OpenAssistant vs Reclaim: which AI scheduler fits you
The short answer
OpenAssistant is the pick if you want scheduling done for you. Reclaim is the pick if you want your own week defended at a low price. These two products both put AI on your calendar, but they do different jobs.
- OpenAssistant is an assistant with its own email address and phone number. You cc it, and it negotiates times with other people, follows up, reschedules, and also handles inbox, research and recurring tasks. It also has Coordinator Mode for executive assistants.
- Reclaim works on your own calendar. It defends focus time, places habits and tasks around your meetings, and gives you smart booking links. It doesn’t email other people for you.
Reclaim wins on price and focus time: it has a free plan built around focus time, and its paid plans cost a fraction of OpenAssistant’s. OpenAssistant wins on everything that involves other people: emailing outside guests, group threads, rules and priorities, and inbox and research work too.
Where OpenAssistant is better
1. It talks to other people for you.
- OpenAssistant. You cc the assistant on a thread. It “reads your calendar, emails the people you need to meet, proposes times that work for everyone, handles the replies, and sends the calendar invite” (OpenAssistant scheduling). It follows up “on a cadence you set.” For example, three follow-ups, three days apart (OpenAssistant scheduling preferences).
- Reclaim. Its Smart Meetings suggest new times but “never reschedule automatically” (Reclaim 2.0 FAQ). Reclaim’s pages do not list a feature that emails outside guests to negotiate a time.
2. External group meetings.
- OpenAssistant. It says it handles group meetings across time zones and calendars and keeps negotiating “until there’s one time everyone has agreed to” (OpenAssistant scheduling).
- Reclaim. Smart Meetings are “designed for meetings with up to 5 attendees” (Reclaim 2.0 FAQ), mostly with colleagues.
3. Rules and priorities in plain language.
- Preferences in plain language. You write rules such as “Avoid scheduling external meetings before 10 AM” (OpenAssistant scheduling preferences).
- Contact priorities. You mark contacts VIP, Standard or Flexible, and give per-meeting instructions like what to do “when nothing works” (OpenAssistant advanced scheduling).
4. Control over what it sends. Autonomy is set per action: Manual, Confirmation Window or Autonomous. Supervision decides whether you’re kept on threads, and you can be CC’d or BCC’d (OpenAssistant autonomy help).
5. For executive assistants. Coordinator Mode lets an EA schedule on behalf of a “Principal” using the principal’s calendar and preferences (OpenAssistant Coordinator Mode). Reclaim also supports delegated access for EAs, but only on Business and up (Reclaim pricing).
6. More than scheduling. The same assistant triages your inbox, researches people before calls, drafts documents and runs recurring tasks (OpenAssistant scheduling FAQ). If you’d use those too, the higher price buys more. You can reach it by email, text, Slack or in the app (OpenAssistant pricing).
Where Reclaim is better
1. A free plan with the scheduling features built in.
- Reclaim. The Lite plan costs $0 and includes Focus Time, Habits, Buffer Time and Smart Meetings (Reclaim pricing).
- OpenAssistant. Starter is free with 1,000 credits at signup, plus 100 bonus credits a day once those are used up, up to 1,000 a month. Credits are shared with all the other work the assistant does, and a group meeting can use “hundreds” (OpenAssistant pricing).
2. Much lower price.
- Reclaim. Starter is $10 per seat per month on annual billing, Business $15 (Reclaim pricing).
- OpenAssistant. Pro is $60 per user per month on annual billing or $72 monthly, for 5,000 credits (OpenAssistant pricing; per-user pricing confirmed by 3Gen). That is six times Reclaim Starter per person. Coordinating a meeting across several people can use “hundreds” of credits (OpenAssistant pricing FAQ).
3. Focus time and time defense.
- Reclaim. You set a weekly Focus Time goal and Reclaim defends it, with proactive and reactive modes and optional auto-decline (Reclaim pricing). Habits float within windows and can shorten or skip (Reclaim 2.0 FAQ).
- OpenAssistant. Its scheduling page mentions protecting focus blocks as part of “calendar hygiene,” and it has buffers and daily meeting limits. OpenAssistant’s pages do not list a feature equal to Reclaim’s goal-based Focus Time.
4. Task scheduling from your existing tools. On paid plans, Reclaim pulls tasks from Jira, Asana, ClickUp, Todoist and Linear into calendar time, with deadline-aware planning (Reclaim tasks, Reclaim pricing). Google Tasks works on the free plan.
5. Team booking links and analytics.
- Booking links. Team, round robin and one-off links. Round robin tries to keep the original host when someone reschedules (Reclaim 2.0 FAQ).
- Analytics. Workforce Analytics reports on focus time and meeting load by team (Reclaim analytics).
6. Maturity and backing. Reclaim is “now a part of Dropbox” (Reclaim about) and lists SOC 2 Type II (Reclaim security).
Side by side
| Reclaim | OpenAssistant | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Lite, $0 | Starter: 1,000 credits at signup, 100 bonus a day up to 1,000 a month |
| Paid, billed annually | Starter $10/seat/mo; Business $15 | Pro $60/user/mo; Team $100/user/mo |
| Paid, billed monthly | Starter $12; Business $18 | Pro $72/user; Team $120/user |
| Pricing model | Per seat | Per user, with credits (5,000 to 100,000 per month on Pro and Team) |
| Calendars | Google, Outlook | Google, Outlook |
| Emails guests to negotiate | No | Yes |
| Focus time from a weekly goal | Yes | No goal-based feature documented; mentions protecting focus blocks |
| Tasks from Jira, Asana, etc. | Yes | Not a scheduling feature; integrations exist for other work |
| Booking links | Individual, team, round robin, one-off | One per meeting type |
| SSO and SCIM | Enterprise | Team plan |
| Security claim | SOC 2 Type II | SOC 2 Type II |
Sources: Reclaim pricing, Reclaim 2.0 FAQ, Reclaim security, OpenAssistant pricing, OpenAssistant pricing details, OpenAssistant scheduling, OpenAssistant trust. OpenAssistant’s per-user pricing was confirmed by 3Gen.
Things to check before you choose
- Reclaim and Outlook delegation. Reclaim calls its Outlook support “fully available,” but its help article says delegated or shared Outlook calendars aren’t supported yet, while its integration page says they are (Reclaim Outlook help, Reclaim Outlook integration). If an EA runs your Outlook calendar, ask Reclaim about this first.
- OpenAssistant credits. Your monthly cost depends on how many credits your meetings use. Credit top-ups start at $15 (OpenAssistant pricing FAQ).
- AI data handling. Reclaim says generative AI models “will not be built using customer content without consent,” and its third-party AI providers may not train on customer data. It runs privately hosted models inside Dropbox’s environment, and third-party AI features run only with opt-in (Reclaim AI disclosure). OpenAssistant says AI providers are “contractually prohibited” from training on your data (OpenAssistant trust).
Which should you pick?
| You want… | Pick |
|---|---|
| Someone to email outside guests and chase replies | OpenAssistant |
| Group meetings with people outside your company | OpenAssistant |
| One assistant for scheduling, inbox and research | OpenAssistant |
| More focus time and fewer fragmented days | Reclaim |
| The lowest-cost paid plan | Reclaim |
| Your Jira or Asana tasks on your calendar | Reclaim |
Some people will want both: Reclaim to defend their week, and an assistant that negotiates with outsiders inside the time Reclaim leaves open.
Related reading
- Reclaim vs Motion: Reclaim for meeting overload, Motion for task overload.
- 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.
- AI scheduling assistants you cc on email: Ranks the assistants you copy on a thread, including Blockit, Howie and Clara.
- How EAs use AI to support several executives: A step-by-step playbook for assistants who support more than one executive.
- 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
What is the difference between OpenAssistant and Reclaim?
Reclaim works on your own calendar: focus time, habits, tasks and booking links. OpenAssistant is an assistant you cc that emails other people, proposes times, follows up and sends the invite, and also handles inbox, research and recurring tasks.
Which is cheaper, OpenAssistant or Reclaim?
Reclaim. Starter is $10 per seat per month on annual billing, and Lite is free. OpenAssistant Pro is $60 per user per month on annual billing, with a free Starter plan of 1,000 credits at signup plus a daily top-up.
Does Reclaim email people to find a time?
No. Reclaim’s Smart Meetings suggest new times but never reschedule automatically, and its pages list no feature that emails outside guests. OpenAssistant does that by cc.
Can I use OpenAssistant and Reclaim together?
Yes. Use Reclaim to defend focus time and OpenAssistant to negotiate with outsiders inside the time Reclaim leaves open.
Try OpenAssistant
Try OpenAssistant free on the Starter plan and see how it handles your next group thread. Compare Pro and Team on the pricing page.