7 best Sunsama alternatives in 2026 (cheaper picks)

Disclosure: I make Zympl, which is on this list. I’ve included apps that beat it at specific things, and said so. Prices and features come from each vendor’s own pricing page, help center or App Store listing as of September 2026. Prices are in USD.

Sunsama is a thoughtful product. Its guided morning plan and evening shutdown helped make “calm productivity” a category. But there are three things people say again and again when they go looking for an alternative:

1. The price. $22 a month, or $204 a year on the annual plan, after a 2026 price increase. There’s no free tier. “I like it but can’t justify $200 a year” is the most common complaint.
2. It’s a work planner. Sunsama is built around pulling work in from Slack, Gmail, Asana and Jira. If your day is mostly your own, that’s paying for plumbing you don’t use.
3. It stops at work. There’s no habit tracker and no journal. The morning run, reading and the evening reflection all need another app.

Before the list, here is what most “Sunsama alternatives” articles leave out. Sunsama is one of the few daily planners that records actual time spent, not just planned time. Many popular alternatives (Morgen, Structured, Tweek, Todoist) don’t record it, so switching can quietly cost you that feedback loop. The table below shows who has it.

Sunsama alternatives compared

1. Zympl: the calm planner, for the whole day

Best for: people who like Sunsama’s calm, one-day focus but plan their own day rather than a team’s, and want habits and a journal in the same place.

Zympl opens on today. Tasks, projects and recurring tasks sit on a day timeline. You can start a timer on anything with one tap, and every timer rolls up into weekly and monthly reports by project and task. The rest of Sunsama’s missing pieces are built in: check-off, count and timed habits with gentle streaks, and daily-to-lifetime time goals. There are also markdown notes with folders and a dated daily journal for the end of the day. It uses one accent color, nothing needs setting up, and it has no badges.

• Price: $3.99/month or $29.99/year, about a seventh of Sunsama’s annual price. 14-day trial with everything unlocked.
• Platforms: web; iOS and Android in development, included in the same subscription.
• Better than Sunsama at: price, habits, time goals, notes, journaling, and long-range time reports.
• Worse than Sunsama at: integrations and calendar sync (Zympl has neither), native apps today, and AI features.

There’s a detailed head-to-head in Zympl vs. Sunsama.

2. TickTick: the most features for the money

Best for: people who want a free or cheap app that does nearly everything, and don’t mind a denser interface.

TickTick is a task manager with a lot bolted on in a good way. It has a calendar with Google and Outlook sync, a habit tracker with streaks and yearly heat maps, and a Pomodoro and stopwatch focus timer. In the mobile app, the timer breaks down time spent by list, tag or task. It also has an Eisenhower matrix and countdowns. It lacks Sunsama’s guided ritual. Some reviewers call the desktop interface cluttered, and TickTick has been shipping layout and font changes in 2026 in response.

• Price: free (5 habits, 9 lists); Premium $49.99/year or $4.99/month in the App Store.
• Platforms: web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, watches.
• Watch out for: calendar time-blocking durations and the Timeline view are Premium only.

3. Morgen: calendar-first, with an AI planner you approve

Best for: people juggling several calendars (work Google, personal iCloud, a client’s Outlook) who already have a task manager they like.

Morgen brings your calendars together and connects task managers like Todoist, Notion and ClickUp. Its AI Planner proposes a time-blocked day that you accept or adjust, and it never moves things without your approval. “Routines” cover habit-like recurring blocks. It estimates durations but doesn’t track actual time.

• Price: $15/month billed yearly, $30 monthly; 14-day trial.
• Platforms: web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android.
• Watch out for: the monthly price is higher than Sunsama’s.

4. Akiflow: the power-user inbox

Best for: people whose work arrives from many tools and who want to time-block with the keyboard.

Akiflow is the closest thing to Sunsama’s integration hub, tuned for speed. It has a universal inbox from Slack, email, Notion and more, fast capture, time blocking, daily rituals, an AI assistant and an MCP server. It isn’t cheaper than Sunsama; it’s faster. Reviewers mention a buggy mobile app and surprise charges after the trial.

• Price: $19/month billed yearly, $34 monthly; the AI meeting assistant is a $19/month add-on.
• Platforms: web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android.
• Watch out for: the 7-day trial needs a card and converts to paid automatically.

5. Structured: a visual day timeline on your phone

Best for: people who plan on their phone, think visually, or find a timeline easier to follow than a list. It’s popular with ADHD users.

Structured shows your day as a colorful vertical timeline of tasks and events, with habits, notes, a focus timer and an “energy” level per task. The free tier covers almost everything. It won’t track actual time or pull in work tools, and you’ll rearrange things by hand when the day changes.

• Price: free; Pro is a monthly, yearly or $99.99 lifetime purchase, priced by region.
• Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Android, web.
• Watch out for: reviewers say the Android version lags behind iOS.

6. Motion: if you want the AI to plan for you

Best for: small teams that want AI to auto-schedule tasks and projects onto the calendar.

Motion is the opposite of Sunsama’s philosophy. Instead of choosing your day mindfully, you let an algorithm fill it. Since its 2025 funding round it has repositioned as an “agentic work suite” for businesses, with AI credits and AI “employees”. It’s a strong product for that audience, but a poor fit for someone who left Sunsama because it felt like too much. Time tracking is only on the Business plan.

• Price: Pro AI $19/seat/month, Business AI $29, plus usage-based AI credits.
• Platforms: web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android.

7. Todoist: a great list, bring your own ritual

Best for: people who mainly need a reliable, cross-platform task list with superb natural-language entry.

Todoist has a calendar layout, Google and Outlook calendar sync, and task durations for time blocking. The daily planning ritual is up to you. It has no native time tracking (a Toggl extension that works only in the web app), no habits and no journal. Pro went up to $60/year in December 2025.

• Price: free (5 projects); Pro $60/year or $7/month.
• Platforms: web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, watches.

See Todoist alternatives if you’re coming from the other direction.

Is there a free Sunsama alternative?

Yes, with trade-offs. TickTick and Structured both have genuinely usable free plans, and TickTick’s free plan even includes habits and a focus timer. You can also recreate Sunsama’s ritual on paper, or with a plain list and a calendar, using a ten-minute morning routine and a five-minute shutdown. The ritual matters more than the app.

If you want the ritual and the tooling at close to free-app prices, Zympl’s annual plan works out to about $2.50 a month.

How to choose

• You want Sunsama’s calm, for less, with habits and a journal: Zympl.
• You want the most features for free: TickTick.
• Your problem is calendars, not tasks: Morgen.
• Your problem is tasks scattered across ten work tools: Akiflow (or stay on Sunsama).
• You plan on your phone and think visually: Structured.
• You want a machine to plan the day for you: Motion.