Martin Alternatives in 2026: Before You Pay for Martin Pro

The right alternative to Martin, the AI personal assistant, comes down to the job you bought it for. Poke starts free in your messages, Arlo bills calls by the minute against a free monthly balance, Lindy covers a team, Motion plans your calendar, and Merlin handles desk work on a Mac. Plenty of people should stay with Martin.

Most of the decision comes down to one fact about Martin's plans: the features that work while you're busy sit on the higher tier. Start there, because it may change which price you're comparing.

What Martin AI is good at

Martin AI is unusually easy to reach. Martin's getting-started guide has you add a phone number to reach it by call, SMS or WhatsApp, and an email address to send or forward it requests. There's a web app and an iOS app too, and Slack works as well, where Martin can read, send and reply to messages across up to five workspaces.

Account coverage is the other strength. Martin connects to Gmail and Outlook, up to five accounts of each, and to Google, Apple and Outlook calendars, up to five of each type. Apple Calendar asks for an app-specific password when you set it up, but Poke and Arlo don't list it at all. Martin can also text and call your contacts once you've connected your number, for requests like rescheduling a meeting with someone by text.

If you juggle work and personal accounts across those services and like to speak to your assistant, Martin is a good fit, and the alternatives below each give up some of that reach.

What Martin costs once you want the background work

Martin has two listed plans and no free one. Martin's pricing page offers seven days free, then Basic at $35 a month ($21 a month billed yearly) or Pro at $49 a month ($30 a month billed yearly). The gap between them is larger than the $14 suggests.

So if you came for automatic email labels, replies drafted ahead of time or a thread you can Cc Martin on to find a meeting time, your real price is Pro. Basic still covers asking Martin to do things, with its limit of two tasks at a time, though the pricing page doesn't define a task or put a number on "limited" proactive actions. That makes $49 a month, or $360 a year, the figure to hold other tools against.

What Martin's pages leave open

Four questions about Martin don't have a clear answer on its site, and each can matter more than price. None of these means something is wrong. Ask Martin directly if one decides it for you.

• When it asks before sending. Martin's inbox guide says it can read, draft and reply on your behalf, and its contacts guide says it can carry out full conversations by text. Neither describes a confirmation step. Test this with a low-stakes message before connecting a work inbox.
• Training on your data. Martin's privacy notice, last updated September 9, 2024, says Google user data doesn't go toward training AI models, and that your input, output and personal information are processed by outside AI providers, including OpenAI. It doesn't clearly say how other data is treated.
• Team pricing. Martin's pricing page names a Business option but shows no price or features for it.
• Android. Martin's setup guide names the web and iOS apps and doesn't mention Android. Calls, SMS and WhatsApp run through your phone number, so an Android owner can still reach Martin that way.

Poke: a free start inside your messages

Poke is the option for anyone whose objection to Martin is paying before getting much back. Poke's Free plan costs $0, needs no card and connects your apps, email and calendar. Pro is $19 a month, which is where background automations start, and Ultra is $199 a month.

You talk to Poke over Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram or RCS, according to its docs. Poke's FAQ covers Gmail and Outlook and says there are no immediate plans for iCloud or Yahoo Mail. Phone calls are the sharp difference from Martin: they run through Poke Human, a service included with the $199 Ultra plan.

Arlo: phone calls billed by the minute

Arlo suits people who keep Martin mainly because it can pick up a phone. Arlo's site says it places outbound calls, gets through phone menus and waits on hold, and you reach it by iMessage or SMS, WhatsApp, Slack or a call. It asks first when a request would spend money or can't be undone.

Arlo's pricing runs on a usage balance rather than feature tiers. Free comes with $20 of usage a month, $20 a month buys $100 of usage on Plus, and $100 a month buys $500 on Max. Talking costs 25 cents a minute and hold about 1.5 cents. There are no top-ups, so Arlo stops at the limit until the balance resets or you upgrade. Arlo's site names Gmail and Google Calendar, so if you're on Outlook, stay with Martin or look at Poke, and if you rely on iCloud Calendar, stay with Martin or look at Motion.

Lindy: one assistant for a whole team

Lindy fits when the work is shared and Martin's personal setup stops making sense. Lindy's site pitches it to whole teams as an employee rather than a personal helper, reached from Slack threads, iMessage and email, and it connects to more than 1,500 tools.

Lindy's pricing page starts Team at $29.99 a month for 3,000 credits, with every active user billed and credits pooled. Anyone who @mentions Lindy in Slack takes a seat, so think twice before adding it to a busy channel. Sending email, updating tickets and similar outward steps wait for approval. A free start gives $50 in credits that last seven days. For one person with one inbox, this is more machinery than the job needs.

Motion: a calendar that plans your tasks

Motion isn't really a personal assistant, and it's the right pick if your real wish was help with the day's schedule. Motion's site describes an app that combines tasks, projects, calendar and docs, places tasks on your calendar as time blocks, and adjusts them as things change. It works with Outlook, Google and iCloud calendars, matching Martin's coverage.

Motion's pricing page lists Pro AI at $19 a seat a month and Business AI at $29, with iOS, Android and desktop apps. Motion's pages describe an app you work in, not an assistant you text or phone the way you do Martin. Our Motion alternatives page goes further if the auto-planning itself gives you pause. If email is the only thing you want handled, our page on Fyxer, an email assistant, covers inbox-only tools.

Merlin: desk work and follow-ups on your Mac

Merlin, which we make, trades Martin's reach for depth at the computer. You use Merlin on a Mac, through its own chat or by pressing ⌥Space on top of whatever you have open, so you can't text it, and it doesn't make phone calls. Setup won't finish without Gmail and Google Calendar, which rules it out if you only use Outlook.

What you get instead is work Martin's pages don't describe. Merlin's built-in browser can book, check in or fill out forms for you, and it stops for your yes before a payment or a submission that can't be undone. A People panel shows who's waiting on your reply and which regular contacts you haven't written to in two months. Merlin also records meetings on your Mac, with transcripts on paid plans.

On approvals, Merlin's behavior depends on where the work starts. Ask in chat for an email to go out or an event to move, and nothing leaves until you confirm a card, an on-screen preview you can edit and approve. Routines, jobs you set up to run on their own, are the exception: nobody is watching when one fires, so a routine with Slack or email access acts without a card. Merlin's plans begin at $0 with 5,000 credits a month, and Pro is $29 a month or $278 a year. Each task spends credits according to what it costs, so how far they go depends on your use. Meeting recordings stay on your Mac, while people records and notes are kept with your account on Merlin's servers. Merlin's privacy policy says the context for each request goes to the AI providers handling it, and doesn't state a position on model training.

Martin, Poke, Arlo, Lindy, Motion and Merlin side by side

These six products differ most on where you talk to them and which accounts they accept. All prices are the published US dollar figures, and credits and usage balances buy different amounts in each.

How to choose a Martin alternative

Work down this list and stop at the first line that sounds like you.

1. You use Outlook or iCloud Calendar and want an assistant you can phone. Stay with Martin. Nothing else here lists all of that.
2. You want Martin to call people but rarely need it. Try Arlo, if you're on Gmail. At 25 cents a minute, a few short calls a month fit inside the free balance.
3. You only wanted reminders and inbox help by text. Start on Poke's free plan and see whether you need to pay at all.
4. Your colleagues need the same assistant. Lindy, after counting who would @mention it.
5. Your calendar is the problem, not your inbox. Motion.
6. Your day is spent at a Mac in Gmail. Try Merlin, provided you don't need it away from your desk.
7. Basic's two-task limit is the only thing in your way. Compare Pro at $30 a month billed yearly against the switching effort below before you move.

Leaving Martin without losing your setup

Moving off Martin takes a little planning, because much of your setup is instructions you wrote yourself.

1. Copy out your shortcuts, Email Triage labels and Proactive Drafts topics, since you'll be rewriting them in the new tool.
2. Run one real task in the replacement, ideally the one that made you look elsewhere, before you cancel anything.
3. Cancel your Martin plan and check that it ended. Martin's pricing page says you can cancel anytime.
4. Take Martin off the list of apps linked to your Google account, which Google's help page explains, and do the same in your Microsoft account if you connected Outlook.
5. If you connected Apple Calendar, revoke the app-specific password in the Sign-In and Security section at account.apple.com.
6. To have your data removed, use the contact address in Martin's privacy notice, which is where it sends deletion requests.