Cria Planner
Comparison
Cozi alternatives: six family organisers, honestly compared
Most people looking for a Cozi alternative are not looking for a better app. They are looking for the app they already had, before the part they used every day moved behind a paywall. Here is what is actually out there, including where Cozi is still the right answer.
The short version
If you want a free shared calendar and nothing else, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar already do that and cost nothing. If you want a family calendar with event chat, TimeTree is the most established. If you want the calendar, the lists, the meals and the money in one place, that is a smaller field, and it is the one Cria Planner is in. If you want a wall screen in the kitchen, Skylight is a different category and probably still worth it.
What actually changed with Cozi
Cozi Gold costs $39 a year, and the list of what it unlocks includes an ad-free experience, calendar search, up to three reminders per event, birthday tracking, and month view on mobile (Cozi's own Gold page). That last one is why people leave. Month view on a phone is not an advanced feature. For most households it is the feature, and the free app stopped being a family calendar the day it went.
None of which makes Cozi a bad app. It has been doing this for well over a decade, its shopping lists are excellent, and $39 a year is entirely reasonable if you use it daily. The question is only whether you want to pay it, and what you get if you would rather not.
The six, compared
Prices are the publishers' own list prices at the time of writing and vary by region. Check the store before you commit to anything.
| App | Free tier | Paid | Beyond the calendar | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cozi | Shared calendar with ads. Month view on mobile and calendar search are Gold-only. | $39/yr | Shopping and to-do lists, meal planner, recipe box. | Big families already deep in it who will pay for Gold. |
| Google Calendar | Everything. No ads, no cap. | Free | Nothing. It is a calendar. Tasks are a separate app. | Households already living in Gmail who only need dates. |
| Apple Calendar | Everything, via iCloud Family Sharing. | Free | Reminders and shared lists, if everyone is on Apple. | All-iPhone households. Falls apart the moment one person is not. |
| TimeTree | Shared calendars with per-event chat. Shows ads. | $4.49/mo or $44.99/yr | Event comments and a shared memo. No money features. | Coordinating with people who talk about every event. |
| Skylight | Requires the hardware. | Device, plus a subscription for the extras | A physical touchscreen for the kitchen wall. | Families who want the calendar visible without a phone. |
| Cria Planner | Full calendar, no view cap. Sync across your devices, any plan shared with one other person, this week's meal plan. Shows ads after the first week. | From $2.99/mo | Tasks, notes, meal plans, shopping lists, shared budgets with settle-up, AI assistant from Family up. | Households where the money and the meals matter as much as the dates. |
Pick by what broke, not by the feature list
“I just want my month view back”
Then you want a free calendar, and you should take one. Google Calendar with a shared family calendar does this properly and will never take month view away. It will not do your shopping list, but neither does a paywalled calendar you are not paying for.
“Half the household is on Android”
This rules out leaning on Apple's built-in apps, which is the quiet reason most families end up on a third-party app at all. Anything in the table except Apple Calendar works here. Check the app has a real web version too, because sooner or later somebody will need it on a laptop.
“The arguments are about money, not dates”
Then a calendar is the wrong tool and swapping calendars will not help. Most family organisers, Cozi included, have no concept of who paid for what. You either add a second app for it, usually Splitwise, or you find one that does both. This is the specific gap Cria Planner was built for: costs are logged against the same plan the events live in, and a settle-up round works out who owes whom.
“Nobody else will actually open the app”
The honest answer is that this is not a software problem, and every app in this table will fail at it equally. What helps is making the thing visible without requiring anyone to go looking: a wall screen like Skylight, or reminders that fire on the other person's phone rather than yours. What does not help is a fifth app and a family meeting about it. There is more on making it stick in a separate guide.
In Cria Planner: the free tier is free indefinitely, with the whole calendar and no 30-day window. Cloud sync across your own devices and any plan shared with one other person, on iPhone, Android and the web. Paid tiers start at $2.99 a month and the people you invite never pay.
What to check before you move
Moving a household calendar is a genuine cost, mostly in other people's patience, so it is worth doing once. Four things to test on the free tier before you migrate anything:
- Does month view work on the phone? That is the one that got you here.
- Can the other person actually get in? Send the invite before you enter three months of appointments, not after.
- Do reminders reach the right phone? A shared event that only nudges the person who created it is just a diary.
- Is there a way out? Check you can export or delete everything. An app that is hard to leave is telling you something.
Then move one month, not five years. If it survives a fortnight, move the rest.
One plan everyone can see
Calendar, tasks, notes, meals and shared costs in one app. Free for two people, no view cap, nothing that expires.