mode.
All in all, I still really like using magicplan, it would get five stars in a heartbeat if these features were added :)

by Dredoubleu

Listen... I don’t leave reviews hardly ever. But magicplan is so amazing I came here just to leave a review. Just using the free stuff I was able to build pretty accurate renovations using an image from google maps and being in a house one time. In the map you can see a Silverado, so I used the width of the vehicle to build the entire house and get a really close square footage for additions I want to add once we purchase it. I know how much concrete I’ll need, how much lumber, and how much more square footage it will add once I’m done. All loosely because it’s mostly guesswork on my side. magicplan so easy to use and you can drill down to the finest details. If your looking to build some floor plans etc. magicplan can do it, its so polished I commend all the hard work developers put into it.

by Yaassmaann

Currently in the process of moving and was looking for a simple way to measure my new apartment and plan out where all our furniture will go— magicplan does exactly that! While I haven’t needed to use it’s 3D/AR features (I had originally recorded all the measurements before finding this) magicplan is FANTASTIC for space planning on-the-go, so much better than my poorly drawn sketches and rushed handwriting. It let’s you attach images and jot down notes to individual objects and rooms— AMAZING!! I love how simple it is to create a specific plan for each room and then combine them to create a master plan, I also appreciate how easy it is to jump between units of measurement. The UI takes some getting used to and I didn’t find it to be super intuitive at first but its easy to get used to and very much worth it.

by Deadhain

So simple to use oh my goodness. I used it to mock up finishing plans for our basement and the free stuff was enough to lay out the walls using AR. That alone was great. Took a screenshot and got a cheeky message about “violating their terms” haha.

I actually wanted more out of magicplan mainly the stuff behind the paywall (features in the rooms like furniture and fixtures) so I looked at their options. The monthly/annual is WAY too much. Unless you’re a contractor don’t buy that. BUUUUT they have an option to “purchase a property” which just lets you layout everything for an entire house that was only $3 (one time) which to me was well worth it.

That was BEFORE I even turned on the 3D rendering. I was expecting something hokey that didn’t really look like what I had thought but boy was I wrong. It brought my vision to LIFE. Way exceeded my expectations. If you’re DIY like me or even just want to visualize rearranging furniture magicplan is LEGIT; free or paid.

by CIO-SB

I’ve been in tech since ‘83 and have used (survived) and seen plenty of “user friendly” apps in my day. this app stands out because it’s good, very very good.

I didn’t use the camera to do my measurements and went right to the manual entry process to map out my entire house - walls, doors, windows, and some utilities. The best way for me to describe the user interface is to say it’s a natural workflow. Things are where you can get to them, they are when you need to get to them, and they allow modifications when appropriate. This adds up to a display that’s not packed with every option all the time which is crazy making. When you only see and interact with options when you need to see them and then can work them out easily then you understand the care and smarts put into the user experience. Oh and if you do something out of bounds it tells you why and you can make it work - “doors can only be added to rooms”.

The entire process was completed in under 90 minutes. A beautiful PDF was the result and my remote architect was impressed. He said the “as built” drawing will go very quickly with the this app doc as the source, saving me time and money. I used the free product level and it did everything I needed. I’m going to upgrade and go for the paid features not because I need it, I’m going to pay to support these developers and reward excellent work.

Thanks this app.

by NCC-1701 D

I use Magic Plan to plan how spaces are used. For example, I can take a tablet to a store and do “real-time” checking of how a piece of furniture would fit in a space. I also use it to plan remodeling. Drawing walls and adding windows and doors is trivial, and changing them is just as easy! The 3D view really helps envision the space.

Key features I like: ability to lock dimensions, merge rooms, drag to change a wall dimension, set specific dimensions on any object, ability to see dimensions in print, and the 3D view.

Overall, I find it very easy to use, and I’ve not run into critical bugs or data loss.

by VeridianBlue

I am using magicplan to make sure construction proceeds with some degree of accuracy on the floor plan of my new house. Are use the camera for augmented reality and it looked great, corner detection was around 95% accurate, it has some trouble if you have debris lying in a corner. It does give me the option to specify corners manually with a single tap on the image displaying from my camera view. So far measurements looks correct. I am very impressed at how well magicplan works, very convenient that it calculates area and other stats for you. The way it organizes projects rooms is also great. I could modify just about any label.

by RobotEvans

Whether you’re a novice DIYer (like myself) or a professional offering home service (like many of the people who I’ve recommended this to), magicplan has it all. I wish I had known about this when I’ve done projects in the past. It would have saved loads of time!

You can simply stand in the middle of a room, point to all the corners and get a pretty spot-on measurement of ALL surfaces. Need to figure out linear feet for baseboards? Need square footage to estimate how much paint you’ll need? Need to determine if something fits through a doorway? This can get those jobs done in minutes!

I’ve recently started undertaking the task of developing a plan for removing walls to open up my space. Initially, started by doing the scan of each room, but just discovered that I can literally use this to overlay a plan on an existing drawing I already had. I finished three rooms, complete with all installed objects (toilet, closets, etc) in about 30 minutes.

I know I sound like I’m selling this, but I just can’t say enough good things, and I don’t review things often.

by Batman2287

I have had magicplan for a long time and I absolutely love it! It is fairly easy to use and I love making blueprints of all the homes I live in. I guess I can only blueprint one more home though because that’s it for the free projects. What is it with subscriptions for all the best apps?! Why can’t anyone make magicplan pay one price anymore?
Oh, I get it trust me. Money flowing in every month is better than one time. However, are there really that many people who use magicplan so much that it would be worth a subscription? I will never pay for a subscription even if I use an app every day! I have enough monthly bills and don’t need any more.
I still gave you 5 stars because magicplan is great. I really want to start giving 1 star to apps with subscriptions just because of greed. Sorry about the rant, I’m just sick of people trying to take advantage of our society. The rich are getting richer and the middle class is getting poor.

Well, if magicplan starts to become less of an income thing for you and you decide to make a “pay one price for all features” option, let me know. I’ll be there!

Have a great day! 😊

by Esta Mama

As a commercial real estate investor and developer I have used this app for floor plan designs. Most recently, I used it to build floor a plan for residential appraisal purposes. You can be as detailed or basic. Building floor plans for basic square footages or to show tenant improvement changes.

I used the camera on my iPhone and the measurements were very close to spot on. In the future I will incorporate a laser measure. Even if you cannot actually “see” the corners of a given floor plan (if obstacles are in the way) one can get it very close based off the apps ability to find “square” and the level of your floor. Hard to explain but trust me magicplan is very intuitive. You can always manually change the dimensions easily when building the floor plan.

I am an older guy and I was able to learn the interface quickly. The first complex residential floor plan took me about 2 hours to build and verify. The next one only a hour! magicplan WILL save you so much time.

I thank you this app for developing such a great app. A truly AMAZING tool. I used the basic version but like so many others, I will upgrade to the next level. Not that I need it but want to support great companies that make our lives easier!!!!

by LABeachGuy

LOVED magicplan, but they killed an important feature in the most recent update. I work in a commercial setting with lots of big desks and cabinets. The previous version allowed you to measure a room using ceiling corners. It was never 100% accurate, but close enough for furniture placement. The current version only allows measurement from the floor, so it’s difficult to get an accurate measurement when the view of the floor is obstructed by a large piece of furniture. magicplan directs you to ‘estimate’, but the measurements are off when I do. Bummer! This was a great app. I hope they bring the feature back.

by One Button Oscar

I was really excited to use magicplan for an upcoming project, but as soon as I tried to e-mail myself the PDF, it failed. I haven’t received any confirmation email for creating my account or PDF’s of the project I did create. I tried to take a screen shot since I needed the plans asap, but was blocked by magicplan ’s disclaimer to not take pictures. I’d probably really like magicplan, if it actually let me use it in a helpful way... Also, the support button does not work. I would’ve just e-mailed support, but it did not even give me the option.

by Starmuffer

I have used magicplan before. And enjoyed it. magicplan ended up getting deleted by accident and I just had to re download. I’m a little disappointed that you don’t have the 3D version any longer without having to subscribe and pay for app. Not to mention having to completely start over with measurements and floor plans since it didnt save. It would be nice to have my free version back so that I can see what the space actually looks like.

by JessLaD

I love this app and it has quite literally saved me tens of thousands of dollars in architect fees now that I can create plans for contractors myself. The only thing I wish would be improved is its 3D rendering capabilities. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy, but there are some glitches I haven’t been able to remedy. For example, every time I render a kitchen with a range, the range appears as flat against the floor with no height to it (despite ensuring its height value is accurate). Similar glitches appear at random times when rendering a countertop with a sink in it, etc. Wish I could find a solution to this, because without that one small issue it would be a five star app no question.

by Old Geezer 1948

I just read the reasons for this app not to use the ceiling for measurements. As I sit in my living room I can see all 4 corners of the ceiling and none on the floor. Also, using the floor means you have to contend with baseboard heating and molding. I have an opening into my kitchen that is at the wall so there is no corner at the floor but ther is at the ceiling. If there is molding along the ceiling you can measure to the bottom of it and it shouldn’t matter. There is a vertical line showing in this app that would allow you to identify position of doors an windows.

by Saul82primo

magicplan is perfect for anyone who’s a beginner. If you don’t know much about architecture design and want to learn how to design something not to complex, magicplan is for you!

I only gave it 4 stars because I wish it had the ability to add multiple floors and rooftops to your designs. Other than that it’s awesome!

The free version practically lets you design anything you want other than only one kitchen in your first plan. If you want to to design more kitchens or export certain formats, you will have to pay for it. It’s enough to give you an idea if this app is for you.

For being a free app, they will give you a lot upfront to play around with, before actually needing to purchase anything.

If they had additional plug ins I would probably buy them since I had a great experience with magicplan.

Great job!

by L. Moran

I’m a teacher and it is really frustrating trying to rearrange your classroom by hand when trying to try different seating arrangements. magicplan is cool because I just had to scan my room which wasn’t perfect but at least I didn’t have to start from scratch. magicplan was pretty much exactly what I wanted. I was one request though, pretty pretty please add classroom furniture, including science furniture. I want to be able place a whiteboard in the room as well. Color would be nice too. Thanks!

by Bev Meister

I have trialled and used a lot of these apps. From a technical and user perspective, magicplan is outstanding. For a basic floor plan, it is extremely easy to use. For a more complicated project, it provides a huge amount of flexibility and customisation that is easy to access and use. You don’t have to be an AutoCad expert. I also just love using it as it’s fun.

by Seltzer John

This is one of those apps that makes you realize the power and potential of using a device like a phone or iPad in place of a traditional computer.

It’s hard to explain, but this is one of those apps that marries ease of use with multiple features in a way that isn’t frustrating or overwhelming. It’s also an example of the potential of using augmented reality for measurements. I wouldn’t say AR is great for precise-to-the-inch measurements, but for getting rough measurements for rooms “down on paper”, it’s great, and magicplan allows you to fine tune the measurements when you’re done.

Worth every penny.

by Memikey44

magicplan is far above others that are free. I had no trouble getting started manipulating plans to get what I wanted. Being able to customize object properties is amazing. Wall snapping ( where to rooms come together) could be improved but honestly that’s a minor thing. Designed my dream home over coffee one morning! Now I want to live in it!

by Frederic Debackere Design

Great tool on site for quick survey, a few missing items are: to be able to draw and enter wall and floor thicknesses and make circle, arch, curved walls with windows and doors in. The DXF file export does not open at full scale 1:1 on CAD. One great improvement would be to pair with Autodesk software to upload live on the software as we draw on a devise, especially for Revit. Would be also great to be able to draw ceiling and roofs and orient the building to see the elevation (from the outside)

by Frank_343

Amazing app! This simple app let me plan my home furnitures perfectly. If you plan to do more than just get the idea on your work, then you don’t need to spend 💰...
Buy the extra features for better feature accuracy, saving and sharing capability.... Which would cost you elsewhere anyways.