Ellie Planner vs Sunsama: Which Daily Planner Wins in 2026?

Ellie Planner is the indie underdog here - developed by a solo creator who saw Sunsama's $240/year price tag and thought 'I can build something more affordable.' Launched in 2023, it focuses on the core daily planning features: time blocking, task lists, Kanban boards, calendar sync. The interface is deliberately simple - no guided rituals, no mindfulness prompts, just plan your day and get to work. Premium costs $8/month for time blocking.

The r/productivity crowd likes it as a 'Sunsama lite' option. Development is active - the creator posts updates on Reddit and actually implements user suggestions. Fair warning: it's rough around the edges compared to Sunsama's polish.

Sunsama launched in 2018 as the 'mindful daily planner' and basically invented this category. You consolidate tasks from Asana, Todoist, Trello, Gmail, and more into one daily view. Each morning, a guided planning ritual walks you through reviewing yesterday, planning today, and setting intentions. Focus mode shows one task at a time to prevent overwhelm.

Evening shutdown ritual prompts reflection. It's built for people with ADHD or anyone who struggles with task overwhelm. The ProductHunt community loved it. The price ($20/month) is the main complaint - some people swear it's worth every penny for the structure it provides, others think it's absurd to pay $240/year for a planner.

You create tasks, set time estimates, drag them into time blocks on your calendar. The Kanban view lets you organize tasks by status (To Do, In Progress, Done). Calendar sync with Google/Outlook shows your meetings alongside tasks. Email forwarding creates tasks from your inbox. That's... basically it.

No guided rituals, no prompts, no hand-holding. If you know how to plan your day, Ellie gives you the tools and gets out of the way. Time blocking requires Premium ($8/month), which is annoying - feels like it should be in the free tier. The interface is clean but feels a bit basic compared to Sunsama's polish.

Every morning, Sunsama walks you through the planning ritual: review what happened yesterday, pull today's tasks from your various apps (Asana, Todoist, whatever), assign time estimates, drag them onto your calendar. Set a daily intention ('stay focused on the product launch'). It's structured but not rigid - skip steps if you want. Throughout the day, focus mode shows your current task in a clean view with a timer.

Drag and drop tasks to reschedule. Track actual time spent vs estimates. Evening shutdown ritual prompts you to reflect and plan tomorrow. The structure is what people love - it prevents the 'stare at your task list paralyzed' problem.

Currently integrates with Slack for notifications and task creation. Notion and Todoist integrations are 'coming soon' according to the roadmap. Calendar sync with Google and Outlook works fine. Email forwarding lets you create tasks from your inbox.

That's about it for now. The developer is actively building more integrations based on user requests, but if you need to pull tasks from Asana or Trello today, you're out of luck. For a solo planner, the limited integrations might not matter. If you're consolidating from multiple tools, Sunsama is way ahead.

This is Sunsama's killer feature. Connects to Asana, Todoist, Trello, ClickUp, Jira, GitHub, Gmail, Outlook, Notion, and more. You import tasks from these apps into your daily plan, work on them in Sunsama, and completion syncs back. It's not perfect - sometimes syncing gets weird - but when it works, it's magic.

You're not switching between five apps to see what you need to do today. Calendar integration is deep - drag tasks onto calendar slots, see meetings and tasks together, get notified before things start. Slack integration posts your daily plan to channels. For people drowning in tools, Sunsama is the consolidation layer.

Ellie doesn't do mindfulness. There's no guided ritual, no reflection prompts, no work-life balance tracking. It's just a planner. Some people love this - they find Sunsama's rituals annoying and patronizing.

Others miss the structure. If you want an app that reminds you to reflect and set intentions, look elsewhere. If you just want to block time for tasks without the ceremony, Ellie's approach works fine. I kind of appreciate that it doesn't try to be a life coach.

This is what sets Sunsama apart from every other planner. The daily planning ritual, shutdown ritual, focus mode, weekly review - it's all designed around mindful productivity. The idea is that planning intentionally and reflecting regularly prevents burnout. Work-life balance tracking shows if you're overworking.

The rituals can feel slow when you're in a hurry, but they force you to think about your priorities instead of just grinding through tasks. People with ADHD seem to love the structure - Reddit's r/ADHD recommends it constantly. If this sounds like overkill, it probably is for you. If you're constantly overwhelmed, it might genuinely help.

You can't. Ellie Planner is strictly for individual use. No shared tasks, no team calendar, no collaboration features.

The developer has said team features aren't on the roadmap - it's intentionally focused on personal planning. If you need team coordination, this isn't it. For solo work, the lack of team features keeps it simple and focused.

Sunsama supports teams with shared tasks and team calendar views. You can see what your teammates are working on, coordinate deadlines, leave comments on tasks. It's not a full project management tool like Asana, but for small teams who want daily planning together, it works.

The team features aren't as robust as the individual planning stuff - feels a bit tacked on honestly. If you primarily need team coordination, use a real project management tool. But for teams where everyone wants mindful daily planning plus some shared visibility, Sunsama handles it.

Free tier gives you basic planning features. Premium is $8/month and unlocks time blocking, which honestly should be free but whatever. Over a year, you're paying $96 for a daily planner. That's reasonable for an app you use every day. The indie developer is transparent about pricing and responsive to feedback.

No annual lock-in, no enterprise upselling. Simple pricing for a simple tool. Compared to Sunsama's $240/year, Ellie is 40% of the cost. Whether that makes up for having 60% of the features depends on which features you actually use.

Monthly is $20/month ($240/year). Annual is $192/year (saves $48). There's a 14-day free trial. No free tier beyond that. So yeah, it's expensive for a planner. The argument Sunsama makes is that if it saves you even 2 hours per month through better planning, it pays for itself.

If you value your time at $30/hour, $20/month is 40 minutes of your time. Fair point. But psychologically, paying $240/year for task planning feels steep when Todoist is $48/year and Ellie is $96/year. People who love Sunsama insist it's worth it for the structure and mindfulness features. People who tried it and bounced think it's overpriced.