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Messaging Agents

Leaderboard

The directory itself is unranked, because we have not used these products enough to say which is better and a directory that pretends otherwise is selling something. These boards rank the things we did measure. Every criterion is mechanical and listed in full, so you can recompute any position yourself.

What each product tells you

Eight disclosures, each of which any of these companies could publish today at no cost. A low score is a choice, not a limitation. Nobody scores 8 of 8; the best in the set manage 6.

  1. 1

    Catch

    Email, scheduling, travel and outbound phone calls, proactive by default

    SMSEmailVoice
    6 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Says how you start
  2. 2

    Kachibeta

    One agent for a circle of friends: you text it a goal, it texts the people involved

    iMessage
    6 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Says how you start
  3. 3

    Martin

    Charges for proactivity rather than capacity, at $35 or $49 a month

    iMessageSMS
    6 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Names its model providers
  4. 4

    Orchid

    Email triage, calendar and bookings, with 220,000+ emails processed

    EmailText it
    6 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Names who carries the messages, Names its model providers
  5. 5

    Pally

    Life-admin triage where relationship nudges are a side effect, not the pitch

    iMessageWhatsAppEmailSlack
    6 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Names who carries the messages
  6. 6

    Pokeacquired

    The first independent third-party agent approved on Apple Messages for Business

    iMessageWhatsAppTelegram
    6 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Names who carries the messages, Says how you start
  7. 7

    Tomo

    Coaching and accountability that charges for the unprompted check-in

    iMessageSMSWeb
    6 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Names who carries the messages, Says how you start
  8. 8

    222

    A questionnaire, then a reservation for a blind group dinner

    iMessageSMS
    5 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says how you start
  9. 9

    Ditto

    Dating where the AI swipes, messages and chooses on your behalf

    iMessageSMS
    5 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Names its model providers, Says how you start
  10. 10

    Homer

    Texts you back on iMessage or SMS, and will phone a business for you

    5 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says what happens if you cancel, Names its model providers, Says how you start
  11. 11

    Notis

    Executes across your existing tools from a text, on five channels

    iMessageWhatsAppTelegramSlackEmail
    5 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Names its model providers
  12. 12

    OpenClaw

    A general agent in your contacts on five platforms, selling overnight autonomy

    iMessageWhatsAppTelegramDiscordSlack
    5 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Says what happens if you cancel, Says how you start
  13. 13

    Ori

    Turns "we should" into a plan, then gets out of the way

    iMessageSMS
    5 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Says how you start
  14. 14

    Wajo

    A group agent that places its own calls and pays with its own card

    iMessageSMSVoice
    5 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says how you start
  15. 15

    Boba

    A group agent that stays quiet during normal chatter and joins when needed

    iMessageSMS
    4 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Says how you start
  16. 16

    Caddy

    A work assistant in your texts, blue bubbles on iPhone and RCS on Android

    iMessageRCSSMS
    4 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Names who carries the messages, Says how you start
  17. 17

    Duckbill

    The model plans, background-checked humans execute

    SMSEmailWeb
    4 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Says how you start
  18. 18

    Jarvie

    A group-chat agent that coordinates dinners and trips and remembers the group

    iMessageSMS
    4 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Addresses people who never signed up, Says what happens if you cancel, Says how you start
  19. 19

    Lucas

    An assistant that texts you first across iMessage, WhatsApp and SMS

    iMessageWhatsAppSMS
    4 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Addresses people who never signed up, Names its model providers
  20. 20

    Vellum

    An agent with its own identity and filesystem, across text, desktop and voice

    TelegramSlackEmailVoiceWeb
    4 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Names its model providers, Says how you start
  21. 21

    Arlo

    Reads your work tools and asks approval before anything consequential goes out

    3 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Names who carries the messages, Says how you start
  22. 22

    Boardy

    A voice AI that phones you, learns what you need, and makes introductions

    Voice
    3 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Addresses people who never signed up, Says how you start
  23. 23

    folk

    A personal AI with an isolated cloud computer and a persistent memory graph

    iMessageTelegramWhatsAppDiscord
    3 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Says whether it trains on you, Names who carries the messages
  24. 24

    iChatWithGPT

    The simplest shape in the category: a model at the end of a text thread

    iMessage
    3 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Names its model providers, Says how you start
  25. 25

    Shuffle

    An AI teammate in iMessage and SMS group chats, summoned with @agent

    3 of 8Discloses: Has a privacy policy, Addresses people who never signed up, Says how you start
  26. 26

    Sidekicks

    Add a number to any iMessage or SMS group and it participates like a member

    3 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Has a privacy policy, Says how you start
  27. 27

    Emberbeta

    One tap to start, no signup, and its main use is decoding a confusing text

    2 of 8Discloses: Publishes a price, Says how you start
  28. 28

    Ollie

    A family agent that lives in the household's existing iMessage group thread

    iMessage
    2 of 8Discloses: Names who carries the messages, Says how you start
  29. 29

    Alfi

    One shared agent per group plus a private solo agent for each member

    1 of 8Discloses: Says how you start
  30. 30

    Instinct

    A general agent that acts before asking, and is criticised for exactly that

    iMessage
    1 of 8Discloses: Says how you start
  31. 31

    OpenInstinct

    Self-hostable open-source iMessage assistant, one-click deploy to Vercel

    iMessage
    1 of 8Discloses: Says how you start
  32. 32

    Series

    AI introductions that happen entirely inside iMessage, on 750+ campuses

    iMessage
    1 of 8Discloses: Says how you start
  33. 33

    Town

    A per-user agent that joins your group text and talks to other people's agents

    iMessageSMS
    1 of 8Discloses: Says how you start

The eight criteria

Publishes a price
You can find out what it costs without signing up
Has a privacy policy
There is a document at all, for a product that reads your messages
Says whether it trains on you
States plainly whether your conversations train a model
Addresses people who never signed up
Says what happens to the data of others in your threads
Says what happens if you cancel
States whether your history is kept or deleted
Names who carries the messages
Names the company that actually holds your texts
Names its model providers
Says which AI companies see your conversations
Says how you start
You can tell what is required of you before you begin

Fewest steps before it does anything

Counted the same way as the onboarding ladder: joining a thread you are already in is zero, texting a number is one, installing an app before you can begin is four. Agents behind a waitlist or an invite are left out rather than ranked last, because unavailable is not the same as high friction.

  1. 1JarvieAdd a number to a groupiMessageSMS
  2. 2OllieAdd a number to a groupiMessage
  3. 3ShuffleAdd a number to a groupiMessageSMS
  4. 4SidekicksAdd a number to a groupiMessageSMS
  5. 5ArloText a numberiMessageSMS
  6. 6BobaText a numberiMessageSMS
  7. 7CaddyText a numberiMessageRCSSMS
  8. 8DittoText a numberiMessageSMS
  9. 9EmberTap one linkiMessage
  10. 10HomerText a numberiMessageSMS
  11. 11iChatWithGPTTap one linkiMessage
  12. 12KachiTap one linkiMessage
  13. 13OriText a numberiMessageSMS
  14. 14SeriesText a numberiMessage
  15. 15TomoText a numberiMessageSMSWeb
  16. 16BoardyPhone callVoice
  17. 17CatchCreate an accountSMSEmailVoice
  18. 18DuckbillCreate an accountSMSEmailWeb
  19. 19OpenClawCreate an accountiMessageWhatsAppTelegramDiscordSlack
  20. 20PokeCreate an accountiMessageWhatsAppTelegram
  21. 21TownCreate an accountiMessageSMS
  22. 22VellumCreate an accountTelegramSlackEmailVoiceWeb
  23. 23WajoCreate an accountiMessageSMSVoice
  24. 24222Install an appiMessageSMS
  25. 25AlfiInstall an appiMessageWhatsApp
  26. 26OpenInstinctSelf-host itiMessage

How fast it answers

Not measured yet. This board is empty on purpose rather than filled with guesses.

Response time cannot be read off a website, so it is the one ranking here that needs someone to text these agents from a real phone. The method is fixed in advance so the results cannot be tuned afterwards: one identical opening message, one handset, the clock stopped on the first substantive reply rather than on a consent prompt or a greeting, and anything silent after 24 hours recorded as no reply rather than as a large number.

Only 8 of 33 can be texted today. The rest need a number found, an account created or a group thread first, so this will arrive in waves rather than pretending to cover the set at once.