Student discounts on time blocking apps in 2026: Sunsama, Akiflow and free plans

If you want the best time blocking apps with a student discount and free calendar integration, start with each vendor's own pricing and help pages, because that's where the real offers are written down. As of October 2026, Akiflow's pricing page lists 40% off its yearly Pro plan for eligible university students and researchers, TickTick offers 25% off one year of Premium, and Sunsama gives college students a discount they request by email. Todoist's help center says it has no student discount, and we found none on Motion's pricing page. For a free calendar integration, TickTick and Todoist have free plans, and Barside is a free desktop app.

We make Barside, so this page says plainly where another app may suit you better. Everything here about the other five apps comes from their own pricing, help and education pages, read in October 2026. We ran no hands-on tests of them and took no screenshots. Where a page shows a plain dollar sign with no currency code, we copied it that way, and where a page said nothing about students, we say we found no student discount on it.

Which time blocking apps have a student discount and free calendar integration?

Time blocking apps with a student discount and a free calendar integration fall into three groups once you read their pages: paid apps with a published student offer, paid apps where we found none, and apps you can use for free. The table puts each student offer next to the normal price and the free option, as of October 2026, with Barside in the last row for comparison.

A short way to read the table:

• You'll pay and want the clearest terms. Akiflow prints the percentage, the plan and how long it lasts on its pricing page.
• You want the smallest yearly bill among the discounts. TickTick Premium, at US$37.99 for one year on its education page.
• You want a guided daily planning routine. Sunsama, once your account is under your school email and you've asked support.
• You want to pay nothing. TickTick's free plan, Todoist's Beginner plan or Barside, each with the limits described below.

How does the Sunsama student discount work?

The Sunsama student discount is for college students, and you ask for it instead of picking it at checkout. Sunsama's Billing Overview and FAQs page says your account must be under a valid student email address, such as a .edu address in the US, and that you must be currently and actively enrolled as a college student.

The steps on that page, in order:

1. If your student email doesn't sign in through Google or Outlook, set a password first under Settings → Account management.
2. Go to Settings → Account management → Change primary email, and sign in with your student email.
3. Email support@sunsama.com, ask for the student discount and give your target graduation month and year.

The help page says the discount "applies until graduation or four years from application, whichever comes first," and that it can't be applied to past payments. Ask before your first payment, then, so the discount covers it.

That page doesn't state how big the discount is. On Sunsama's public roadmap, a Sunsama team post dated February 11, 2025 announced "a discount for college students," and a team reply the same day said "it is 50%." That reply is from February 2025 and the help page doesn't repeat it, so ask support what the discount is today.

Without a discount, Sunsama's pricing page lists Pro at US$17 a month billed yearly or US$22 billed monthly, as of October 2026, and the billing page says the yearly plan is charged as $204 per user once a year. An FAQ lower on the same pricing page gives $25 a month ($20 for yearly plans), so check the total at checkout. The trial lasts 14 days with no credit card, and the pricing page says "Sunsama doesn't have a free forever plan and doesn't plan to." The billing page adds that the trial works the same as the paid Pro plan, that Sunsama doesn't charge you automatically when it ends, and that you lose access to your workspace at that point. Start the trial in a week that looks like a normal one for you.

A worked example, with a labeled assumption: if the 50% from that 2025 reply still applied, the $204 yearly plan would come to $102 a year. Sunsama doesn't publish that figure; it's our arithmetic.

How does the Akiflow student discount work?

The Akiflow student discount is written into the FAQ on Akiflow's own pricing page. It says "Eligible university students and researchers can receive 40% off Pro Yearly for life" after academic-email verification, and it tells you to contact support@akiflow.com to verify your eligibility. The page says the discount can also apply to Akiflow's longer Believer options.

As of October 2026, the page lists these prices:

• Pro Yearly: $19 a month billed yearly, which the FAQ gives as $228 once a year. The card carries a "PROMO" label and the words "Save 44% yearly".
• Pro Monthly: $34 a month, billed monthly.
• Believer: $357.60 for two years, or $699 for five years.

The page uses a plain dollar sign with no currency code. It also says Akiflow "may apply local purchasing-power pricing in selected countries" and that the checkout price shown for your location is the one that applies. There's no free plan: new customers get a 7-day full-access trial, and a card is required, so note the day it ends. The features listed on the page include Google Calendar sync, Outlook Calendar sync, time blocking and recurring tasks.

A worked example from the page's own numbers: 40% off $228 is $136.80 a year, or $11.40 a month. Your checkout price can differ because of local pricing, and the page doesn't explain the "PROMO" label, so check the total before you pay.

What do TickTick, Todoist and Motion say about students?

TickTick

TickTick's Educational Discount page says "Eligible students, faculty, and staff can get 25% off one year of TickTick Premium," and shows the price as "only US$37.99 after discount." To apply, you log in or sign up, choose "Apply Now" and send educational documents for review. Once you're approved, an email arrives with a link to buy Premium at the discounted price. The education page doesn't say whether the discount renews or whether you can apply again for a second year.

TickTick's upgrade page lists Premium at US$49.99 a year, as of October 2026. By our arithmetic, 25% off that is about US$37.49, a little under the US$37.99 the education page shows, so go by the price in your purchase link. The free plan, at US$0, includes 9 lists with 99 tasks per list, list and kanban views, task reminders and cross-platform sync. Premium adds 299 lists, multiple calendar views, task duration and email reminders. The upgrade page doesn't name Google Calendar or Outlook, and we couldn't tell from it which plan includes recurring tasks or the timeline view.

Todoist

Todoist answers the question directly. Its help article Set up a Todoist Pro subscription says "there aren't any additional discounts or separate promotions for students, families, or non-profit organizations." The same article lists Pro at $7 a month, or $60 a year ($5 a month billed yearly), as of October 2026, and Todoist's pricing page says its prices are in USD.

The free Beginner plan includes 5 personal projects, 3 filter views, task reminders, Smart Quick Add, and list and board layouts. The pricing page says Beginner can "Integrate email, calendar, and more," while the calendar layout appears in the Pro list. We couldn't tell from the pricing page whether recurring due dates come with Beginner.

Motion

We found no student discount on Motion's pricing page. As of October 2026, it lists Pro AI at $19 per seat a month and Business AI at $29 per seat a month, with a "Pay annually (Save 33%)" switch and no separate yearly figure. It offers a free trial and lists no free plan. The page describes its AI Calendar as "Auto-plan your day with smart scheduling," which suits a student with many small tasks that are easy to estimate. Our guide to AI planner apps that auto schedule tasks covers when that helps and when it gets in the way.

Which free plans already cover a student's week?

A student's week asks three things of a planner: classes as fixed blocks, deadlines as dated tasks, and study blocks in the gaps between them. Most weeks also repeat, so it helps when the same lecture, lab or review comes back without retyping. Going by the pricing pages, the free options cover these parts.

Sunsama, Akiflow and Motion have no free plan, so on a budget of zero you get a trial: 14 days at Sunsama, 7 days with a card at Akiflow, and a free trial at Motion. A trial is still worth using well. Plan one real week of classes and deadlines in it, and you'll know whether the paid features earn their price before the student discount comes into it.

For example, picture a second-year nursing student who keeps her classes in one Google calendar and her placement shifts in another. A free setup that shows both calendars, holds her essay deadlines as dated tasks and lets her block two study evenings a week covers her term. She'd pay only if she wanted an app to place the study blocks for her, or to walk her through a planning routine each morning.

What does Barside cost a student?

Barside costs a student nothing to use as a planner. It's free on Windows, Linux and Mac, with no account and no note or workspace limit, and the calendar view, task board, reminders, daily briefing and templates need no AI. Two things can cost money, and both are your choice.

• The AI you connect. Barside has no AI of its own. The assistant and AI search use an account you connect in Settings → AI: Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini with an API key, or OpenRouter with a one-click sign-in, and that company bills you for what you use. If you already pay for a Claude or ChatGPT plan, My plan runs Claude Code or Codex on your computer, signed in with your plan. Anthropic and OpenAI haven't said that apps may use a plan this way, so an API key is the safer choice.
• A cap on AI spending. In Settings → AI, turn on Limit what Barside's AI spends under AI spending limit and pick a daily, weekly or monthly amount. In a month when you ask the assistant nothing, the AI costs you nothing.
• Barside Plus. It's optional and adds cloud backup, sync between computers and cloud agents. Cloud sync is not end-to-end encrypted. Planning on one laptop doesn't need it.

The AI note app pricing guide compares paying per use with a subscription, and the subscription cost calculator adds up what your apps cost in a year.

How do you plan a student week in Barside for free?

To plan a student week in Barside for free, connect your class calendar, add two study templates and turn study blocks into reminders. It works the same way on Windows, Linux and Mac.

1. Download Barside and open it.
2. Open Settings & backups, scroll to Calendars and choose Add calendar.
3. Under Where do I find it?, choose Google Calendar, Outlook or Other, copy your calendar's secret address and paste it into Secret iCal address.
4. Choose Check address, name the calendar, for example Classes, pick a color and choose Add calendar. Repeat for a job or club calendar, up to 10.
5. Add the study planner template for planned hours by subject, and the assignment tracker template for every assignment with its course, due date, status and grade.
6. Put each assignment's next step on the template's This week checklist and give it a date with + date, so it lands on the task board under Today, Tomorrow, Next 7 days or Later, and under Overdue once it's late.
7. Write each study block as a checklist item with its time, press the bell at the end of the line and pick the time. When the reminder appears, click it and the note opens at that line.
8. For a weekly review, make a repeating note: in Settings, click Templates next to Templates & repeating notes, then New repeating note, and choose Every day, Every weekday, Weekly or Monthly.

Each morning, the Daily briefing tab in Library & briefing lists the rest of today's calendar, due reminders and unchecked tasks on one page. The time blocking guide explains how to plan the evening before and leave some room between blocks for overflow.

What are Barside's limits for students?

• It doesn't time block for you. Barside reads your calendars and never adds, moves or deletes events, so you place study blocks yourself. If you want an app to place them, Motion is built around that.
• No repeating tasks. A task is a checklist item with a due date and a reminder if you want one, with no priorities or repeating tasks. Repeating notes cover routines instead.
• No phone app and no timer. Reminders alert while Barside runs on your computer. For timed sessions, use a separate timer, as in the Pomodoro Technique.
• Calendar refresh. Barside refreshes every 15 minutes, when it starts, after your computer wakes or unlocks, and when you choose Refresh. Google can take hours to publish a change to the secret address.
• School accounts. If the secret address or Outlook's publishing option is missing, your school's admin has turned it off.

Where does your planner data live?

Your notes, checklists and reminders live on your computer and work without an account. Barside stores each calendar's secret address encrypted on your computer, leaves it out of backups and downloads the calendar straight from Google or Microsoft, as described in how calendar feeds are stored. When you use the assistant, what you ask goes to the AI company you connected, whose data policy applies (how the AI you connect uses your data). Barside also counts which features are used: it sends barside.space the names of the features used that day, with the system and the Barside version, never notes, files or who you are. It's on by default, and a switch in Settings turns it off.

Student discounts have a privacy side too. Sunsama wants your account under your student email, Akiflow verifies an academic email, and TickTick asks for educational documents, so each company learns your school address or sees your documents. For what AI planners read from your calendar, see AI planner apps and calendar privacy.

Which planner should a student on a budget pick?

Our view is to start free and pay only for what free can't do. A free calendar plus a free planner covers most student weeks, and the paid apps earn their price through something specific: Motion places tasks for you, Sunsama walks you through a daily plan, and Akiflow gathers tasks into its Universal Inbox. If you'll pay, Akiflow's terms are the easiest to check because they're printed on its pricing page, while Sunsama's take an email and a change of address. TickTick's discount leaves the smallest bill for one year.

For the wider field, read the best planner apps for students with time blocking and free daily planner apps that sync with Google Calendar. They compare class timetables, study blocks and free plans in more depth.

Works well with

These guides take the setup above further, from a full student timetable to the task board where your deadlines land.