Questions, answered.

How does the free trial work?

You get 7 days free. No card needed. Anser reminds you in the app before the trial ends, and by email three days before and on the day it ends.

How much is Anser after that?

While our founding price is open, $5 a month or $45 a year, and it stays that for as long as you’re subscribed, even if you switch between them. After that, it’s $10 a month, or $95 a year (about $7.92 a month). Prices are in US dollars, plus tax where it applies.

What happens if my trial ends and I don’t choose a plan?

Your planner closes until you choose a plan. Closing it deletes nothing: it all opens again, as you left it, the moment you do. We still empty Recently deleted on its usual schedule. While it’s closed you can download your data or delete your account, and calendars friends share with you stay open, for free.

Can I cancel?

Yes, any time, in Settings › Plan & billing › Manage billing. You keep full access until the end of the period you paid for. Not for you after all? Email us within 30 days of your first payment and we refund it in full. The full details are in our Terms.

How do I invite friends?

Copy your link from Settings › Plan & billing › Invite friends to Anser (or “Invite friends” when you tap your picture) and send it. A friend who makes a new Anser account from it gets the usual 7 days free, with no card needed.

When a friend you invited makes their first payment, you get a free month, up to 5. It’s added 30 days later, once that payment can’t be refunded: on a monthly plan your next month is free; on a yearly plan your renewal moves a month later. Still in your own trial? The month is added once your plan starts. The full rules are in our Terms.

Do I need Google?

No. You can sign in with Google, or with your email: Anser emails you a 6-digit code, and you type it in. That also works inside TikTok’s and Instagram’s browsers, where Google sign-in doesn’t.

Anser works on its own without Google Calendar. You can connect Google any time from Settings › Calendars, and it joins the same account, even if your Google address is different from the one you signed up with.

Does Anser work with Google Calendar?

Yes. Connect it when you sign up with Google, or any time in Settings › Calendars. Anser shows the events already there, checks them against your boundaries, and saves new events you add in Anser to the Google calendar you choose.

In Settings › Calendars you pick which calendars to Show in Anser and which Count as busy. Changes you make in Google usually show up in Anser within a few minutes, and Sync now checks straight away. If an event changed in both places, Anser asks which version to keep. Anser only changes your Google Calendar when you ask it to. When you save, move or delete an event with guests, Anser asks whether Google should email them; nobody is emailed unless you choose it, and the email is Google’s own, not Anser’s.

Anser keeps only what it needs: an event’s title, times, place or meeting link, and the names of the people on it (not their email addresses), or just when you’re busy for a calendar that only counts as busy. Event descriptions aren’t copied, and notes you add to an event in Anser stay in Anser: they’re never sent to Google. Its checklist isn’t either, and routines stay in Anser unless you switch one on for Google Calendar. When you open an event that came from Google, its description is read from Google at that moment to show you, and Anser keeps none of it. A description you write for an event’s guests is the one text that is sent: it’s saved to the Google event, where your guests read it. If you change it in Google afterwards, Anser doesn’t see the change. Turn a calendar off and its events are removed from Anser, apart from the ones you made in Anser; they stay in Google.

What is protected time?

The part of your week you want to keep: your working hours, evenings, sleep, or anything else you set up in Settings › Boundaries. When something lands inside it, Anser tells you, and you decide whether to allow it once or decline.

What happens when I decline?

Declining needs your Google Calendar connected. Your “declined” answer is recorded in Google Calendar, with a short note on it. When you choose to, Anser also emails the organiser a few words from you (“you via Anser”). You see the words before anything goes, and replies come straight to your email.

Pick how it sounds in Settings › Boundaries › How you decline: Warm, Friendly, Direct or your own words, and edit any of them. Anser’s words never say why unless it’s your working hours, and the invite note ends with “Protected with Anser” unless you turn that off.

If you’re optional on an invite, Anser declines in Google without emailing the organiser, unless you choose to send a note. It only says “declined automatically” when a special day declined an invite for you.

Anser never sends from your Gmail. If the note can’t go out, Anser tells you, and your answer is still in Google Calendar.

Is there an app?

Anser works in your phone’s browser. Add it to your Home Screen to open it like an app and get notifications. On iPhone and iPad: Share, then Add to Home Screen.

On a Mac, you can put Anser in your Dock. There’s nothing to download: it opens in its own window, like an app, and usually you’re already signed in.

Safari: Open anserplanner.com, click Share in the toolbar, then choose Add to Dock and Add. Chrome: Open anserplanner.com, then the ⋮ menu › Cast, save, and share › Install page as app. Safari’s Add to Dock needs macOS Sonoma or later.

Yes, Anser for Chrome, from the Chrome Web Store. Click the Anser icon in Chrome’s toolbar, or press Alt+Shift+D, to see what’s next today, tick off or add to your Top 3, tick routines, add to a tracker, start a focus session, play Anser’s background sounds, or quick-add an event, without opening Anser. Click an event to change it in Anser. While you focus, the icon counts down the minutes.

It uses your normal Anser sign-in, so there’s nothing to set up. It saves what you tick straight to your account. So it opens instantly, it keeps a copy of today on your computer, read again when Chrome starts and just after midnight (and, while you focus, when the session ends), deleted once you sign out of Anser. It doesn’t read your browsing, and it doesn’t change your new tab.

To remove it, open Chrome’s Extensions menu (the puzzle piece), find Anser, and choose Remove from Chrome.

• Safari’s own help
• Chrome’s own help
• Anser for Chrome in the Chrome Web Store

How do notifications work?

In Settings › Notifications you choose, for each kind, whether it comes as a push notification, an email, both or neither, and whether Anser stays quiet while you sleep. Push works per device: turn it on there with its switch at the top. On iPhone and iPad, add Anser to your Home Screen first and turn push on from there. The focus timer is different: it only notifies you while Anser is open in a tab.

Can I change how Anser looks?

Yes, in Settings › Appearance. Pick a style (Summer Picnic, Classic, Hand-drawn or Ruled), light or dark, a font, a colour palette and an accent. Choose the goose, the hedgehog, the puppy or the kitty as your companion, or turn it off and simple icons take its place. There’s also a monogram for your sidebar, cozy backgrounds, the weather beside the date, and five looks for categories.

Hand-drawn looks like a paper planner, with handwriting and marker colours, in your own palette.

Your companion breathes gently, and a tap gives it a little heart. Nothing is counted and nothing is earned. It stays still with reduced motion on, and in the Classic style.

Can I make Anser easier to read?

Yes, in Settings › Accessibility. Text size has four steps: Smaller, Default, Large and Larger. Anser also follows your browser’s own text size, and your browser’s zoom works too. Contrast follows your device until you pick a level: Softer, More or Most. You can also reduce motion and switch to an easier-to-read font. There’s more at anserplanner.com/accessibility.

• Accessibility at Anser

Does Anser make sounds?

Only if you want them. Anser is quiet until you say otherwise: after the first thing you do, it asks once whether to turn on cozy sounds. Change it any time in Sounds, at the top of your calendar, where clicks and chimes can be Off, Soft or Playful. Background sound (rain, café, fireplace, forest and lo-fi music) starts only when you press play there, and keeps going until you pause it. Each is a real recording, or for lo-fi a piece of music, that its maker gave to the public domain; where each comes from is listed at anserplanner.com/sounds/LICENSES.md.

Who can see my calendar and notes?

Only you. Today’s page and your notes, with their tags, your trackers, your to-dos, your moods, gratitude notes and reflections, and your vision board are private to you. Photos and files you attach are kept in private storage that only your account can open. None of it is shared with Shared Life.

If you share a calendar, the people you add can see that calendar’s events, notes included.

Do you sell my data?

No. We don’t sell your information. If you say yes on our website, we share a little with Google and Pinterest to measure our ads, and the Privacy Policy says exactly what.

Can I take my data with me?

Yes, any time: Settings › Profile & account › Download my data. You get one ZIP with your day pages and notes (and their tags), calendar, routines, trackers, to-dos, moods, reflections, goals, boundaries and vision board photos, in files that open without Anser.

How do I delete my account?

Go to Settings › Profile & account › Delete account, and type “delete” to confirm. Download your data first if you’d like a copy. This removes your Anser data and files right away, and cancels your plan so you’re not charged again. Your Google Calendar stays as it is.

Our database backups keep a copy for up to 9 days, then it’s gone too. Or email hello@anserplanner.com and we’ll do it within 30 days.

Do friends I plan with have to pay?

No. Friends you plan with in Shared Life join free, always. They only pay if they want their own full Anser.

What can people in Shared Life see?

Only what you choose for each person: your busy and free times, so Anser can find when you’re both free, and your boundaries, shown as your protected time (counted as busy, never named). Event titles and notes are never shared from your own calendar, and routines don’t make you look busy unless you turn that on for one.

A shared calendar is different: anyone you add to it sees what’s on that calendar, notes included. An event you put there is a plan together, unless you choose Heads-up beside the calendar’s name: then it’s your own time that the others can see, it only makes you busy, and only you can change it. You can change what each person sees, remove someone, or pause all sharing at any time in Settings › Shared Life. When someone pauses sharing with you, turns it back on, or changes what you can see, Anser tells you.

Shared plans you add or accept go into your Google Calendar when it’s connected. Plans other people add go in only if you turn on “Add shared plans to my Google Calendar” in Settings › Shared Life; it’s off until you do. They go in without anyone’s email address, and if you turn the setting off or leave the calendar, Anser takes out only the copies it added.

How do I get help?

Write to us from the contact page, or email hello@anserplanner.com. When you’re signed in, you can also tap your picture and choose Help and feedback to send us a note from the app. A real person reads every message. To suggest a feature or vote for someone else’s, see the ideas board at anserplanner.com/ideas.

For a look around, “Get to know Anser” sits in your sidebar (on a phone, on You, which your picture opens), and “Show me around” in Help and feedback walks through everything. Neither opens by itself.

• The ideas board