Motion alternative: how Prior compares
Prior and Motion side by side on auto-scheduling, calendars, projects, docs, AI credits, platforms and price, with the pages we read on 5 November 2026.
This page sets Prior next to Motion as of the date above. Everything about Motion comes from Motion's own pages, listed under Sources. Prices and plan limits change, so check them before you decide.
Who each one suits
Motion suits you if you want one workspace that schedules tasks and projects into your calendar, takes meeting notes, offers booking links and tracks projects on Gantt charts and dashboards, for yourself or a team. It has iOS, Android, macOS and Windows apps, and is sold per seat with AI credits.
Prior suits you if the work is mostly yours and you want a planner that places your tasks in the free hours of your calendar without writing to it, next to habits, notes and flashcards, with a free plan. It runs on the web, macOS, Windows, Linux and Android. It has no iOS app yet: on an iPhone you open the web app in the browser, where reminders only fire while the tab is open.
Side by side
| Prior | Motion | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, Android. No iOS app yet. | iOS, Android, macOS and Windows apps, and the web. Linux is not listed on its download page. |
| Offline | Works from a copy on your device and syncs when you are back online. | Not found in the pages we read. |
| Quick add | The title is read in seven languages: date, time, duration, priority, reminder, repeat, #project and @person. | Natural language input is not mentioned on its task manager page. |
| Recurring tasks | Every N days, weeks, months or years, on chosen weekdays, with an end date, from the due date or the completion date. | Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or custom rules. Motion places recurring tasks ahead of one-off tasks to keep their cadence. |
| Calendar | Day, week, month and agenda views. Google Calendar, ICS files and calendar URLs show read-only, next to events you add yourself. | Connects to Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook and iCloud. Booking links share your availability. |
| Time blocking | Automatic on Pro: places open tasks by priority and deadline in your free working hours, and moves them forward when plans change. You lock a block to fix it. | Auto-schedules by priority (ASAP, High, Medium, Low), deadline, duration and start date, within your working hours, and re-plans when your schedule changes. Long tasks can be split into chunks. |
| Habits | A Habits space with schedules, streaks and a history grid, on every plan. | Not found in the pages we read. |
| Notes | Markdown notes with tables and charts. Project members edit shared notes live. | Docs with AI drafting and version history, and an AI Notetaker for meetings. |
| Flashcards | Decks scheduled with FSRS-5, with Anki import. | Not found in its documentation. |
| Projects | Areas, projects, Kanban board, milestones and a budget tab. Scrum and Scrumban on Pro. | Projects, an AI Project Manager and dashboards. Timeline and Gantt charts are listed under Business. |
| Collaboration | Share a project as editor or viewer, assign tasks, comment with mentions. Free: 2 people per shared project and 3 shared projects. Pro: 10 people. | Per-seat plans. Permissions and access control, team capacity planning and central billing are listed under Business. |
| AI | Prior AI assistant on Pro and above, with changes you confirm. Planning itself is deterministic code on your device; Prior AI only estimates how long a task takes. | AI Chat, AI Task Planner, AI Meeting Notetaker and AI Docs Assistant. Pro AI: 7,500 credits per seat per month. Business AI: 15,000. |
| Price, 5 Nov 2026 | Free €0. Pro €8 a month or €72 a year. Team €10 per seat a month or €96 a year. 14-day trial on a first subscription. No VAT added. | In US dollars: Pro AI $19 and Business AI $29 per seat per month. The page has a switch between "Pay monthly" and "Pay annually (Save 33%)" and did not show which one these amounts belong to. It offers a free trial and lists no free plan. |
Where Motion goes further
- Meetings. Booking links, an AI meeting assistant and an AI Notetaker that writes summaries and action items. Prior has none of these.
- Scheduling for teams and projects. Dashboards, team capacity planning and Gantt charts. Prior's planner places your own tasks around your own calendar.
- More calendars. It connects Google, Outlook and iCloud. Prior reads Google Calendar, ICS files and calendar URLs.
- An iOS app, and integrations with Zapier, Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot and Salesforce, plus a public API.
- Hard deadlines. Motion protects them and may schedule outside your usual hours to meet them.
What Prior does differently
Prior's plan is derived and deterministic. The planner is code that runs on your device with your tasks, habits, calendar and settings; given the same inputs it gives the same plan. It never moves your calendar events and writes to a task only when you lock a block, by dragging it in the calendar. You can read how it chooses in Time blocking and tune it in Planning settings, where a preview of your week redraws with each change.
Planning is a Pro feature. Without Pro, the times you locked still show. Prior also has habits, flashcards, a Focus timer and an MCP server that lets any AI assistant read and edit your tasks.
Switching from Motion
We found no export in Motion's help center, and Prior's importer has no Motion option. Move your tasks by hand. In Settings → Import paste them under Or paste text, one task per line, indenting a line to make a sub-task. Add p1 to p4 for priority and a date such as Friday 3pm, which quick add reads. Motion's four levels (ASAP, High, Medium, Low) have no fixed match in Prior's P1 to P4, so choose yours.
Prior guesses a duration for a task that has none, and on Pro Prior AI estimates it; set your own where it matters. Prior shows a preview and saves nothing until you confirm. Projects, docs and meeting notes do not move; copy the text of the docs you want into Prior notes. The steps are in Import your data.
Sources
Read on 5 November 2026.