Time Pencil vs Relay GTD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Time Pencil
Visualize your schedule by drawing events directly onto a clock face. This app offers intuitive tap-to-edit functionality and haptic feedback for a tactile planning experience. It seamlessly syncs with your iOS Calendar and iCloud, and includes widgets for your home and lock screens, plus an Apple Watch app.
- Draw events around a clock
- Tap to edit and move events
- Haptic feedback for tactile precision
- Automatic fading of past events
- Syncs with iOS Calendar and iCloud
- Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets
- Apple Watch companion app
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Time Pencil is a clock with some markers to visualize your day at a glance YOUR CALENDAR, AROUND THE DIAL Time Pencil reads your existing calendars and lays each event as a colored arc on the clock. Overlaps, gaps, the shape of a busy afternoon, it's all visible at once, the way time actually feels. DRAW YOUR DAY Block out focus time, a workout, a break, or "leave for the airport" by drawing an arc right onto the clock. Drop a note sticker anywhere. Planning becomes a one-second gesture instead of a form to fill in. ALWAYS IN VIEW • Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets keep today's clock a glance away. • A Live Activity counts down your next block in the Dynamic Island. • Apple Watch support to carry your day on your wrist. MAKE IT YOURS • 12-hour or 24-hour dial. • Sky mode paints the clock with the real sky: dawn, daylight, dusk and night, as the day moves. • Zen mode strips everything back to the essentials. • Marker colors, hourly chimes, and more. Time Pencil speaks 20 languages, and no account is required to get started. TIME PENCIL PRO Pro is available as an auto-renewing subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://vineetkl.github.io/time-pencil-legal/terms-of-use.html Privacy Policy: https://vineetkl.github.io/time-pencil-legal/privacy-policy.html
Relay GTD
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Relay is a complete task, project and goal management app built for Getting Things Done. CAPTURE ANYTHING, ANYWHERE Type it into the app, share to Relay from any app's share sheet on iPhone and iPad, press Control+Option+N on a Mac to capture over whatever you are working in, or forward an email to your own private Relay address. Everything lands in the Inbox and waits there until you decide what it is. CLARIFY, THEN ENGAGE A short step-through turns each item into a next action, a project with a defined outcome, something you are waiting on, a Someday/Maybe item, reference, or something to drop. Engage then shows what you can do now, filtered by where you are, how much time you have, and whether you have the energy for it. GUIDED REVIEWS The weekly review is where most systems quietly fail, because it depends on remembering to check everything. Relay turns it into a wizard that walks you through clearing the Inbox, updating each project and checking your higher horizons, one step at a time. Trigger lists run you through the ordinary categories people skip, so open loops surface instead of staying in your head, and a five-minute daily review shapes each day. HORIZONS, NOT JUST A LIST Relay models the altitudes above the ground floor: the areas you are responsible for, the goals you are working towards, and the vision and purpose above them. A next action belongs to its project, and the project can link up to the goal or area it serves, so you can see what a piece of work is for and notice when a whole area has gone quiet. SHARED WORKSPACES A shared workspace is for a family, a couple or a small team: up to ten people, each with a Relay account of their own, invited with a link or by email. Delegate a task to someone: it lands in their Inbox and waits in your Waiting For. Each shared workspace has its own Agenda and a shared review. Comments on any item keep the discussion with the task. WIDGETS On iPhone and iPad, put a Relay list such as Inbox, Next Actions or your Soft Landscape on the Home Screen, tick something off without opening the app, or tap to capture. On a Mac, add a widget for Inbox, Next Actions, Soft Landscape, Scheduled, Waiting For or Projects. Widgets need iOS 17 or macOS 14. WORKS WITH THE APPS YOU ALREADY HAVE Apple Calendar, Apple Reminders, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, Google Tasks, Microsoft To Do, Todoist, Notion and Linear. Your calendar sits beside today's actions, and tasks you keep elsewhere come across without being retyped, into your Inbox first. ON EVERY DEVICE Relay runs on iPhone, iPad and Mac, on Windows and on the web, on one account. Sign in with Google to use one account on every device; Sign in with Apple works everywhere except the Windows app. AI THAT WAITS TO BE ASKED Ask and it helps you clarify. It questions a vague capture, says when something you wrote as a task is really a project, and holds a project's "done when" to a standard someone else could check. It never writes your next actions for you, never rewrites your words, and reads nothing unless you ask. SUBSCRIPTION Relay is a paid product, and every account gets the whole app. New accounts get 30 days free, with no card needed, starting when you choose. After that, pay monthly or yearly. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel yours on iPhone or iPad in Settings, under your name, then Subscriptions; on a Mac, in the App Store app, under your account. Terms of use: https://relaygtd.com/terms Privacy policy: https://relaygtd.com/privacy Getting Things Done and GTD are registered trademarks of the David Allen Company. Relay is not affiliated with, authorised by, or endorsed by the David Allen Company.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Relay GTD at every 5 days against Time Pencil's every 3 weeks. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Time Pencil sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Relay GTD sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $7.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Time Pencil ships an update every 3 weeks, Relay GTD every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Time Pencil | Relay GTD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 16.1 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 71 MB | 67 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Vineet Kapil | Michael Fraser Buffini |
In-app purchases
Time Pencil
- Monthly$1.991 Month
- Time Pencil Full7 Days trial$14.991 Year
- Lifetime$39.99
Relay GTD
- Relay Monthly1 Month trial$7.001 Month
- Relay Yearly1 Month trial$50.001 Year









