Howie review: pricing, features and alternatives

Published by 3Gen Internet Corporation, maker of OpenAssistant, Skej and AGNT. Comparisons use public documentation, without hands-on testing.

Verdict: Howie is a good pick if you use Google Workspace and want an assistant you can text or iMessage as well as email, from $25 a month. Outlook support is unclear, and Howie doesn’t publish how many credits a meeting uses. If you want an assistant across email, text, Slack and phone with Coordinator Mode, try OpenAssistant (ours). If you want a low flat price for email scheduling, try Skej (ours).

Both of our products compete with Howie, so weigh this review with that in mind. This page reviews Howie only.

What Howie is

Howie calls itself an “AI Calendar Secretary for Email Scheduling” and “the AI assistant you loop in on anything that needs your time” (Howie). The company behind it is 3030 Labs, Inc.

You loop Howie into an email thread, or message it by iMessage or SMS: “Talk to Howie via email, iMessage, and SMS.” It reads the thread, checks your availability, offers times, handles replies and creates the calendar event (Howie).

Pricing

From the pricing section of Howie’s homepage.

New accounts get “$25 in free credits.”

Howie’s pages don’t say how many credits a meeting uses, or give an annual price. That makes Howie harder to budget than per-seat tools. For comparison:

• Calendly. Its email assistant, Callie, comes with Standard Plus at $18 per seat per month on annual billing (Calendly pricing).
• Clara. Standard is $80 a month for 30 meetings (Clara pricing).

What it does

From Howie’s homepage (Howie):

• Scheduling.
  • “Schedules meetings over email and text.”
  • “Finds times across messy group threads.”
  • “Creates booking links for any kind of meeting.”
  • “Follows up when people go quiet.”
• Protecting your calendar.
  • Finds blocks for deep work.
  • “Adds holds, buffers, commutes, and travel time.”
  • Watches for conflicts and overloaded days.
  • “Remembers your scheduling rules.”
• Admin help. Reminders, to-dos, follow-ups, daily briefs, and tracking who you’re waiting on.
• Use cases it lists. “Clicking Calendly links for you,” “Clearing your day in an emergency,” “Notifying people when you’re running late,” and “Managing recurring 1:1s.”
• Integrations. Logos for Gmail, Google Calendar, Zoom, iMessage, Granola, Linear, Notion, PostHog, Stripe and Todoist.
• Branding. You can give the assistant “A name you choose,” “An email at your company’s domain” (the $20 add-on), and “A signature that fits your team.”

The homepage demo shows Howie writing as a named assistant (“I’m Robin, Morgan’s assistant”), not as you.

What its documentation says

Howie’s site links its “how it works” page to a Google Doc titled “Howie documentation” (Howie docs). The doc is undated, and parts of it are out of date: it still says Howie “is still in beta” and that custom-domain email is “Not yet but soon!”, which the homepage now sells. Treat the points below with that in mind.

• Calendar. “Howie currently only works with Google Calendar,” with Outlook on a waitlist.
• Default address and approval. The default address is howie@howie.ai. If someone else emails Howie and you asking to book, Howie “will first privately reply to you” before sharing availability.
• Preferences. Working hours, time zone, default length, buffers, video tool, and custom meeting types with trigger phrases. You can update preferences by emailing Howie.
• Time zones. Howie “will automatically update between Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time,” and you can set a temporary time zone for travel.
• Rescheduling. It can reschedule events it created or you created, but it “cannot update events that you were invited to by others.”
• Group scheduling. Described as “pretty limited.” Howie “will accept the first time that anyone on the thread agrees to.”

The homepage now claims Howie “Finds times across messy group threads,” so group handling may have changed since the doc was written.

Security and privacy

• Certifications. The homepage shows “SOC 2 Type II” and “ADA CASA” badges. Howie’s trust center lists both and offers a 2026 SOC 2 Type II report on request (Howie Trust Center).
• What it collects. The privacy policy covers “Any other Personal Data contained in emails or calendars that Howie is granted access to.” For other people on a thread, Howie receives “information contained within the email chain” (Howie privacy policy, effective 9/18/2025).
• How data is used. The policy lists “Improving the Services, including testing, research, internal analytics and product development.” Howie’s pages do not say whether customer data trains AI models, or whether humans review Howie’s work. Some competitors state this outright. Calendly, for example, says it “does not use customer data to train or fine-tune its AI models” (Calendly Notetaker FAQ). If this matters to you, ask Howie first.
• Hosting. Data is hosted in the US (Howie privacy policy).
• Support. “every day, including weekends and holidays, from 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM PST,” aiming for a first response within 24 hours (Howie support).

Strengths

• Several ways to reach it. Email, iMessage and SMS. Among the assistants covered on this site, only Howie and Lindy list iMessage.
• Broad admin help. Holds, travel time, deep-work blocks, to-dos and daily briefs, not just booking.
• It handles others’ links. The homepage lists “Clicking Calendly links for you.” Its doc answers “Sometimes!” to booking on someone else’s Calendly or other booking link, so treat that as partial.
• Team pricing. Unlimited teammates share one credit pool.
• Security paperwork. A published SOC 2 Type II report, available on request. Its trust center also lists customer data being deleted when you leave.
• Rules by email or text. You can tell Howie to update your standing preferences in a message, per its doc (“Update my preferences”) and its signup page (Howie start).
• Checks with you on inbound requests. If someone else asks Howie for your time, its doc says it privately asks you first.

Weaknesses

• Outlook support is unclear. Only Google logos appear, and the docs say Google only.
• Unpredictable cost. Credits are sold without a published cost per meeting.
• No published training or human-review policy.
• Thin public docs. The only how-to documentation Howie links is an undated Google Doc.

Who it’s for

Good fit: founders, CEOs and investors on Google Workspace who want an assistant they can text or iMessage as well as email. The homepage testimonials come from this group.

Look elsewhere if:

• You want one assistant across email, text, Slack and phone, plus inbox and research work. OpenAssistant (ours) documents all of those, group and multi-time-zone meetings, and Coordinator Mode for executive assistants, with a free Starter plan. Pro is $60 per user per month on annual billing (per-user pricing confirmed by 3Gen). See OpenAssistant pricing.
• You want a low flat per-user price for email scheduling. Skej (ours) Pro is $15 per user per month on annual billing (Skej pricing).
• You’re on Outlook or Exchange. Clara lists Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook and Exchange (Clara).
• You want to try an assistant you cc for free, long term. Blockit’s free plan includes 15 meetings a month (Blockit pricing).
• You mostly need links and a fixed per-seat price. Calendly (Calendly pricing).
• You want focus time defended automatically, for free. Reclaim’s Lite plan (Reclaim pricing).

How Howie fits the rubric

These are editorial judgments in words, not scores, using the qualitative considerations in our rubric.

Related reading

• AI scheduling assistants you cc on email: Ranks the assistants you copy on a thread, including Blockit, Howie and Clara.
• The best AI scheduling assistants of 2026, ranked: A ranked roundup; OpenAssistant is first, Reclaim is the best free start, Calendly the best booking link and Howie the pick for texting.
• Our Skej review: Pricing, features and the limits Skej’s own pages state, with a verdict up top.
• The best AI executive assistants for CEOs: Eight assistants compared for CEOs, with OpenAssistant first and Claude and Microsoft 365 Copilot named for research and for Outlook-based companies.
• How to delegate your calendar to an AI assistant: Write your rules first, grant the least access that works, roll out in stages and keep the calls only you should make.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Howie cost?

Howie Team starts at $25 a month for 1,250 shared credits, with unlimited teammates. A custom-domain assistant email is $20 a month extra. New accounts get $25 in free credits.

Does Howie work with Outlook?

Howie’s homepage shows only Google Calendar and Gmail, and its how-it-works document says it works only with Google Calendar. Check with Howie if you use Outlook.

Can you text Howie?

Yes. Howie says you can talk to it by email, iMessage and SMS.

What are the best Howie alternatives?

Assistants you cc that work with Outlook include OpenAssistant, Skej, Blockit and Clara. OpenAssistant also takes text and Slack. Clara lists Exchange. Blockit has a free plan with 15 meetings a month.

Try OpenAssistant

Want an assistant that works across email, text, Slack and phone? Try OpenAssistant, free to start. See plans on the pricing page.