Five products people are pointed at, side by side.
Facts from their own pages, checked 10 September 2026.
Any.do is a task and calendar app with a WhatsApp bot bolted on, best if your to-do lists already live there, and its bot needs a paid plan. Dola does one job well: you write, speak or photograph a plan and it lands in your calendar, in WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage or Line. Perisclaw runs on your own WhatsApp number and reads your existing chats to chase commitments, which is powerful and a bigger trust decision. Dume is desk-shaped: a browser and desktop product with WhatsApp as a remote control. Meta AI is already in your WhatsApp for questions and images, and does not manage your calendar. Handled is a separate contact in WhatsApp, Telegram or Microsoft Teams that takes the jobs off your plate: reminders, calendar, email, tasks, voice notes and photos of receipts and schedules, in the language you write in.
One row per product. "Not stated" means the product's own pages do not say, and we did not guess. Sources and dates are at the foot of the page.
| Product | Where you write to it | Jobs it does | Voice notes and photos | Languages | Price and free tier | Data isolation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Handled | WhatsApp, Telegram, Microsoft Teams. A separate contact, no app to install | Reminders, Google and Microsoft calendar, email sending from Gmail or Outlook, tasks and Todoist, morning briefing, documents and reports | Voice notes yes. Photos and documents yes, several in a row with one answer, for example three receipts with the total | Answers in the language you write in. Voice notes listed in nine languages | Free plan: 5 messages a day, unlimited tasks, all integrations, no card. Pro $1 the first month, then $10 a month or $79 a year | Every customer runs in their own container on Google Cloud. No training on your conversations. AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit. GDPR |
| Any.do WhatsApp bot | A WhatsApp bot linked to your Any.do account, activated from the web, desktop, Android or iOS app | Tasks and lists, reminders delivered on WhatsApp, forwarded messages turned into tasks, board tasks and teammate assignment. Calendar in the app, not stated for the bot | Voice notes yes: "Record a voice note and send it to the bot". Files and images can be attached to a task | You can write in 16 listed languages. "The bot's replies will always be in English" | Not on the free plan. "Free users: This feature is not available". Premium $7.99 a month, or $4.99 a month billed annually | Not stated |
| Dola | WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage and Line. Added as a contact, no app needed | Calendar events and reminders, group plans in a group chat, sync with Google and Apple calendars | Text, voice clips and images, all turned into events | Not stated for the chat assistant | Not verified. Its own site did not load for us on 10 September 2026, so we list no price | Not stated |
| Perisclaw | Your own WhatsApp number, as a linked device. "There is no new phone number or bot account to manage" | Tasks and commitments read out of your chats, reminders and scheduled messages, calendar, daily briefs, automations, Drive and Sheets | "Drop a text or voice note". Photos not stated | Not stated | No free plan. "Free for 7 days. No card needed", then Pro at $20 a month, listed at $15 as alpha pricing | "Every user gets their own encrypted and isolated container". No training. ISO 27001 and GDPR claimed |
| Dume.ai | Browser and a Mac or Windows desktop app, with WhatsApp as a remote control. Chrome extension. Phone calls | Email triage, morning briefing, calendar moves, routines, research. Account and integration setup needs the web app | Phone calls yes. Voice notes and photos not stated on its WhatsApp page | Not stated | Free tier: 20 messages a day, 1,200 credits a year. GO $8 a month billed yearly, $9 monthly. PRO $15. MAX $33 | "Accessible only to your account", AES-256, no training, GDPR and CCPA. Per-user isolation not stated |
| Meta AI, what comes built in | Already inside WhatsApp for most people | Answers questions, creates and edits images, summarises messages. Reminders are in beta testing, not general. No calendar, no email, no tasks | Reads photos you send. Voice input not stated on the WhatsApp page | 60 languages listed | Included with WhatsApp, no price page | Personal messages are end to end encrypted. Private Processing for AI replies. No per-user isolation claim |
Four honest situations. In three of them, something other than Handled is the better pick.
Then use its WhatsApp bot. Your tasks, boards and reminders stay in one place, and a forwarded message becomes a task. Two things to know first: the bot needs Premium, Family or Workspace, and its replies come back in English whichever of the 16 languages you wrote in.
Then Dola is enough, and it is the lightest thing here: add a contact, send a line, a voice clip or a photo of an invitation, and the event lands in Google or Apple calendar. Handled would give you email, tasks, briefs and documents you did not ask for.
Then look at Perisclaw. It links to the number you already use and pulls promises out of your conversations, which is how it chases follow-ups. Handled cannot do that: it is a separate contact and sees only what you send it. Both designs are legitimate. They are different bargains.
A photo of a bill, a voice note about the week, "move Thursday to four", "email the quote to Anna", "what is on tomorrow". Handled takes the action, in the language you wrote in, on WhatsApp, Telegram or Teams, and messages you first when something needs you. Free to try, no app.
Ask the same question in Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish and the answers name smaller reminder bots. What their own pages say, checked 21 September 2026.
| Product | Where you write to it | Jobs it does | Languages | Price and free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aura Lembretes | WhatsApp only | Reminders from text, voice and photos of bills, spending notes, Google Calendar sync | Portuguese | 3 reminders a day free. R$19,90 a month, family plan R$29,90 for five people |
| Pokobot | WhatsApp only | Reminders in plain words, recurring tasks, Google Calendar, quiet hours | Not stated | 7-day trial. India price ₹99 a month or ₹999 a year; other regions not stated |
| NagMeLater | WhatsApp only | Reminders, to-do lists, habit streaks, notes, Google Calendar nudges, daily and weekly briefings, group reminders, voice notes | English, Hindi, Spanish, Arabic and more | 7-day trial. $4.99 a month, $1.99 launch offer, or $59 once |
| Winston the Pug (pug.bot) | WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal | Reminders, calendar, voice transcription, file search, tasks across Gmail and Google Calendar | English, French, Spanish, Arabic | Not stated |
| Tiztar | WhatsApp only, for businesses | Answers customers, detects sales intent, books appointments. Not a personal assistant | Spanish | Not stated. One month free for selected businesses |
What sets Handled apart from this group: it also sends email, reads a photo of a timetable or a letter into dated reminders, makes shared lists and pages from one message, and works in Telegram and Microsoft Teams as well. Nora Assistant is also named in these answers; its site did not load for us, so it has no row.
Probably not. If your lists live there, its WhatsApp bot is the shorter road. Check two things on its own help page first: the bot needs a Premium, Family or Workspace plan, and replies come back in English even when you write in another language.
Then a calendar-only assistant is enough. Dola is built for that one job, in WhatsApp, Telegram, iMessage and Line, and it takes text, voice and images. Handled does calendar too, along with email, tasks, reminders, documents and a morning brief, which may be more than you want.
Handled reads photos and documents, and answers about several at once, for example three receipts with one total. Any.do accepts a file or image and attaches it to a task. Dola turns images into calendar events. Perisclaw and Dume do not state photo reading on their own pages.
Handled: free plan with 5 messages a day, unlimited tasks and all integrations, then Pro at $1 the first month, then $10 a month or $79 a year. Any.do: the app has a free plan, but WhatsApp reminders sit in Premium at $7.99 a month, or $4.99 a month billed annually. Perisclaw: 7 days free, then $20 a month, listed at $15 as alpha pricing. Dume: free tier of 20 messages a day, paid from $8 a month billed yearly. Meta AI comes with WhatsApp.
With Handled, every customer runs in their own container on Google Cloud, conversations are never used for training, and data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Perisclaw states an encrypted, isolated container per user. Dume states your data is accessible only to your account. Any.do and Dola do not state per-user isolation on the pages we checked.
One contact in the chat you already use, for the jobs that pile up: reminders, the calendar, email, tasks, the photo of the bill, the voice note from the car. It confirms the time in your time zone, asks before it sends anything, and tells you first when something needs you. Free to start, no app, and your conversations sit in an environment that is yours alone.
Product names and trademarks belong to their owners. Prices and features change: if we have something wrong, write to [email protected] and we will fix it and note the date.
