Alarmy alternative: Alarmy vs Alarm Clock Planner
These two apps solve different problems. Alarmy makes sure you get out of bed. Alarm Clock Planner makes sure the right alarm is waiting on the right day. Which one you want depends on which of those is your problem.*
Pick Alarmy if you truly sleep through ordinary alarms and need a task, like a math problem or a photo, before the alarm will stop, and you can live with ads or a subscription.
Pick Alarm Clock Planner if you want an alarm that is easy to stop, backup alarms or your own snooze pattern instead of a puzzle, alarms planned by date, and 0 ads, for $2.99 a year or $9.99 once.
 Alarmy |  Alarm Clock Planner | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Heavy sleepers who need a task to switch the alarm off | Alarms on specific dates, and anyone with a long list of alarms |
| US rating (average) | Yes 4.8★ | Yes 4.8★ |
| Set alarms without paying† | Limited With ads | Yes Up to 3 alarms, 0 ads |
| Pay once, no subscription** | Yes About $144 for a lifetime plan 14× ours | Yes $9.99 |
| Cost for one year if subscribed** | $59.99 20× ours | $2.99 |
| Wake-up missions (math, photo, shake) | Yes | No |
| Alarm on a specific date | No Its editor repeats on days of the week only, like the Clock app's | Yes |
| Rings as a full alarm with the app closed*** | Yes First as Apple's native alarm. Dismiss it and Alarmy's own page starts ringing again, a dancing cat with an ad above and below, and dismissing that brings a full-screen ad | Yes It uses Apple's native alarms, so it rings through Silent and Focus |
| No ads† | No Banner ads, ads around its ringing page and a full-screen ad after it | Yes No ads |
| No tracking (App Store privacy label) | No Declares data used to track you | Yes No data linked to you |
| Languages | Yes 10 or more | Yes 10 or more |
| Last update | Q4 2026 | Q4 2026 |
| Get it | App Store | Download |
Where Alarmy is stronger
Waking heavy sleepers
Missions are Alarmy's whole design: solve math, shake the phone, do squats or photograph a spot in another room before the alarm stops, with options to block snoozing and switching the phone off. If nothing else gets you up, that works. The catch is the same thing that makes it work: at 6 AM you are solving a puzzle half asleep, and reviewers describe a heavy push to buy the subscription on top.
Sleep features
A sleep tracker, snore detection, sleep sounds and bedtime reminders, all in one app. Snore detection means the microphone listening through the night, and the photo mission needs the camera. If you have an Apple Watch, you may not need any of it: the watch tracks your sleep stages into the Health app on its own, with no extra app and nothing more to pay.
Reach
32 languages, about 250,000 US ratings, and iPhones back to iOS 17. A star rating mostly says how the first days felt, not how the alarm holds up after a month: Alarmy asked us for one on our first day, before it had woken us a single morning. Popular is not the same as right for how you wake up. And on iPhones that cannot run iOS 26 (the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR from 2018, and anything older), no app can use Apple's native alarms.
Where Alarm Clock Planner is stronger
One alarm, one stop
A native alarm rings, you stop it, and that is the end of it, the same way Apple does it with their Clock app. Alarmy does ring as a native alarm first, but when we dismissed it, Alarmy's own page started ringing again: a dancing cat under the alarm's name, with an ad above and below. Dismissing that brought a full-screen ad. Two rings and an ad before you are out of bed. Funny cats on the first morning; by the tenth they are one more gimmick between you and the stop button.
Easy to stop, hard to sleep through
Instead of a puzzle, set two or three alarms a few minutes apart in one tag and switch them on or off together, or keep one alarm and give it your own snooze pattern: a snooze length from 1 to 30 minutes and a limit of 1, 2 or 3 snoozes, so the last one is the one that gets you up. Each rings full screen as a native alarm, with Snooze and a slide to stop and nothing else around it.
Alarms on dates, not just weekdays
Pick any day on a calendar, with monthly, yearly and every-other-week repeats and end dates. Alarmy's editor only repeats on days of the week, like the Clock app's; there is no date to pick.
0 ads at 6 AM
At 6 AM you would barely notice ads above and below your alarm. They are still being shown and paid for, though: in Alarmy's free version, the moment you wake up is part of what is being sold, and its privacy label lists data used to track you. Alarm Clock Planner has 0 ads, even in the free version.
Less to pay
Unlimited alarms are $2.99 a year or $9.99 once. Alarmy's yearly plan is $59.99 on the US list, 20 times ours, and its lifetime plan is about $144, 14 times ours.
About Alarm Clock Planner
An iPhone alarm clock built around the calendar, for alarms you plan ahead.
- Alarms for any future date, picked on a calendar
- Monthly, yearly, every-other-week and custom repeats, with an end date
- Tags like Work or Travel, and a whole group switched on or off at once
- A month calendar of every alarm
- 19 built-in sounds or your own audio file
- One-tap naps, Home and Lock Screen widgets, 23 themes
- Backed up to your own iCloud
Alarmy and Alarm Clock Planner, side by side
Screens we captured ourselves, Alarmy on the left, ours on the right. Ads are pixelated and outlined in red by us.†
Alarmy's design is clean and minimal, but each alarm is a big card, so the list grows long fast, and with repeats limited to days of the week, every variation becomes another card in the pile. Alarm Clock Planner is built in the iPhone's current design, Liquid Glass, like Apple's own apps on iOS 26: alarms sit in compact rows, grouped by tag and by date, with a month calendar of all of them.
The main screen
Alarmy's alarm list, with a banner ad at the bottom (ad pixelated by us).
Setting an alarm
Alarmy's alarm editor, with missions, a locked 'Wake up check' and days of the week as the only repeat.
When it rings, app closed
Alarmy's own ringing page, the second ring after its native alarm: a dancing cat under our alarm's name, with an ad above and below (ads pixelated by us).
The upgrade screen
Alarmy's upgrade screen from its PRO badge: 'One alarm is enough', a free trial and no price on screen.
What we saw using Alarmy
From 20 to 23 October 2026, on an iPhone 11 Pro Max with iOS 27.0.1, on an EU App Store account.†
- With the app closed, the alarm first rang as Apple's native alarm, like the Clock app's.
- When we dismissed it, Alarmy's own page took over and started ringing again: a dancing cat under the alarm's name, Snooze and Dismiss, and an ad above and below that changed while it rang.
- Dismissing that one left us in the app, in front of a full-screen ad we had to close as well.
- Its alarm editor repeats on days of the week only; there is no date to pick.
- It asked us for a rating on our first day, before it had woken us a single morning.
- Its alarm list carries a banner ad. One upgrade screen said 'One alarm is enough' and showed no price; another offered yearly, monthly and lifetime plans.
What Alarm Clock Planner does not do
- Make you solve anything. Stopping is a slide, like the Clock app. If you need a harder stop, Alarmy is built for that; if you mostly need a second chance, backup alarms a few minutes apart, or one alarm with your own snooze length and snooze limit, usually do it.
- Track your sleep, or ask for your microphone and camera. An Apple Watch worn to bed already records your sleep stages in the Health app, on its own.
- Need a subscription. Up to 3 alarms are free, and $9.99 once unlocks the rest.
- 0 ads, even in the free version.
What recent reviews of Alarmy mention
From US App Store reviews of Alarmy read on 23 October 2026 (most recent and most helpful). These are individual experiences, not tests we ran, but these themes came up more than once:
- alarms that occasionally fail to go off
- heavy battery drain
- a heavy push to buy the subscription
Pricing
Alarmy's free version comes with ads, on the ringing screen too in our test. Its paid plans start with a 7-day free trial: $59.99 a year on the US list, a monthly plan, and a lifetime plan of about $144. Alarm Clock Planner's free version has 0 ads and holds up to 3 alarms at a time; unlimited alarms are $2.99 a year or $9.99 once.
Questions
Does Alarm Clock Planner have missions like Alarmy?
No. If you sleep through every alarm and need a puzzle or a photo to switch one off, Alarmy is the better choice. If you mostly need a second chance, two or three alarms a few minutes apart, or one alarm with a snooze length from 1 to 30 minutes and a limit of 1, 2 or 3 snoozes, often work better than a puzzle at 6 AM.
Can Alarmy set an alarm for a specific date?
No. Its alarm editor repeats on days of the week only, like the Clock app's, with no date to pick (checked in the app, October 2026).
Do both use Apple's native alarms?
Yes, both do on iOS 26. The difference is what comes after. Alarm Clock Planner's alarm is done when you stop it. When we dismissed Alarmy's native alarm, its own page rang a second time, with ads above and below, and then showed a full-screen ad.
Try Alarm Clock Planner
Free for up to 3 alarms. Rings on Silent. No account needed.
* We make Alarm Clock Planner, so weigh our view accordingly. Facts about the other apps come from their US App Store listings, privacy policies and public US reviews, checked on 23 October 2026, and from using each app ourselves. Versions compared: Alarmy 26.41.0, Alarm Clock Planner 1.3.4.
** US App Store prices. The US list does not name plan lengths, so a plan's length comes from the app's own upgrade screen, and a US price is used only where it clearly matches that plan. “Cost for one year if subscribed” is the cheapest plan that covers 12 months. A mark on “Pay once” only says whether a one-time unlock exists; “2.5× ours” compares a price with Alarm Clock Planner's $9.99 once or $2.99 a year. Two prices are estimates, marked “about”, because the US list does not show them: Alarmy's lifetime plan (Alarmy charges the same number in dollars and euros, as its yearly plan shows, so we took the figure from its upgrade screen) and Sleep Cycle's yearly plan.
*** From each listing, checked on our own iPhone: iOS Settings shows an Alarms switch for apps that use Apple's native alarms (AlarmKit, iOS 26 and later), and we let an alarm ring with each app closed where the app let us set one. A cross means it does not use them: the app has to stay open, or it alerts through notifications, which are short and, unless they are Critical Alerts, follow the Silent switch.
† What we saw using each app ourselves, 20 to 23 October 2026, on an iPhone 11 Pro Max with iOS 27.0.1, on an EU App Store account. Ads and offers can differ by country and change over time. On “Set alarms without paying”, a tick means free with no ads, amber means free with ads or without the native alarm, and a cross means a payment or a trial comes first.