Sunsama vs Reclaim AI: Which Planning Approach Wins in 2026?

Sunsama showed up in 2018 with a radical idea: what if you actually planned your day instead of just reacting to whatever fires pop up? The whole app is built around a daily ritual where you review your tasks, decide what actually matters, and time-box everything onto your calendar. It's mindful productivity meets GTD, designed for people who feel like their days control them instead of the other way around.

The founder built it after burning out at Facebook, so there's this whole anti-hustle vibe baked in.

Reclaim AI launched in 2021 as basically a personal assistant that lives in your Google Calendar. Feed it your tasks, habits, and preferences, then watch it auto-schedule everything around your meetings. The AI learns when you're productive, defends your focus time from meeting requests, and reschedules stuff automatically when your day implodes.

It's for people who are tired of playing calendar Tetris every morning. Think of it as automated time management for people whose calendars are out of control.

Every morning (or whenever you start), Sunsama walks you through planning your day. You import tasks from whatever tools you use, drag them onto specific time blocks, set how long each will take, and boom - your day is mapped out. Throughout the day, it tracks what you're working on with a focus timer.

End of day, you do a quick shutdown ritual where you review what got done and roll incomplete tasks to tomorrow. The whole thing is very deliberate and ritual-based. You're supposed to slow down and think, not just blast through tasks.

With Reclaim, you basically set it and forget it. Add your tasks and habits, tell it your preferences (like 'I'm sharpest in the morning' or 'no meetings on Fridays'), and let the algorithm loose. It auto-schedules everything as 'flexible' calendar events that move around when conflicts pop up.

Someone books a meeting over your focus time? Reclaim reschedules it automatically. Meeting gets cancelled? Your tasks shuffle forward to fill the gap. The whole point is you don't micromanage your calendar - the AI does it for you.

Sunsama's integrations are actually pretty solid. Connects to Todoist, Asana, ClickUp, Trello, Gmail, Slack, GitHub, and Jira. Each morning you pull in tasks from these tools and decide which ones make it onto today's plan.

The two-way sync means when you complete something in Sunsama, it marks done in the source app too. This is huge if you're already invested in another task manager but want Sunsama for daily planning. Feels less like switching tools and more like adding a planning layer on top.

Reclaim plays nice with Asana, Linear, ClickUp, Todoist, and Jira for task sync. You connect your tools and Reclaim pulls tasks automatically, scheduling them based on due dates and your availability. The sync works both ways - finish a task in Reclaim and it updates everywhere else.

It's less about pulling tasks in daily and more about constant background sync. The AI just handles it, which is great until you want more control over exactly when things get scheduled.

Sunsama doesn't auto-block time for you. Instead, it makes you do it manually during planning. You decide 'okay, 9-11am is deep work on the proposal, 2-3pm is email catch-up' and drag tasks into those slots.

The focus timer helps you stay on track during the day. There's also this capacity planning feature that warns you when you're overcommitting - like if you try to schedule 10 hours of tasks into a 6-hour workday. It's all very manual and intentional, which is the whole point but also means more upfront work.

Reclaim's 'Habits' feature is honestly brilliant. You tell it 'I need to exercise 3x per week for an hour' or 'review my week every Friday afternoon' and it auto-schedules these on your calendar. The habits are flexible by default, so they move around meetings but always find a spot.

It'll even defend time for lunch if you tell it to. The Smart 1:1s feature auto-schedules recurring meetings with coworkers at times that work for both calendars. You're not manually managing any of this - just set the rules and let it run.

Real talk: if your calendar is pure chaos and you barely control it, Sunsama is going to frustrate you. Planning your day manually sounds nice until 3 surprise meetings get dropped on your calendar and blow up your beautiful plan. You can adjust things, but you're doing it yourself.

Sunsama works best when you have agency over your schedule. If you're an IC with lots of maker time or a manager who can actually say no to meetings, it's great. If you're at the mercy of your calendar, this ain't it.

This is where Reclaim shines. The whole app is built for people whose calendars are a disaster. When a meeting gets added, Reclaim reschedules your tasks around it automatically. When a meeting moves (because of course it does), everything adjusts.

You can set 'No-Meeting Days' and Reclaim will actually decline requests that try to book you then. The AI gets aggressive about protecting your time, which is either amazing or makes you look difficult depending on your company culture. But for people drowning in meetings, it's a lifeline.

Sunsama is $20/month if you pay annually (they don't offer monthly billing anymore, which is annoying). There's a 14-day trial but no free tier. For what you get, it's expensive compared to most productivity apps. They justify it by saying the intentional planning saves you way more than $20/month in wasted time, which... sure, maybe.

But honestly, if you're used to paying $5/month for Todoist or using free tools, the price will sting. I'd say it's worth it if the ritual of planning actually changes how you work. Otherwise, hard to justify.

Reclaim's free tier is decent - you get 1 habit, basic task scheduling, and the core AI features. Starter plan is $8/month (billed annually) with 10 habits and more scheduling features. Business plan is $12/user/month for teams.

For individuals, the Starter tier at $96/year is solid value if you're drowning in meetings. Way cheaper than Sunsama and more useful if automation is what you need. Free tier is worth trying for a month to see if the AI scheduling clicks for you.