Howie AI Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Limits
Howie is an AI scheduling assistant you CC on email. You loop him into a thread, he reads it, checks your Google Calendar, offers times, and sends the invite. That one job is what he’s known for, and he does it well.
The short verdict: Howie is a strong pick for founders, investors and other Google Workspace users whose week is mostly external meetings. The catch is scope and platform: it runs on Gmail and Google Calendar only, it bills from a shared credit pool whose per-meeting cost isn’t published, and it’s built around scheduling rather than the rest of your inbox. If you’re on Outlook, or you want the same CC-to-schedule workflow plus inbox work and automations, Carly covers both.
Howie at a glance
| Howie (as of Sep 28, 2026) | |
|---|---|
| What it is | A named AI “calendar secretary” you CC on email, text, or message on iMessage |
| Who makes it | 3030 Labs, Inc., a Seattle startup led by CEO Austin Petersmith and co-founder Dave Newman |
| Platforms | Gmail and Google Calendar; sign-up is “Sign in with Google” only |
| Price | Team plan from $25/month for 1,250 shared credits, up to $2,500/month for 150,000; Enterprise is custom |
| Free option | $25 in free credits to start |
| Add-ons | Custom assistant email at your domain, +$20/month |
| Best for | Heavy external schedulers on Google Workspace |
| Biggest limitation | No Outlook or Microsoft 365 support |
What Howie actually does
CC scheduling. You add Howie to a thread (“Adding Howie to find us some times”). He checks every connected Google Calendar, proposes slots in the other person’s time zone, handles the replies, and sends the invite. Group threads work too: he waits on stragglers and books once everyone agrees.
Preferences in plain English. Howie runs off a written preferences document. GeekWire’s launch coverage gives the example “if it’s a pitch call, set it to 25 minutes and use Zoom.” Rules like “follow up twice, 48 hours apart” or “no more than three hours back to back” are the kind of thing the product is designed around.
Calendar upkeep. The site lists holds, buffers, travel time, focus blocks, conflict flags, reminders, to-dos, daily briefings, booking links, and clicking other people’s Calendly links for you.
Channels and apps. You can reach Howie by email, SMS, and iMessage. The site shows logos for Gmail, Google Calendar, Zoom, Granola, Notion, Todoist, Linear, PostHog, and Stripe, plus “many more.”
White-label. For +$20/month, the assistant gets a name you choose and an email at your company’s domain, so guests never see “Howie.”
The human team behind the AI
Howie launched as more than pure software. At launch, Petersmith described the setup on X: models complete tasks “in a simulated environment then in many cases are reviewed by our 24/7 team of scheduling experts.” GeekWire reported that the system escalates uncertain cases to human reviewers before hitting send, to avoid errors like “mixing up time zones, dropping a name from a thread, or misreading social cues.”
That design had a visible cost: speed. Howie’s own FAQ, which stayed on its site through at least April 2026 (per Internet Archive snapshots), answered “How fast does Howie reply?” with “Not that fast!” and said its review cycles “can sometimes take 15 minutes or longer.”
The redesigned site live on Sep 28, 2026 no longer mentions the human team or the speed caveat. Howie hasn’t said publicly whether the review layer is gone or just no longer marketed.
Launch, funding and team
- January 2024: Petersmith announced a $1M pre-seed and a private beta, with a three-person team.
- October 2024: Still in beta, Howie had scheduled 10,000 meetings for 209 users.
- September 22, 2025: General availability plus a $6M seed led by True Ventures, with 1,000+ paying customers, 5,000+ meetings a week, and a nine-person team. Angels include Jason Calacanis, Perplexity’s Aravind Srinivas, and Superhuman’s Rahul Vohra.
- Between April and September 2026: Pricing moved from Basic and Pro plans to shared credits (details below). The homepage now claims “thousands of customers.”
What users say about Howie
One thing to know before reading testimonials: Petersmith’s launch post says “80% of our backers were Howie customers before they invested.” Many of the loudest public fans are also investors. The quotes below come from people not named on that investor list, unless noted.
Where it earns its keep
- A LinkedIn user wrote in September 2025: “It doesn’t feel like software. It feels like you’re working with a real assistant.” And: “I’m now saving hours every week on scheduling.”
- An X user praised the setup in April 2025: “Magical onboarding: Inferred my defaults, then let me configure them.”
- A founder writing on Substack in June 2025: “What’s brilliant about Howie is that he doesn’t try to do everything. He focuses just on scheduling…”
- Seattle investor Diego Oppenheimer (a Howie backer) told GeekWire: “I could not live without Howie at this point.”
Our read: replies sound human, and preferences are easy to set.
Where people get stuck
- An X user in July 2025: “I’ve tried many and @howie_ai is hands down the best and most natural. Once it is able to do outlook, I’ll be in heaven for scheduling :)”
- Tech journalist Ashlee Vance on X in March 2025: “A little weird to see the AI admin interacting with other admins but has been fantastic at managing calendar so far …”
- Petersmith himself, on the beta in October 2024: “howie has made a lot of mistakes in this beta. including the time he sent 147 emails to a customer’s boss in the span of 2 hours.” A beta user (later a Howie investor) replied under that post: “Despite the hiccups it’s a huge productivity increase for me.”
Our read: the complaints are about reach, not quality. Outlook comes up again and again, and so does the social oddity of an AI emailing your contacts.
Howie pricing in 2026
Prices as listed on howie.com on Sep 28, 2026. The page shows monthly prices only, with no annual toggle.
| Team plan | Shared credits per month | Price per 1,000 credits |
|---|---|---|
| $25/mo | 1,250 | $20.00 |
| $50/mo | 2,500 | $20.00 |
| $100/mo | 5,000 | $20.00 |
| $250/mo | 13,000 | $19.23 |
| $500/mo | 26,500 | $18.87 |
| $750/mo | 41,000 | $18.29 |
| $1,000/mo | 56,000 | $17.86 |
| $1,500/mo | 86,000 | $17.44 |
| $2,000/mo | 117,000 | $17.09 |
| $2,500/mo | 150,000 | $16.67 |
| Enterprise | Custom pool | Custom (invoicing, DPA, SLA, onboarding) |
Every tier includes the email scheduling assistant, the iMessage agent, calendar audits, briefings, follow-ups and reminders. There’s no per-seat charge; credits are shared across the workspace. The custom assistant email is +$20/month.
What’s changed. From at least October 2025 to April 2026, Howie sold Basic at $35/month monthly or $25/month on annual billing, and Pro at $145/month monthly or $95/month annual. Its FAQ back then said “No free trials.” The credit model replaced both plans, and you now get $25 in free credits to start.
The hidden cost is the unknown burn rate. Howie’s pricing section doesn’t say how many credits a scheduled meeting, a follow-up, or a daily brief uses. You find out by watching the meter during the free credits.
Worked examples:
- Solo (Josh, one Google account, white-label email): $25 base + $20 custom email = $45/month, or $540 a year, provided he stays inside 1,250 credits. If he runs out, the next step up is $50 + $20 = $70/month.
- Five-person team: say each person uses what Josh uses, 1,250 credits. The pool needs 6,250. The tiers jump from 5,000 to 13,000, so the team pays $250/month (+$20 for a custom email), or $3,240 a year. Use a bit less (5,000 credits) and it’s $100.
Refunds: Howie’s terms of service say you keep access until the end of your billing period but “will not be eligible for a prorated refund.”
Is it worth it? On Google with 20+ external meetings a week, $25 to $70 a month costs less than an hour of a human EA. If you mostly meet teammates who share your calendar, a booking link does most of the job.
Problems and limits
- No Outlook. When asked “Does it work with Microsoft calendars?”, Petersmith’s launch FAQ on X answered simply “No.” A year later, the site still lists only Gmail and Google Calendar, and the app’s sign-in is Google-only.
- Scheduling-first scope. The site sells reminders, to-dos and briefings, but not inbox triage, general email drafting, or multi-step automations across your other apps.
- Speed history. For most of its life Howie told customers it was “Not that fast!” because humans checked some replies. That trade-off may have changed, but Howie hasn’t said.
- A person may see your threads. If the review layer is still running, people at Howie may read parts of your email threads. Howie does show SOC 2 Type II and ADA CASA badges on its site.
Howie vs Carly
| Howie | Carly | |
|---|---|---|
| CC it to schedule a meeting | Yes | Yes |
| Gmail / Google Calendar | Yes | Yes |
| Outlook / Microsoft 365 | No | Yes, and several accounts at once |
| Reach it by | Email, SMS, iMessage | Email, SMS (text Carly), web |
| Booking pages | Booking links | Booking pages |
| Group scheduling | In email threads | In threads, plus group availability polls |
| Inbox work | Scheduling threads, follow-ups, reminders | Triages, drafts, replies and follows up across your inbox |
| Automations | Rules in a preferences doc; no workflow builder listed | Visual workflows triggered by new emails, calendar events, form submissions, schedules |
| Dedicated agents | One assistant (white-label +$20/mo) | Email Agents, each with its own address, instructions and knowledge files |
| Apps | Zoom, Granola, Notion, Todoist, Linear, Stripe and more | Thousands of apps, including HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack and Asana |
| Price | $25/mo for 1,250 credits, up to $2,500/mo | Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month |
Carly handles the core job the same way: CC Carly on a thread and it finds times, sends the invite, and handles reschedules. The difference is everything around it. Carly works on Outlook and Microsoft 365 as well as Gmail, and can juggle a work and a personal calendar at once. It also triages and answers the rest of your inbox, runs group polls when a thread has too many people, and gives you booking pages for people who’d rather pick a slot.
Beyond scheduling, Carly adds Email Agents, separate assistants with their own email address that anyone can write to, each with its own instructions and knowledge. That means one agent can answer client questions for your practice while another fields vendor email. And visual workflows let you act on scheduling results: when a meeting is booked, log it in HubSpot and post to Slack. If you need SSO, an API, or a team rollout, book a call with the Carly team.
Who should use Howie, and who should look elsewhere
Howie fits if you:
- Live in Gmail and Google Calendar and book lots of external meetings
- Want a named, white-labeled assistant with its own domain email
- Care more about polished replies than instant replies
Look elsewhere if you:
- Use Outlook or Microsoft 365 at work
- Want scheduling plus inbox triage, drafted replies, and automations across CRM or Slack
- Need predictable per-meeting costs before you commit
Our Howie alternatives roundup ranks seven options, and Howie vs Clara covers the classic Outlook-capable rival.
FAQ
Is Howie AI worth it? For a Google Workspace user who books many external meetings, often yes. Users consistently praise how natural the replies read. It’s a worse fit on Outlook, or if you want one assistant for scheduling and email. Carly covers both.
How much does Howie cost? As of Sep 28, 2026, the Team plan starts at $25/month for 1,250 shared credits and scales up to $2,500/month for 150,000 credits. A custom assistant email at your domain is +$20/month. Enterprise pricing is custom. Howie doesn’t publish how many credits each meeting uses.
Does Howie work with Outlook? No. Howie lists Gmail and Google Calendar only, and sign-up requires a Google account. If your calendar is Outlook or Microsoft 365, Carly supports it alongside Gmail and schedules the same way: CC it on the thread.
Is Howie a real person or AI? It’s AI, and for most of its history some of its replies were checked by a 24/7 human team before sending, per the company’s own launch FAQ and GeekWire’s reporting. The current site no longer mentions that team.
Is there a free version of Howie? There’s no free plan, but new accounts get $25 in free credits. As late as April 2026 the site said “No free trials.”
Is Howie safe to give calendar access? Howie displays SOC 2 Type II and ADA CASA badges and links a Vanta trust center. The main thing to weigh is that its replies have historically been checked by people at Howie, so assume staff may see scheduling threads.
Related: SkipUp vs Howie · Howie alternatives · Howie vs Clara
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