TL;DR
Sunsama and Keelify both reject the loud, tech-forward register of most productivity apps. Sunsama is a guided daily-planning ritual that pulls in your inbox; Keelify is a weekly view that adds habits and mood next to tasks. If you live one day at a time and want a single tool to triage Slack and Gmail, Sunsama is the better fit. If you want a calmer free-tier app that treats the week as one picture and tracks how you feel alongside what you got done, Keelify is the better fit.
Side-by-side
| Sunsama | Keelify | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | None (14-day trial) | Yes — weekly planner + mood + 3 habits |
| Starting price | $20 / month | $4.17 / month (Pro, annual) |
| Default view | One day at a time | Five- or seven-day week |
| Habit tracking | No | Yes — research-backed strength score |
| Mood / motivation | No | Yes — daily two-slider check-in |
| Reflection | Daily journal prompt | Three-part daily reflection (Pro) |
| Inbox aggregation | Slack, Gmail, GitHub, Trello, Asana | Not in scope |
| Calendar overlay | Google + Outlook | Not in scope |
| AI | AI plan suggestions | Juno — weekly narrative + daily rituals (Pro+) |
| Tone | Calm, Nordic | Warm, terracotta |
Where Sunsama is stronger
Inbox-heavy workflows. If a real chunk of your tasks arrive as Slack DMs and Gmail threads, Sunsama is built for that. You drag the message into the day; it becomes a task with the original link attached. Keelify does not do this and is unlikely to. We think weekly planning is a separate problem from inbox triage.
Calendar-first scheduling. Sunsama overlays your Google or Outlook calendar so meetings and tasks share one timeline. If you live in time blocks, that single canvas is hard to beat. Keelify's planner is column-per-day, not minute-per-block — closer to a weekly to-do list than a day-planner timeline.
Guided shutdown ritual. Sunsama walks you through a structured end-of-day shutdown by default. The flow is well-designed and harder to skip than Keelify's quieter end-of-day debrief.
Where Keelify is stronger
Free tier that actually works. Sunsama starts at $20 / month after a trial — there is no permanent free option. Keelify's free tier covers the weekly planner, daily mood sliders, and up to three habits. That makes it usable indefinitely if you do not need Pro features like unlimited habits and the dashboard.
Tasks plus habits plus mood, not just tasks. Sunsama is a planning app. Keelify is a planner that tracks habits using a research-backed strength score (based on Lally et al., 2010 — the 66-day automaticity study) and captures mood with two daily sliders. By Sunday you can see whether the days you actually completed your top tasks correlate with the days you slept and moved enough.
Streak grace day. Keelify gives you one grace day per 30 days for habits, so a single missed day does not end a streak. The all-or-nothing thinking that follows a broken streak is the most-cited reason people quit habit trackers; Lally's data shows the missed day itself barely matters.
Quieter AI register. Both apps use AI. Sunsama's is mostly behind-the-scenes plan suggestions. Keelify's Juno is opt-in, English-only, and exists to mirror your week back at you, not to schedule for you.
When Sunsama is the right choice
You handle a high volume of inbound messages, you live in your calendar, and you want one app to triage Slack and Gmail into a daily plan. You are comfortable paying $20 / month for a single-purpose tool, and you do not need habit or mood tracking inside the same surface.
When Keelify is the right choice
You want one calm app that handles tasks and habits and how you actually feel — without three subscriptions and three sets of streak panic. You want a free tier that is genuinely usable. You think of the week, not the day, as the planning unit.
How to switch from Sunsama to Keelify
- Export your Sunsama tasks to CSV from Settings → Export.
- Sign up for Keelify at keelify.com/signup. The free plan is enough to start.
- Bulk-add your existing tasks — open the day you want them on, hit Quick Add, and paste them in. Each line becomes a task; use
!high,@work, andtomorrowshortcuts to set priority, category, and date inline. - Add up to three habits on the Habits page. Pick names, target frequency (daily / weekly / specific days), and an emoji or initial color.
- Cancel Sunsama when you've moved over what matters. The free tier means you don't have to commit to Pro on day one.
A native Sunsama importer is on the roadmap. For now, the CSV-paste route takes about five minutes for a typical week.
Frequently asked questions
Is Keelify cheaper than Sunsama?
Yes. Keelify has a free tier that includes the weekly planner, mood sliders, and up to three habits. Sunsama has no free tier — it starts at $20 per month after the trial. Keelify's paid tiers are $4.17 / month for Pro and $7.50 / month for Pro+ on annual billing.
Does Keelify do daily planning the way Sunsama does?
Keelify defaults to a weekly view (5-day or 7-day) rather than a single-day focus. The day is still the unit you plan, but you see the whole week at once. If you specifically want a one-day-at-a-time interface, Sunsama's design fits that better.
Does Keelify integrate with Slack, Gmail, and the calendar like Sunsama?
Not yet. Sunsama is a stronger fit if you want to drag emails and Slack messages directly into your day. Keelify is intentionally focused on your week — it does not aggregate inboxes.
Does Keelify have a shutdown ritual or workday end?
Keelify has an end-of-day debrief on Pro+ plans (Juno-powered) and a daily three-part reflection on Pro. Sunsama's shutdown-ritual flow is more guided. Both arrive at a similar place — a moment to close the day deliberately.
Can I move my Sunsama tasks into Keelify?
There is no direct importer in v1. Sunsama exports your task list as CSV — you can paste those into Keelify's Quick Add or the per-day add buttons. A native importer is on the roadmap.