One table, the whole category. Every row links to the vendor's own pricing page so you can confirm the number rather than trust ours.
The comparison
| App | What it automates | Price (Aug 2026) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lumin | AI prioritisation from an unstructured brain dump | USD9/month or USD90/year; 7-day free trial, no card | Deciding what deserves attention first |
| Motion | AI auto-scheduling onto your calendar | Around USD19/month, lower billed annually | Your bottleneck is fitting work into a packed calendar rather than deciding what matters |
| Reclaim.ai | AI calendar defence and habit scheduling | Free tier; paid from around USD10/user/month | Meetings are eating your week and you need focus blocks defended automatically |
| Sunsama | Guided daily planning ritual | Around USD20/month billed annually | You want a deliberate, calm daily planning ritual and will actually keep it up |
| Todoist | Manual lists, projects, labels, filters | Free tier; Pro around USD4–5/month billed annually | You like maintaining a system and want the best-built classic to-do app |
| TickTick | Manual lists plus calendar and Pomodoro timer | Free tier; Premium around USD36/year | You want a timer, habits and tasks in one app and you're happy to prioritise yourself |
| Notion | Database-driven, fully custom | Free personal tier; paid plans from around USD10/user/month | You want one tool for documents, wikis and tasks and you enjoy building the system |
| Things 3 | Manual, GTD-influenced | One-time purchase, around USD80 across Mac and iOS | You're all-Apple, dislike subscriptions and already have a working GTD practice |
| Asana | Team project management | Free tier for small teams; paid plans per user | You're coordinating a team and need visibility across projects |
| Trello | Kanban boards | Free tier; paid plans per user | You think visually and your work moves through clear stages |
Pricing checked August 2026. Vendors change plans often — follow the link in each row to confirm current pricing before you buy.
Where each one is genuinely better
Motion
Strength: Genuinely automates scheduling. It places tasks into real calendar slots and reshuffles when you slip.
Limitation: Expensive, and it needs accurate time estimates and a well-maintained calendar to work. Heavy setup before value.
Choose Motion instead of Lumin if your bottleneck is fitting work into a packed calendar rather than deciding what matters.
Reclaim.ai
Strength: Excellent at protecting focus time and auto-scheduling recurring habits around meetings.
Limitation: Calendar-first, not task-first. It defends time; it does not tell you what deserves the time.
Choose Reclaim.ai instead of Lumin if meetings are eating your week and you need focus blocks defended automatically.
Sunsama
Strength: The daily planning ritual is genuinely calming and pulls tasks in from Gmail, Slack, Jira and more.
Limitation: The ritual takes 10–15 minutes every day. If you skip it, the system degrades. Premium price.
Choose Sunsama instead of Lumin if you want a deliberate, calm daily planning ritual and will actually keep it up.
Todoist
Strength: The most refined manual task manager available. Natural-language date entry, excellent cross-platform sync, huge integration library.
Limitation: You still decide what matters. Priority flags are manual, and the system needs maintaining as projects change.
Choose Todoist instead of Lumin if you like maintaining a system and want the best-built classic to-do app.
TickTick
Strength: Best value in the category. Built-in Pomodoro timer, habit tracking and calendar view in one app.
Limitation: Feature density becomes its own maintenance burden. Prioritisation is still entirely manual.
Choose TickTick instead of Lumin if you want a timer, habits and tasks in one app and you're happy to prioritise yourself.
Notion
Strength: Infinitely flexible. If you can describe a workflow, you can build it — docs, wikis and tasks in one place.
Limitation: Flexibility is the cost. Building and maintaining the system is a project in itself, and it is slow to capture a quick thought.
Choose Notion instead of Lumin if you want one tool for documents, wikis and tasks and you enjoy building the system.
Things 3
Strength: The best-designed task app on Apple platforms. No subscription. Fast, quiet, beautiful.
Limitation: Apple-only, no web app, no AI. Requires a genuine GTD habit to pay off.
Choose Things 3 instead of Lumin if you're all-Apple, dislike subscriptions and already have a working GTD practice.
Asana
Strength: Strong team coordination — dependencies, workloads, portfolios, reporting.
Limitation: Built for teams, not for one overwhelmed person. Heavy for personal use.
Choose Asana instead of Lumin if you're coordinating a team and need visibility across projects.
Trello
Strength: The most intuitive first-day experience in the category. Visual, simple, instantly understandable.
Limitation: Boards sprawl. Once you pass roughly fifty cards the visual model stops helping.
Choose Trello instead of Lumin if you think visually and your work moves through clear stages.
Where Lumin is the wrong choice
No team features, no calendar auto-scheduling, no time tracking. It answers 'what first', not 'when exactly'. If any of those is what you actually need, one of the tools above will serve you better. We would rather you bought the right thing than churned in a month.
Related guides
Todoist Alternatives: 7 Options Compared
The best Todoist alternative depends on why you're leaving. For less manual upkeep, Lumin prioritises an…
TickTick Alternatives: What to Use Instead
TickTick's strength is packing timer, habits, calendar and tasks into one app. If that density is the…
Notion Alternatives for Task Management
Notion is a database that can be shaped into a task manager, which is why task management in it takes work to…
Motion Alternatives for AI Task Scheduling
Motion auto-schedules tasks onto your calendar and costs around USD19/month. For cheaper calendar automation,…
Frequently asked questions
Which AI task app requires the least setup?
Lumin — there is no project structure, no time estimates and no calendar connection required before the first useful result. Motion and Reclaim.ai both need calendar access and reasonably accurate time estimates before their automation is useful.
Can one app do both prioritising and scheduling?
Motion comes closest, because auto-scheduling implies an ordering. But its ordering is driven by deadlines and estimates you supply, rather than by judging what actually matters. Some people run a prioritisation tool and a scheduling tool together.
How current is this table?
Checked August 2026. Vendors change pricing and plan structure frequently — every row links to the vendor's own pricing page, which is the authoritative source.