Pricing
The productivity layer is free. Choose how you want AI.
Free
$0
forever, no account needed
- Tasks with NL parsing, subtasks, recurrence
- Projects with templates and frontmatter
- Wiki stubs and knowledge curation
- All 10 views
- Quick Add, capture from selection
- Context menu, drag-to-reschedule
- Task cleanup with configurable retention
Pro BYO
$9
/month or $89/year (2 months free)
- Everything in Free
- Meeting recording and transcription
- AI summarization and action extraction
- Smart Capture and Smart Triage
- Speaker identification
- MCP server for AI agents
- CLI for terminal workflows
- Bring your own API keys
- You pay providers directly
Pro All-in-One
$29
/month or $279/year (2 months free)
- Everything in Pro
- AI included -- no API keys needed
- Unlimited Smart Capture and Smart Triage
- Meeting transcription included
- AI summarization and extraction included
- Speaker identification included
- No separate provider billing
- Zero setup. One bill. Just works.
Pro BYO: full control
Choose your own AI providers and models. Pay them directly at their published rates. Ideal if you already have API keys and want granular control over cost and model selection.
Pro All-in-One: zero friction
No keys, no provider dashboards, no surprises. AI is included in your subscription. Install, enter your license key, and everything works.
How does the cost compare?
| Your meeting load | Pro BYO total cost | Pro All-in-One |
|---|---|---|
| Light (3h meetings/week) | ~$14/month ($9 + ~$5 providers) | $29/month |
| Moderate (8h/week) | ~$23/month ($9 + ~$14 providers) | $29/month |
| Heavy (15h+/week) | ~$35/month ($9 + ~$26 providers) | $29/month |
All-in-One saves money at moderate-to-heavy usage and eliminates API key management entirely.
14-day free trial on all Pro plans. No credit card required. Cancel anytime.
Compare every feature
Everything in each plan, surface by surface.
| Feature | Free | Pro BYO | Pro All-in-One |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core productivity | |||
| 15 views (Today / Inbox / Forecast / Calendar / By Project / Search / Filters / Activity / Waiting / Weekly Review / Curate / Project Page / Meeting Page / Pensum Home / Agent Captures) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Status bar widgets | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sub-navigated settings (6 sections) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Beautify in Pensum views | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Beautify in reading mode (opt-in) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Provenance tracking + AI visual treatment | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI activity log + status-bar dot | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Task management | |||
| Tasks (basic CRUD) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Subtasks + progress badges | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Recurring tasks (daily / weekly / monthly / yearly / weekday / specific day) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Drag-to-reschedule on calendar | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Right-click context menu (complete / reschedule / edit / delete) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Quick complete on cursor line | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Task cleanup with per-source retention rules | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Templates (built-in + custom with prompts) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Bulk operations (multi-select complete / defer / reschedule / delete with vim keys) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Waiting status (`[w]`) + dedicated Waiting view | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Defer / snooze (`🛫` start date) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Weekly Review view (5-zone digest) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Calendar export (.ics for Apple / Google / Outlook) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Capture | |||
| Quick Add modal with natural-language parser | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Smart Capture (AI-enhanced Quick Add) | — | BYO | Managed |
| Capture from selection (with source wikilink) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Capture Wiki Stub | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Stub Expansion (AI-drafted first pass) | — | BYO | Managed |
| New Project modal | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Projects | |||
| Project files with typed frontmatter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-opening Project Page panel | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Project dashboard (open / overdue / recent) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Smart Triage (AI project suggestions) | — | BYO | Managed |
| Meetings | |||
| Meeting note frontmatter + structure | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio recording (context-aware modal) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Voice memo (into current note or new note) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mic picker + per-recording override | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| System audio capture (experimental, desktop) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Consent disclaimer + reminder + audible tone | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Transcription | — | Any audio model you have a key for (Deepgram / OpenAI / Gemini) | Managed Deepgram, 40h/mo included |
| Speaker identification | — | BYO | Managed |
| Meeting summarization (AI) | — | BYO | Managed |
| Task extraction from transcript | — | BYO | Managed |
| AI configuration | |||
| API keys stored in OS keychain (SecretStorage) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (optional override) |
| Per-feature model selection across configured providers | — | ✓ (Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini / Deepgram) | ✓ (managed catalog) |
| Custom model ID (escape hatch) | — | ✓ | — |
| Pensum-managed AI proxy | — | — | ✓ |
| Failure notifications with deep-link to settings | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| MCP server (AI agent access) | |||
| system.* tools (summary / capabilities / suggest_next / audit / ignore_patterns) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Generic vault.* (read / write / delete / move / search / export_ics) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Domain-model reads (plan.today / plan.search / plan.waiting / plan.weekly_review / project.dashboard / curate.stubs / meet.list ...) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Domain-model writes (plan.add / plan.complete / plan.defer / plan.set_status / capture.task / project.create / project.update / meet.create ...) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pagination + fragment snippets on search tools | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Meeting AI tools (transcribe / summarize / extract_tasks via plugin commands) | — | BYO | Managed |
| AI-specialized tools (semantic search, embedding index) | — | — | v1.1 |
| Read-only mode (`PENSUM_MCP_MODE=read-only`) + `.pensumignore` deny-list | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per-write audit log (`.pensum/mcp-audit.jsonl`) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Guided install bundle (`pensum mcp install --client <name>`) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Agent Captures review queue | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLI (terminal & agent workflows) | |||
| Multi-vault config (config / focus / vaults) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cross-vault aggregation for reads | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Three output modes (Rich / Plain / JSON) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Result cache (#N positional refs) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read commands (task list / today / inbox / overdue / project list ...) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Write commands (task add / complete / edit / delete / capture ...) | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Operational | |||
| Vault sync (Obsidian Sync / iCloud / Syncthing / git / none) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mobile (Obsidian Mobile, transcription deferred to desktop) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio retention (indefinite / 90d / 30d) | n/a | ✓ | ✓ |
| Voice memos folder config | n/a | ✓ | ✓ |
| Devices per license | n/a | 5 | 5 |
| License validation (~weekly, 30-day offline grace) | n/a | ✓ | ✓ |
| Polar customer portal | n/a | ✓ | ✓ |
| Usage limits | |||
| Tasks / projects / files | Unlimited | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Meeting recordings | — | Unlimited (your storage) | Unlimited (your storage) |
| Transcription | — | Your provider's rates (e.g. Deepgram ~$0.26/h) | 40h/month included; overage $0.05/min |
| Daily transcription safety caps | — | Per your provider | 8h soft notice, 12h hard refuse |
| Text AI calls | — | Per your provider | Unmetered for normal use |
| Trial transcription cap | — | — | 3h total over 14-day trial |
Free is a complete manual-use productivity tool plus read API for agents. Pro plans unlock the meeting pipeline, AI features, and agent writes.