Kairo vs Sunsama: two calm planners, one big price gap
Sunsama's guided daily ritual costs about $16 to $20 a month. Kairo reaches a similar calm with AI capture at about $3. The differences that actually matter.
Updated · 3 min read
The short answer
Kairo and Sunsama are the two planners in this space that treat calm as the goal, and they reach it differently. Sunsama is a guided ritual: each morning it walks you through pulling tasks from your other tools, Trello, Asana, Gmail, Slack, into a realistic timeboxed day on your calendar, and each evening through a shutdown. Kairo is a home: your tasks live in it, arrive by plain-sentence AI capture, and the calm comes from the structure, no overdue states, a short chosen Today, forgiving resets. Sunsama costs about 16 to 20 dollars a month; Kairo about 2.50 to 3.60.
Side by side
| Sunsama | Kairo | |
|---|---|---|
| Core idea | Guided daily ritual over your tools | A calm home for your tasks |
| Where tasks live | Pulled from Trello, Asana, Gmail, Slack, more | In Kairo, captured by AI |
| Calendar sync | Deep two-way, timeboxing on the grid | Planned, not shipped yet |
| Guided planning ceremony | Yes, morning and shutdown rituals | Lighter: Fresh Start sweep each morning |
| AI capture | Limited | Full sentences to dated, estimated tasks |
| Anti-guilt design | Partly, the tone is mindful | Structural: no overdue state at all |
| Team features | Light collaboration | Shared lists with assignment |
| Price per month | About $16 annual, $20 monthly | ₹199 to ₹299, about $2.50 to $3.60 |
| Trial | 14 days | 7 days, no card |
Pick Sunsama if
- Your work already lives in Trello, Asana, Jira, or a full inbox, and re-typing tasks anywhere is a dealbreaker. Sunsama's integrations are its moat.
- You want to timebox onto the actual calendar grid your meetings live on, today, not when a sync ships.
- The ceremony is the product for you: being walked through planning and shutdown daily is worth 20 dollars.
Pick Kairo if
- Your tasks come from your own head more than from other tools, which is most people outside client work.
- Capture speed is the bottleneck: one sentence with a date, time, and estimate beats dragging cards between tools.
- You want the calm without the subscription guilt: 2.50 versus 20 dollars is an eightfold gap for a solo budget.
- You sometimes disappear for a week. Kairo's reset is structural, not a ritual you fell off.
Kairo's honest gaps against Sunsama: no third-party integrations, no calendar sync yet, no guided shutdown ritual. If you need the integrations, Sunsama is the better tool and our best AI planners guide covers the rest of the field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kairo a cheaper Sunsama?
Only partly. They share the calm philosophy, but Sunsama is an orchestrator of other tools and Kairo is a self-contained planner with stronger AI capture. Cheaper, yes; a clone, no.
Does either work without a calendar?
Kairo fully, it has its own monthly calendar view. Sunsama leans hard on your Google or Outlook calendar; without one you lose much of its point.
Which is better for ADHD?
Both are kinder than deadline-driven tools. Kairo goes further structurally, no overdue states, no streaks, one-sentence capture, which our ADHD planner page explains in depth.
Feel the difference in a week
Kairo is free for 7 days with no card. Run your mornings in it; keep Sunsama's tab open and see which one you reach for.