A Sunsama alternative for people who don't want to time-block

Sunsama is a very good daily planner if you like time-blocking and you pull tasks from tools like Asana, Jira or Slack. If you mostly want a quiet place to put your week, where a task gets a day and not a time slot, Carnet is the alternative to look at. It costs $10 a month, against $17 to $22 for Sunsama.

We make Carnet, so read this page with that in mind. Every Sunsama fact below comes from Sunsama's own site, checked on October 9, 2026, and the sources are listed at the bottom.

Sunsama vs Carnet at a glance

The short verdict

Choose Sunsama if:

• you like deciding in the morning what happens at 10:00, 11:30 and 2:00;
• your tasks live in several work tools and you want them in one list;
• you want a timer, a focus mode and numbers about where your time went;
• you need desktop and mobile apps.

Choose Carnet if:

• you know what you want to do on Tuesday, not at what time;
• a late morning shouldn't mean rebuilding the whole day;
• your head is full, and you need somewhere to put thoughts that aren't tasks;
• you'd rather pay less and have fewer things to set up.

If you can't tell which one you are, the trial settles it fast. Use Sunsama for a week. If you find yourself dragging time blocks to later, every day, the blocks are the problem and not you.

What Sunsama does well

It would be dishonest to pretend Sunsama is a bad product. It isn't.

Its daily planning ritual walks you through the same steps every morning: look at what's on your plate, pick what matters, check that the workload is realistic. Most planners leave that part to you. Sunsama makes it the center.

It also solves a real problem for people whose work is scattered. If your tasks arrive through Jira, Gmail, Slack and Trello, Sunsama pulls them into one place and lets you drop them onto your calendar. Add a shutdown ritual at the end of the day and a weekly review, and you get a complete system for a busy professional.

That is the reader Sunsama was built for. If it's you, stay with it.

Why people look for a Sunsama alternative

Three reasons follow directly from how Sunsama is built.

The price. On monthly billing, Sunsama comes to $264 a year. Billed yearly, it's $204. There is no free plan, and Sunsama's pricing page says it doesn't plan to offer one.

Time-blocking doesn't suit everyone. A time-blocked day is a row of promises. One call runs over, and the rest of the row is wrong. Some people enjoy rearranging it. Others end the day with a plan that no longer describes anything, and a small sense of having failed at it.

It's a work tool. Sunsama is built around the workday: integrations, objectives, analytics. If what overwhelms you is everything at once (the invoice, the dentist, the idea you had in the shower), a work planner covers only part of it.

How Carnet is different

A task gets a day, not a time

In Carnet, your week sits on a spread of seven boxes, like a paper planner lying open. Appointments keep their time. Tasks don't have one.

"Send the invoice" goes in Wednesday's box. If Wednesday fills up, you move it to Thursday, and nothing else has to shift.

A place for what has no day yet

You need to follow up with a client, but you don't know when. In most planners, that either gets a fake date or stays in your head.

Carnet has a box called "This week". The task waits there, in sight, without a deadline. You slide it onto a day when the time comes.

Your notes sit next to your week

A lot of what crosses your mind is not a task. Carnet gives it somewhere to go:

• a Notes box on the spread, for the sentence you don't want to lose;
• pages inside every day, with headings, lists and checkboxes, for a meeting or an idea that's growing;
• a brain dump page each day, to empty your head first and sort later.

There are no folders to maintain. You search for a word and the page comes up.

Nothing to keep up

Carnet has no timer, no analytics, no streaks, no score, no dashboard and no 7 a.m. notification. What's done turns gray. What's left stands out on its own.

What Carnet doesn't do

This is the part to read before you switch.

• No integrations. Carnet reads your Google Calendar so your appointments show up in the week. That's all. It won't pull tasks from Asana, Jira or Slack.
• No native app. Carnet runs in the browser, on a computer, tablet or phone, and stays in sync. There is nothing to download from an app store.
• No free plan. There is a 7-day free trial (card required, nothing charged before it ends), and a homepage demo that works without an account, but nothing you write there is saved.

Sunsama pricing in detail

Sunsama has one paid plan for individuals, called Pro:

• $22 a month, billed monthly;
• $17 a month, billed yearly.

There is also an Enterprise plan with pricing on request. The free trial lasts 14 days and doesn't ask for a credit card.

Carnet has one price: $10 a month, or $120 over a year. It starts with a 7-day free trial, and nothing is charged until it ends. You can cancel anytime, and your access runs to the end of the trial or of the month you paid for.

Other Sunsama alternatives

Carnet is not the right answer for everyone leaving Sunsama. It depends on what you want to keep.

• You like time-blocking and want to keep it: look at Akiflow, which is built around the same idea.
• You want the calendar to arrange itself: Motion schedules tasks for you automatically.
• You only want a solid task list: Todoist does that, with a free plan.

Carnet belongs in a different group: for people who want to leave time-blocking behind.

FAQ

What is the best Sunsama alternative?

It depends on why you're leaving. If you want time-blocking with a different tool, look at Akiflow or Motion. If time-blocking itself is what wears you out, Carnet is a calmer option: tasks get a day instead of a time slot, and notes live next to your week.

Is there a free version of Sunsama?

No. Sunsama has a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, but no free plan. Its pricing page says it "doesn't have a free forever plan and doesn't plan to."

How much does Sunsama cost?

Sunsama Pro costs $22 a month on monthly billing, or $17 a month billed yearly. That's $264 or $204 a year.

Is Sunsama worth it?

It is if you time-block your day, use its integrations and follow its daily planning ritual. Those three things are what you pay for. If you only use it as a to-do list with a calendar next to it, a cheaper tool will do the same job.

Does Carnet have time-blocking?

No. Appointments have a time, and they can come from your Google Calendar. Tasks only have a day. That's the main difference with Sunsama.

Try the spread before you decide

You don't need an account to see whether a week on two pages suits you. Open the homepage, click a line and write. Nothing is saved, it's scratch paper.

Try Carnet's weekly spread

Read next

• Tiimo app review: price, free plan and a calmer alternative

Sources

Checked on October 9, 2026.

• Sunsama, pricing page (Pro at $22 a month billed monthly or $17 a month billed yearly, Enterprise on request, 14-day trial with no credit card, no free plan, platforms, integrations): https://www.sunsama.com/pricing
• Sunsama, homepage (daily planning ritual, timeboxing, weekly objectives, Google, Outlook and Apple calendar sync, focus mode, Pomodoro timer, shutdown ritual, analytics, AI summaries): https://www.sunsama.com/
• Todoist, pricing page (a free plan called Beginner): https://www.todoist.com/pricing
• Carnet, homepage (features, price, 7-day free trial, demo without an account): https://gocarnet.com/en