Motion vs Sunsama vs Akiflow: Which Task Planner is Best?
Motion automates your day. Sunsama guides intentional planning. Akiflow consolidates everything. See which daily planner actually fits you.
Motion, Sunsama, and Akiflow all help you plan your day. But they do it very differently.
If you’re comparing these three daily planners, you’re probably drowning in tasks scattered across multiple tools, spending too much time planning instead of doing, and wondering which approach will actually stick.
Motion uses AI to automatically schedule everything. Sunsama guides you through intentional planning rituals. Akiflow consolidates tasks from everywhere into one keyboard-driven command center.
Each takes a fundamentally different philosophy to the same problem: how do you turn an overwhelming list of commitments into a realistic, achievable daily plan?
This comparison cuts through the marketing speak to show you exactly what each tool does well, where each falls short, and—most importantly—which one matches your working style. We’ll also introduce a fourth option that solves the critical limitation all three share.
Quick Summary: Motion vs Sunsama vs Akiflow
Motion: AI-Powered Automation
Motion is an AI-driven productivity platform that automatically creates, prioritizes, and reschedules tasks across calendars using artificial intelligence. The app analyzes your deadlines, priorities, and calendar availability to build optimized daily schedules, then automatically reschedules when things change.
Philosophy: Let AI automate everything
Key Features:
Automatic AI task scheduling
Built-in project management
Team collaboration tools
AI Employees (autonomous assistants)
Meeting scheduler replacing Calendly
AI note-taker and docs
Pricing: $29/month per user (annual billing), or $148/month for 3 seats (monthly billing)
Best For: Teams and individuals who want comprehensive automation, need project management, and have budget flexibility
Sunsama: Mindful Daily Planning
Sunsama combines your task list with your calendar in one place, using a timeboxing approach that helps you see how much you can realistically get done. The app guides you through structured morning planning and evening shutdown rituals designed to promote work-life balance.
Philosophy: Intentional, manual planning as a mindful practice
Key Features:
Guided daily planning rituals
Task consolidation from 15+ tools
Manual time blocking
Focus mode with Pomodoro timer
Daily shutdown routine
Weekly objectives and reflection
Timeboxing 2.0 coming (automatically fills calendar with tasks)
Pricing: $20/month (monthly) or $16/month (annual billing - $192/year)
Best For: Individuals who value planning rituals, want work-life balance focus, and prefer complete manual control
Akiflow: Task Consolidation + Speed
Akiflow is task management software combining tasks, calendars, and task consolidation by bringing tasks from apps like ClickUp, Notion, and Gmail. Built for power users, it emphasizes keyboard shortcuts, command bar workflows, and lightning-fast task processing.
Philosophy: Consolidate everything, then time-block with speed and control
Key Features:
Universal task inbox (3,000+ integrations)
Command bar with keyboard shortcuts
Manual time blocking
Aki AI assistant for coordination
Meeting availability sharing
Daily planning rituals (morning/evening)
Time slots for focused work blocks
Pricing: $19/month (annual) or $34/month (monthly)
Best For: Power users, freelancers managing multiple client tools, keyboard-first professionals, those wanting best task consolidation
Detailed Comparison Table
Head-to-Head Comparisons
Motion vs Sunsama
Motion’s Advantages:
AI automatically creates, prioritizes, and reschedules tasks in seconds when new meetings or projects appear
No daily planning time required—AI plans for you
Full project management capabilities
Team collaboration features
Built-in meeting scheduler
Sunsama’s Advantages:
The best part is the daily planning ritual that walks you through a short routine to help you plan your day calmly
Better for work-life balance and preventing burnout
More affordable ($16/month vs $29/month annually)
Stronger task integrations (15+ tools vs Motion’s limited imports)
14-day free trial vs 7 days
Winner: Motion if you want automation and project management. Sunsama if you value intentional planning and work-life balance.
Motion vs Akiflow
Motion’s Advantages:
AI scheduling—no manual time blocking needed
All-in-one solution (calendar, tasks, projects, notes)
Team features and project management
More polished, mature product
Akiflow’s Advantages:
Task consolidation is Akiflow’s bread and butter—it allows you to drag tasks from other applications into your system
Significantly better integrations (3,000+ vs Motion’s limited)
More affordable ($19/month vs $29/month annually)
Keyboard shortcuts make you 10x faster at task processing
Better if you love your current tools
Winner: Motion for all-in-one automation. Akiflow for flexibility and integration depth.
Sunsama vs Akiflow
Sunsama’s Advantages:
Guided rituals help you pick what really matters and avoid overcommitting
More beginner-friendly interface
Better work-life balance focus
Daily shutdown feature for ending workday intentionally
Calmer, more mindful approach
Akiflow’s Advantages:
Command bar and keyboard shortcuts process tasks at 10x speed
More integrations (3,000+ vs 15+)
Faster for power users
More affordable ($19 vs $16 annually—marginal difference)
Meeting availability sharing built-in
Winner: Sunsama for beginners and mindful planners. Akiflow for power users and keyboard warriors.
Detailed Feature Analysis
AI & Automation
Motion: ★★★★★ Motion’s AI analyzes over 1,000 parameters including deadlines, durations, priorities, calendar availability, work patterns, and meeting preferences to create optimized daily schedules. When changes occur, Motion automatically reschedules everything.
The automation is comprehensive but can feel opaque—you’re trusting AI decisions without always understanding why.
Sunsama: ★☆☆☆☆ (for now) Currently no AI features. Timeboxing 2.0 coming in second half of 2025 will automatically fill your day with tasks and adjust to your schedule in real-time without manual timeboxing. Until then, planning is completely manual.
Akiflow: ★★☆☆☆ Aki AI assistant helps create events, coordinate meetings, nudge workload, and trigger AI workflows, but it’s more of a helper than an autonomous scheduler. You still manually time-block everything.
Winner: Motion by a landslide. If AI automation is your priority, it’s the only real option today.
Daily Planning Experience
Motion: Zero planning time required. You add tasks with deadlines and priorities, and Motion schedules them. The trade-off: less control, more trust in AI.
Sunsama: 20-30 minutes daily for the planning ritual. The app guides you through reviewing yesterday, planning today, and setting realistic goals. Many users find this time investment valuable for mindfulness.
Akiflow: 5 minutes for quick time-blocking. Pull tasks from inbox, drag onto calendar, done. Fast but requires discipline to maintain.
Winner: Depends entirely on preference. Motion saves time, Sunsama makes planning meaningful, Akiflow balances speed with control.
Task Consolidation
Motion: ★★☆☆☆ Built as an all-in-one tool, Motion has limited imports. You’re meant to manage everything inside Motion, not consolidate from other tools. This works if you’re starting fresh but frustrates users with established workflows.
Sunsama: ★★★★☆ 15+ native integrations including Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Notion, Monday.com, Todoist, Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Jira, Linear, and Toggl. Two-way sync maintains task status across platforms. Strong consolidation, though not as extensive as Akiflow.
Akiflow: ★★★★★ Akiflow supports integration with 3,000+ applications including Gmail, Calendar, Slack, Zoom, Todoist, Trello, Asana, Superhuman, and more. Undisputed champion of task consolidation. If you work across many tools, nothing beats this.
Winner: Akiflow dominates. Sunsama is strong second. Motion isn’t designed for this.
Calendar Integration
Motion: ★★★★★ Calendar is built into Motion. Seamless two-way integration with Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and iCloud Calendar. Because it’s native, scheduling feels instantaneous.
Sunsama: ★★★★☆ Integrates with Google Calendar and Outlook, allowing you to drag tasks directly onto calendar for timeboxing. Works well, though not quite as seamless as Motion’s native experience.
Akiflow: ★★★★☆ Supports Google Calendar, Outlook, and iCloud. Tasks dragged to calendar create time blocks, and meeting details can be edited within Akiflow. Solid integration across multiple calendar accounts.
Winner: Motion edges ahead with native calendar, but all three handle this well.
Mobile Experience
Motion: ★★★★☆ Full-feature native apps with offline sync and background notifications. Users report good mobile experience for viewing schedules and completing tasks, though desktop remains primary interface.
Sunsama: ★★★★☆ Most features work on mobile including planning and timeboxing, although the AI assistant is currently desktop-only. iOS and Android apps maintain the calm, focused experience of desktop.
Akiflow: ★★★☆☆ Akiflow’s mobile is useful but inconsistent—it’s great when it works, but community threads flag sync and beta issues. The mobile app is improving but still considered less mature than desktop.
Winner: Tie between Motion and Sunsama. Akiflow’s mobile needs work.
Price & Value
Motion: $29/month annually is comparable to Asana for small teams, and when you consider all the software categories Motion covers—project management, AI note taking, AI docs, calendar, meeting scheduler, and daily planner—it’s quite reasonable. For single users, it could replace $100/month of separate tools.
Sunsama: $192/year makes Sunsama one of the most expensive digital planners on the market. Premium pricing for a focused, intentional experience. No free plan increases the barrier to entry.
Akiflow: At $19-34/month, Akiflow is premium-priced but can replace 3-4 separate tools, potentially saving money overall. Middle ground between the three.
Winner: Akiflow offers best value at $19/month annually. Motion justifies higher cost with more features. Sunsama is premium-priced for what it offers.
Who Should Choose Which
Choose Motion if:
✅ You want AI to handle all scheduling automatically
✅ You need project management capabilities
✅ You’re managing a team (3+ people)
✅ You want an all-in-one solution
✅ Budget isn’t a constraint ($29-34/month)
✅ You trust AI scheduling decisions
✅ You hate spending time on planning
Perfect for: Busy executives, small teams, people who value time over control, those starting fresh without established tool ecosystems
Choose Sunsama if:
✅ You value intentional planning as a practice
✅ You want mindful, guided daily workflows
✅ You need work-life balance features
✅ You like 15+ tool integrations
✅ You prefer manual control over automation
✅ You want beautiful, calm interface
✅ You’re willing to spend 20 minutes daily planning
Perfect for: Mindful professionals, remote workers, people recovering from burnout, those who enjoy planning rituals, individuals wanting better boundaries
Choose Akiflow if:
✅ You love your current tools (Todoist, Asana, Notion, etc.)
✅ You want best-in-class task consolidation
✅ You’re a keyboard-first power user
✅ You prefer manual time-blocking with speed
✅ You want best value ($19/month)
✅ You need extensive integrations (3,000+)
✅ You can tolerate mobile app limitations
Perfect for: Freelancers using multiple client tools, power users obsessed with speed, consultants juggling many systems, keyboard warriors, budget-conscious professionals
The Critical Limitation All Three Share
Motion, Sunsama, and Akiflow are all excellent tools. Each solves daily planning brilliantly within its philosophy.
But they share one fundamental limitation: none consider your capacity when planning your day.
Motion schedules based on time availability and deadlines. It doesn’t know you’ll be drained after six back-to-back meetings.
Sunsama lets you manually decide when to do things. But judging your own energy levels throughout the day is hard—most people overcommit.
Akiflow gives you tools to time-block fast. But it’s still up to you to consider whether you’ll have the capacity for deep work at 4pm on Tuesday.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Fourth Option: rivva (Capacity-Aware Auto-Planning)
rivva is an intelligent workspace that plans your day around your energy levels, availability, and work context, so you get 2x more done without feeling 2x busy.
The Capacity Problem
Scenario: You need to write a 2-hour strategy document (demanding, high-focus work).
What Motion does:
Sees 2-4pm free on Tuesday
Auto-schedules strategy doc there
Doesn’t know you have six meetings before 2pm
Result: You’re scheduled for deep work when you’re mentally exhausted
What Sunsama does:
Guided planning asks when you’ll work on the doc
You manually choose a time slot
Hard to accurately predict your energy throughout the week
Result: You either overcommit or spend mental energy forecasting capacity
What Akiflow does:
You time-block the document yourself
Visual calendar helps you find space
Up to you to consider energy levels
Result: Fast time-blocking, but no capacity intelligence
What rivva does:
Sees 2-4pm free on Tuesday
Checks: You’ll be drained (six meetings + poor sleep forecast)
Checks Wednesday: Better energy predicted (good sleep, fewer meetings)
Schedules strategy doc Wednesday 9-11am (your peak window)
Result: You do better work in optimal conditions
What Makes rivva Different
Capacity-Aware AI Scheduling
Motion plans based on: Time + Deadlines
Sunsama: You plan based on: Intuition + Calendar
Akiflow: You plan based on: Time Blocks + Preferences
rivva plans based on: Time + Deadlines + Energy + Capacity
rivva is the AI workspace that plans your day around your real life—tasks, inbox, meetings, sleep, energy—so you can work in a way that feels natural, sustainable, and actually productive.
rivva vs. The Competition
Choose rivva over Motion if:
✅ You want capacity-aware AI (not just time-aware)
✅ You need automatic email task extraction
✅ You don’t need project management
✅ You’re an individual user (not team)
✅ You want sustainable productivity focus
✅ You’re on iOS (Android coming)
Honest comparison:
✅ rivva: Capacity-aware (Motion only considers time)
✅ rivva: Cheaper ($19.99 vs $29)
✅ rivva: Email extraction (Motion doesn’t have)
❌ rivva: No project management (Motion has full PM)
❌ rivva: No team features yet (Motion has strong team tools)
❌ rivva: iOS only (Motion is cross-platform)
Choose rivva over Sunsama if:
✅ You want AI automation (not manual planning)
✅ You don’t want to spend 20 minutes daily planning
✅ You want capacity-aware scheduling
✅ You need automatic task capture from email
✅ You want planning outcome without planning time
Honest comparison:
✅ rivva: AI automation (Sunsama is manual)
✅ rivva: Capacity-aware (Sunsama isn’t)
✅ rivva: Zero planning time (Sunsama requires 20 min daily)
❌ rivva: Less intentional ritual (Sunsama’s core strength)
❌ rivva: Fewer integrations (Sunsama has 15+ tools)
❌ rivva: iOS only (Sunsama is cross-platform)
Choose rivva over Akiflow if:
✅ You want AI scheduling (not manual time-blocking)
✅ You prefer all-in-one over consolidation approach
✅ You want energy awareness built-in
✅ You don’t need 3,000 integrations
✅ You’re primarily on iOS
✅ You want to spend less time organizing
Honest comparison:
✅ rivva: AI scheduling (Akiflow is manual)
✅ rivva: Capacity-aware (Akiflow isn’t)
✅ rivva: Auto task capture (Akiflow requires other tools)
✅ rivva: Simpler, more affordable ($19.99 vs $19-34)
❌ rivva: Fewer integrations (Akiflow excels here with 3,000+)
❌ rivva: No keyboard-first power user features
❌ rivva: iOS only (Akiflow is cross-platform)
rivva Key Features
Automatic Email Task Extraction: Tasks automatically captured from emails—no manual entry needed
Energy-Aware Scheduling: Strategic work scheduled during peak hours, routine tasks during valleys
Nia (AI Assistant): Autonomous assistant that plans, reschedules, and manages your day
Visual Daily Timeline: See entire day with tasks, meetings, breaks, and energy curve
Proactive Rescheduling: When plans change, Nia adjusts automatically without you lifting a finger
Two-Way Calendar Sync: Works seamlessly with Google Calendar
iOS Experience (with web app): iPhone app with web app for on-the-go usage and non-iOS users
Pricing:
Monthly: $13.99/month
Quarterly: $31.50/quarter ($10.50/month billed quarterly)
7-day free trial
Final Verdict: Which Tool Should You Choose?
The best daily planner depends entirely on your needs, working style, and philosophy about planning.
For AI Automation + Teams: Motion
Motion is the most comprehensive solution if you need project management, team features, and full AI automation. Users who switched to Motion from Asana after 7+ years call it a game-changer that allows them to remember tasks they would have otherwise forgotten. Worth the premium price ($29/month) if you need all-in-one capabilities.
For Intentional Planning Ritual: Sunsama
Sunsama gives you the confidence to tackle your days through guided rituals that promote realistic planning. Perfect for professionals who value work-life balance and find meaning in the planning process itself. The $16-20/month investment pays off if you need structure without burnout.
For Task Consolidation + Speed: Akiflow
Freelancers and busy professionals at organizations using a wide range of tools favor Akiflow for its task consolidation feature that reduces overwhelm. Best value at $19/month annually for power users who need integrations with everything and keyboard-driven speed.
For Capacity-Aware Intelligence: rivva
If you want truly intelligent scheduling that considers your energy and capacity—not just your calendar availability—rivva is the evolution none of the others have reached yet. You get daily structure without spending time planning, and work gets scheduled when you’re actually capable of doing it well.
Bottom Line
All four tools are excellent at what they do. Motion automates comprehensively. Sunsama makes planning meaningful. Akiflow consolidates brilliantly. And rivva adds the missing piece: capacity awareness.
The real question isn’t “which is best?”—it’s “which matches how you work?”
If you need project management and teams → Motion
If you value planning as practice → Sunsama
If you juggle many tools → Akiflow
If you want intelligence that considers capacity → rivva
The best way to decide? Try them. rivva, Motion, and Akiflow offer 7-day trials. Sunsama gives you 14 days.
Test your top two choices for a week each. The right tool will feel intuitive, not forced. And it will save you more time than it costs you—in both subscription fees and mental energy.
Ready to try capacity-aware planning?
Zero planning time. Maximum daily structure. See what it’s like to wake up to a day already orchestrated around your energy.