Short answer
Poke is a low-cost personal assistant you text on iMessage, WhatsApp or Telegram; Oraculo is a managed AI employee for a whole business, with a real phone line, engineer-led setup and hourly pricing. Pick Poke for your own inbox and calendar. Pick Oraculo when customers, staff and phones are involved.
Same texting habit, different scope
Poke and Oraculo have one thing in common: you can talk to them the way you text a colleague. After that they diverge. Poke is built around one person's life and work. Oraculo is built around a business with customers, a phone number and sometimes a team.
As of October 2026, Poke (from The Interaction Company of California, which says on its site it is joining Cognition) offers Free, Pro at $19 per month and Ultra at $199 per month. Oraculo charges by hours of work: $12 per hour on Starter or $8 per hour on Business.
Feature comparison
| Poke (poke.com, as of Oct 2026) | Oraculo | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | A personal assistant | A business: customers, phones, staff |
| Price | Free; Pro $19/month; Ultra $199/month (pay-as-you-go beyond credits) | $12/hour (6 hours/week min) or $8/hour (43 hours/week min) |
| Messaging | iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram | WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack, Telegram, email, phone, app |
| Business phone line | Not confirmed | Answers and places calls 24/7, $0.19/minute |
| Connected apps | Gmail, Outlook, Google Calendar, Notion, Asana, Linear, GitHub, Granola and more | 300+ tools, including Gmail, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce, QuickBooks, Stripe, Shopify |
| Automations | Background "recipes" | Lead follow-up, appointment confirmations, invoices, social, website, SEO |
| Team / business features | Not confirmed | Staff goals, nudges, weekly KPI report, shared memory |
| Setup | Self-serve | $499 one-time; four 1-hour Zoom sessions with an engineer |
| Guarantee | Not stated in our sources | 30-day money-back |
What Poke does better
- Price of entry. Free and $19 plans make it almost risk-free to try. Oraculo's Starter minimum is about $312 a month.
- Simplicity. One person, one thread, nothing to configure with an engineer.
- Apple Messages for Business. Apple reportedly approved Poke as the first AI agent on its Messages for Business platform (reported June 4, 2026).
- Personal productivity apps. Notion, Asana, Linear, GitHub and Granola sit on its connection list.
If you are the only person who needs the assistant, and your pain is a crowded inbox and calendar, Poke is the cheaper, lighter answer. Paying Oraculo's hourly rate for that would be overkill.
What Oraculo does that Poke does not list
Think of the difference as assistant versus employee. An assistant helps you work. An employee covers a role.
- Phones. Oraculo answers your business line any hour and places calls to confirm appointments and chase no-shows. Poke's phone ability is not confirmed.
- Leads. It follows up with every lead in minutes, in your CRM or the built-in CRM add-on ($50 a month on Business).
- Team. It tracks each staffer's goals, nudges them and flags what is slipping.
- Back office. Reads and writes email, sends invoices, takes payments, reorders supplies.
- Logins. Works inside software on its own secure computer, even tools with no API.
- Marketing upkeep. Edits your website, writes SEO blog posts, posts to Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
A fuller explanation of the category is in AI employee vs AI assistant vs AI agent.
A text, two answers
Suppose you text each: "Three people called last night about the water-damage job. Get back to them, put the serious ones on my calendar, and send me today's open quotes."
A personal texting assistant can handle the calendar and your own email, but the call-back needs a phone line the vendor has not confirmed. Oraculo calls them back from your business number, books the serious ones, checks open quotes in your CRM and sends you the summary in the same thread. Anything you marked as needing approval, such as a price commitment, waits for your yes.
Who should pick which
| Pick | When |
|---|---|
| Poke | You are a solo professional and the assistant is just for you |
| Poke | You want to experiment for $0 to $19 a month |
| Poke | Your work lives in Gmail, Calendar, Notion or Asana |
| Oraculo | Customers phone, text or WhatsApp you and some go unanswered |
| Oraculo | You manage staff and want accountability |
| Oraculo | You want an engineer to set up the connections and a guarantee behind it |
You do not have to pick only one. Plenty of owners keep a personal assistant for their own inbox and use an employee for the business. Read Is Poke good for business for a review of Poke on its own.
Oraculo pricing, in full
Starter is $12 per hour of work with a 6-hour weekly minimum, about $312 a month. Business is $8 per hour with a 43-hour weekly minimum, about $1,500 a month, and includes a dedicated Slack account manager. Setup is $499 one time. Calls are $0.19 per minute. There is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Billing follows a published task-time chart, so you pay for work done, not compute time. Book a 20-minute demo and we will walk through your own list of tasks.
Key takeaway
Poke is a light, inexpensive assistant for one person's texts. Oraculo is a managed employee for the whole business. Pick by whether customers and staff are part of the job.
Frequently asked questions
Is Oraculo more expensive than Poke?
Yes. Poke's plans run from $0 to $199 per month as of October 2026, while Oraculo's Starter minimum is about $312 a month. They cover different scopes: a personal assistant versus a managed employee with a phone line and setup help.
Can Poke answer business phone calls?
Phone calls are not confirmed for Poke. It works through iMessage, WhatsApp and Telegram. Oraculo answers and places calls on your business line, 24/7.
Does Poke work for a team?
Business and team features are not confirmed in Poke's published material; it is described as a personal assistant. Oraculo shares one memory across your team and tracks staff goals.
Can I text Oraculo like I text Poke?
Yes. You can reach Oraculo on WhatsApp, iMessage, Slack, Telegram and email, as well as by phone and in its app, with one memory across them all.
Which has a money-back guarantee?
Oraculo offers 30 days, money back. Poke's guarantee terms are not stated in the sources we checked, so ask the vendor.