All comparisonsAlternatives

FocusHQ vs Motion

Motion is an AI calendar that auto-schedules tasks into time blocks. FocusHQ is a calmer workspace — a unified inbox, an AI planner, and built-in focus sessions — for people who spend more of the day in messages than in meetings.

Quick comparison

Feature

FocusHQ

Motion

Unified inbox (Gmail, Slack, GitHub…)
Yes16 integrations in one inbox
NoCalendar + tasks only
AI triage on incoming messages
Yes
No
Daily AI planner
YesFrom inbox + calendar + tasks
YesAuto-schedules tasks on calendar
Auto-scheduling with constraints
PartialTime-blocks, less aggressive
YesMotion's core strength
Focus sessions (shield + debrief)
Yes
No
Team delegation & shared context
Yes
PartialBusiness plan only
Individual price (monthly)
$24 / mo
$19 / mo
Individual price (annual)
$19 / mo, billed yearly
$12.73 / mo, billed yearly
Team price (annual)
From $39 / seat / mo
$19.43 / seat / mo (Business)
AI credit limits
No per-credit metering on Pro
7,500 credits/mo, then $0.25 / 100
macOS native app
YesBuilt for macOS first
PartialElectron desktop wrapper

Pricing and feature data verified April 2026 from www.usemotion.com. Features change; please confirm before making a purchase decision.

When FocusHQ wins

Your day actually starts in a shared inbox. FocusHQ triages and drafts across 16 sources (Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Linear, Notion, etc.); Motion only plans tasks you already typed in.
You want deep-work tooling, not just a packed calendar. Focus sessions with a notification shield, meeting prep and debrief are built in.
You prefer predictable AI bills. Pro has no credit meter — you don’t pay $0.25 per 100 extra tokens on a busy week.
You’re a macOS user who values a native, quiet UI over a dense cross-platform Electron app.
You work in a small team that delegates from the inbox rather than from a Gantt chart.

When Motion wins

Your life is calendar-first. If your week is 25 meetings plus rigid task deadlines, Motion’s constraint solver is genuinely more sophisticated at slotting work into gaps.
You need Gantt charts, capacity planning and timeline views for cross-team project management — FocusHQ is intentionally scoped smaller.
Monthly individual pricing is lower on paper ($19 vs $24), though FocusHQ’s annual plan ($19/mo) closes the gap.

We try to keep this section honest. If a tool is clearly better for your scenario, we would rather you use it than switch, churn, and write a bad review.

Coming from Motion?

Motion users tend to already have a clean task backlog — that’s the easy part to migrate. The setup takes under 10 minutes:

Export your Motion tasks to CSV from Settings → Export, then import into FocusHQ in one click.
Connect Google Calendar (same scopes as Motion) so the planner sees your real availability.
Add Gmail + Slack to start seeing the unified inbox Motion doesn’t have.
Run your first AI daily plan — FocusHQ will schedule your tasks against your actual calendar, but less aggressively than Motion by default. You can tune intensity in Settings.

14-day free trial, no credit card. Keep Motion running in parallel for the first week if you’d like a direct side-by-side.

FAQ

Will FocusHQ auto-schedule my tasks like Motion does?
Yes, but more conservatively. FocusHQ generates a daily plan that respects your calendar, energy pattern and priorities — it won’t reshuffle your whole week every time a task slips, which most Motion users either love or hate. If aggressive rescheduling is the feature you love, Motion is the better fit.
Can I keep using Google Calendar?
Yes. FocusHQ reads and writes to Google Calendar (and Outlook) natively — you don’t need a separate calendar app. Events created by FocusHQ show up on all your other devices the normal way.
How does pricing compare over a year?
Motion Pro AI is $12.73/mo billed annually ($153/yr). FocusHQ Pro is $19/mo billed annually ($228/yr). FocusHQ is ~$75/yr more, which buys you the unified inbox, focus sessions and no AI-credit meter. If you only want calendar auto-scheduling, Motion is cheaper.

Try FocusHQ, free.

14-day free trial. No credit card. Connect Gmail, Slack and your calendar in under 5 minutes, keep what works, cancel if it doesn’t earn its keep.

Try FocusHQ free See pricing