Jan 25, 2026

The Best Alternative to Clockwise: Carly

Carly is an AI-powered scheduling assistant that works over email and SMS. Unlike traditional booking links or calendar tools, Carly reads messy email threads she is cc'd on, understands context, and sends real invites that keep the conversation natural. You can forward Carly an email, send her a text, or send screenshots and images for her to process and add to your calendar. It's built for busy professionals who want a human-like assistant that just works, handling coordination and calendaring so you don't have to. ChatGPT could never be this useful.

Feature Comparison

Feature	Carly	Clockwise
AI-Powered Scheduling	✅	✅
Human-like Conversational Assistant	✅	❌
Booking Links	✅	❌
Click-to-Book (One-Click Scheduling)	✅	❌
SMS Integration	✅	❌
Natural Language via Email	✅	❌
Handles Incoming Invitations	✅	❌
External Meeting Scheduling	✅	❌
Focus Time Protection	❌	✅
Flexible Meeting Rescheduling	❌	✅ (internal only)
Team Analytics	❌	✅
Lunch Holds	❌	✅
Meeting Breaks	❌	✅
Daily/Weekly Briefings	✅	❌
Smart Time Zone Detection	✅	✅
Multiple Calendar Support	✅ (Google, Outlook)	✅
Chrome Extension	✅	✅
Pricing	$35/month	Free - $11.50/user/month
Setup Time	2 mins	10-15 mins
Per-User Pricing	No	Yes
Real-Time Optimization	✅	❌ (daily at 4 PM)

Why Carly is the Better Choice

Clockwise is a popular AI calendar tool used by over 40,000 organizations including Atlassian, Asana, and Reddit. It excels at optimizing internal team calendars - protecting focus time, automatically rescheduling flexible meetings, and providing team analytics. However, Clockwise has a critical limitation: it cannot schedule meetings with external contacts. It only works with internal meetings where all attendees are from the same organization.

External Scheduling: This is the key differentiator. Carly handles scheduling with anyone - clients, prospects, vendors, candidates, or anyone outside your organization. Clockwise’s flexible meeting feature only works with internal meetings. When a client emails asking to meet, Clockwise cannot help - but Carly handles it automatically.

Conversational Scheduling: Carly responds to scheduling requests via email and SMS like a human assistant. Clockwise has no external communication capabilities - it optimizes your existing calendar but doesn’t interact with other people.

SMS Integration: Clockwise has no SMS features. If someone texts you to schedule a meeting, you’re on your own. Carly manages SMS scheduling naturally.

Real-Time Responsiveness: Clockwise only optimizes calendars once daily at 4:00 PM. Carly responds to scheduling requests in about 1 minute, any time of day. If you need immediate scheduling help, Clockwise’s batch optimization model doesn’t help.

Simpler Pricing for Individuals: Clockwise’s per-user pricing ($6.75-$11.50/user/month) is designed for teams. For individuals or small teams primarily needing external scheduling help, Carly’s flat $35/month is often more cost-effective and predictable.

When to Choose Clockwise Instead

Clockwise is the better choice if your primary need is optimizing your internal team’s calendars. If you want AI to automatically find better times for internal meetings, protect focus time blocks across your organization, and provide analytics on meeting load - Clockwise delivers this at a competitive price. Its free tier is genuinely useful for individuals who just want lunch holds, meeting breaks, and travel time automation. For large teams focused on internal calendar efficiency, Clockwise is purpose-built.

Conclusion

Clockwise and Carly solve different scheduling problems. Clockwise optimizes internal team calendars - rescheduling meetings, protecting focus time, and providing analytics. But it explicitly cannot work with external contacts. Carly handles external scheduling - coordinating meetings with clients, prospects, and contacts via email and SMS. If your main frustration is internal meeting overload and fragmented focus time, Clockwise can help. If your main frustration is the back-and-forth of scheduling meetings with people outside your organization, Carly is the solution. Many organizations benefit from both: Clockwise for internal optimization, Carly for external coordination.