Plannie vs Skylight: the full comparison.
Both give your family one shared, colour-coded calendar with chores, meals and an AI that reads school paperwork, though on Skylight most of that needs the $79/year Calendar Plus subscription. Skylight sells you the screen. Plannie uses the ones you already own, so there's no hardware to unbox before you can start.
Feature by feature
| Plannie | Skylight | |
|---|---|---|
| Shared colour-coded family calendar | ✓ | ✓ |
| Two-way Google & Outlook sync | ✓ | ● Google two-way, Outlook one-way Google Calendar and Apple iCloud sync two-way; Outlook, Yahoo and Cozi calendars sync one-way only, into Skylight, per Skylight's own sync help pages. |
| Chores, routines & rewards | ✓ Premium | ● Rewards need Plus The basic chore checklist is free on every Skylight size; assigning stars to chores or creating and redeeming Rewards requires the $79/year Calendar Plus subscription, per Skylight's own help center. |
| Weekly meal planning | ✓ | ● Requires Plus Meal planning is a Calendar Plus feature on Skylight, not available on the free tier. |
| AI import of emails, photos & PDFs | Premium | ● Sidekick, with Plus Sidekick, Skylight's AI assistant, is bundled with Calendar Plus. |
| Proactive SMS assistant (texts you) | ✗ | ● Skylight Assistant, +$40 A separate add-on on top of Calendar Plus, per assistant.myskylight.com. That page doesn't state whether the $40 is billed monthly or annually (not verified); shown here assuming annual, in line with Calendar Plus's own billing. |
| Wall display | Premium: kiosk mode on any tablet | Dedicated display, 10″–27″ |
| Per-member personal mode on own phones | ✓ | Companion app |
| Kids' device | Not needed, personal mode included | Buddy, $159.99 each A separate routine device for a child's room; its own Buddy Plus rewards subscription is $39/year, included free if the household already has Calendar Plus. |
| Open API & MCP for your own agents | ✓ | ✗ |
| Hardware to buy | None | $149.99–$629.99, by size |
| Subscription | $99/yr whole household | $79/yr Plus · ≈ $119/yr with Assistant Assistant's $40 add-on price isn't labelled monthly or annual on assistant.myskylight.com (not verified); the ≈$119/yr total assumes annual, matching Plus's own billing. |
| Three-year total (Calendar 2, no Buddy) | $297 | ≈ $537 |
| Three-year total (family of 4, 2 Buddies) | $297 | ≈ $857 |
Skylight prices from myskylight.com and assistant.myskylight.com, checked 21 September 2026. Calendar Plus ($79/year) includes Sidekick, meal planning and chore rewards; the 27-inch Calendar Max's price varies by finish ($569.99–$629.99) across Skylight's own pages. Skylight Buddy is $159.99 per device, with an optional $39/year Buddy Plus subscription for its own rewards. In fairness, Plannie has no SMS channel; its assistant lives in the app, the Family Inbox and Siri.
Sources: myskylight.com: compare calendars, myskylight.com: Skylight Calendar Max, Skylight support: What is Calendar Plus?, Skylight support: Stars, Tasks and Rewards, Skylight support: What does Skylight sync with?, assistant.myskylight.com, myskylight.com: Skylight Buddy
Where the two part ways
Skylight sells the display first. Sizes run from $149.99 to as much as $629.99 depending on size and finish, and Skylight's help center is direct about what needs a subscription on top: the chore checklist is free, but assigning stars to a chore or creating a Reward requires Calendar Plus, $79/year, and Sidekick and meal planning live there too. A household choosing between Skylight's four sizes is also choosing how big an up-front purchase that subscription gets added to. Plannie is $99/year and nothing in it needs a second purchase. Chores, rewards and meal planning are all part of that one Premium plan, on the tablet already sitting on your counter.
Sync differs too. Skylight's sync pages confirm two-way sync with Google Calendar and Apple iCloud, but Outlook, Yahoo and Cozi calendars only sync one-way, into Skylight: changes made on the device don't flow back out to them. A family that lives mostly in Outlook, for school schedules or a parent's work calendar, gets the one-way kind. Plannie syncs two-way with both Google and Outlook, on every plan, so an event edited on the wall tablet shows up correctly in the calendar a parent already carries to work.
Add a child's own Skylight Buddy, $159.99 per device, plus its own optional $39/year Buddy Plus subscription for its rewards, and a family of four with two kids can run to $857 or more over three years. Plannie doesn't need a second kind of device: personal mode on a phone a child already has covers the same ground, under the one $99/year household plan. Skylight's real strength is the object itself: a purpose-built screen that arrives ready to hang, which a software-only product can't offer. A family that already owns a spare tablet, though, gets Plannie's version of the same wall display for the cost of the subscription alone.
Choose Skylight if…
You want a dedicated appliance in the box: a purpose-built screen that arrives ready to mount, and a separate Buddy device for a child's room, and you're comfortable layering Calendar Plus and Buddy Plus on top for rewards and meal planning. Picking a size and finish is part of the appeal if you want the display to match the kitchen.
Choose Plannie if…
You'd rather put the tablet you already own on the wall and spend $99/year in total, with chores, rewards and meal planning included in that price. Each family member gets a personal view on their own phone under the same plan, and there's nothing to unbox or mount before the calendar starts working.
Frequently asked
What is the main difference between Plannie and Skylight?+
Hardware, and what sits behind a subscription. Skylight is a purpose-built wall display, $299.99 for the 15-inch Calendar 2, with a free basic chore checklist and a $79/year Calendar Plus subscription for star rewards, meal planning and the Sidekick AI assistant. Setting one up also means picking a wall to mount it on and running power to it, which a tablet already on the counter doesn't need. A household can sign up and use Skylight's app without ever buying a display, but then it's one more calendar app, and the wall-mounted appliance is the reason to buy a Skylight. Plannie is software only: the same shared family calendar, chores with rewards and meal planning running on the tablets and phones you already own, at $99/year for the whole household. Skylight comes in several sizes, so the entry price varies a lot depending on which model a household picks. Plannie's price is the same however many screens the household ends up using it on.
Does Skylight's chore checklist work without a subscription?+
The basic task checklist does, on every Skylight size, for free. Assigning star values to chores and creating or redeeming Rewards needs Calendar Plus: Skylight's help center says "you must be subscribed to Calendar Plus to assign stars to chores or create Rewards." A family that skips Plus can still track who did what, but without the stars and rewards that help a checklist stick with younger kids. In Plannie, chores that pay out tickets for rewards are part of Premium, $99/year for the whole household, with no display to buy first.
Can Plannie replace a Skylight on the kitchen wall?+
Yes. Switch any tablet running Plannie to kiosk mode and it becomes a shared, always-on family display: everyone's days, everyone's reminders, on a tablet that's already mounted, charging or sitting on the counter. The same subscription covers personal mode on each member's own phone, with their own look and only their own notifications, so a teenager's phone isn't buzzing with a sibling's homework reminder.
Does Plannie have an AI like Skylight's Sidekick or Skylight Assistant?+
Plannie Assistant covers similar ground to both, in one plan. Like Sidekick, it reads photos and PDFs of schedules and flyers (Magic Import), and Family Inbox goes further, giving your household its own email address that turns forwarded mail into events. Skylight's text-message Assistant costs a further $40 on top of Calendar Plus, per assistant.myskylight.com, which doesn't state whether that $40 is billed monthly or annually (not verified); matched against Calendar Plus's own annual billing, that would put the total around $119/year. Plannie doesn't text over SMS (its assistant lives in the app, the inbox and Siri), but it's included in the $99/year household plan rather than sold on top.
What does a Skylight Buddy cost, and does Plannie need one?+
Skylight Buddy, a separate routine device for a child's room, is $159.99 per device on myskylight.com, with an optional $39/year Buddy Plus subscription for its own rewards, included free if the household already has Calendar Plus. A family with three kids would have three Buddy devices, each with its own routines to keep in sync and its own battery that can run out. Plannie doesn't need a second device: personal mode on a child's own phone or tablet is part of the same $99/year household plan, whether that's a hand-me-down phone or a shared family tablet.
Which is cheaper over three years?+
For the 15-inch Calendar 2 alone: $299.99 plus three years of Calendar Plus at $79/year comes to about $537, against Plannie's $297, a gap that only grows if the household picks the 27-inch Calendar Max instead. Add two kids' Buddy devices at $159.99 each and a family-of-four Skylight setup runs to roughly $857 over three years. Plannie is $297 either way, with no hardware to buy and no size or number of Buddies to decide on before checkout.