Key takeaways
- FAQ and homepage (September 23, 2026) publish Free, Pro $19/month, and Ultra $199/month with pay-as-you-go on Ultra, not only negotiated mystery pricing.
- Settings URLs exist (privacy, messaging). Daily use is still framed as texting, but that is a web account surface.
- Cognition announced welcoming Interaction Company / Poke on July 23, 2026; the post said users could keep using Poke as before.
- Do not treat Maximum Privacy as proven unreadability by the company. FAQ says Poke Human operators see task-specific details, not chat history.
FAQ
What is Poke?
A personal agent that lives in Messages, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Cognition announced acquiring its maker, The Interaction Company of California, in July 2026.
How much does Poke cost?
As of September 23, 2026, poke.com/faq and the homepage list Free, Pro at $19/month, and Ultra at $199/month. Ultra includes Poke Human and pay-as-you-go beyond credits. Ask-Poke-to-upgrade language remains in the FAQ.
Can the company read my chats?
This review did not find a current FAQ sentence that the company cannot read chats. Homepage marketing says private. Poke Human operators see task details, not chat history, per FAQ. Check live privacy settings and policy.
Is there a dashboard?
FAQ points to poke.com/settings/privacy and /settings/messaging for account and channel changes. Daily product use is still framed as texting.
Executive Summary
Poke is still a text-first personal agent, with published Free / Pro $19 / Ultra $199 monthly plans on the homepage and FAQ (checked September 23, 2026). That replaces the June profile's "no public tiers, haggle in chat" story, though the FAQ still says to ask Poke to help you upgrade.[1][2]
Cognition announced the Interaction Company acquisition on July 23, 2026. Scott Wu wrote that Poke users could continue as before, that people had exchanged more than 100 million messages in the prior three months, and that Cognition models and infrastructure would come later. Company navigation now points at cognition.com.[3][2]
Funding and Apple Messages-for-Business claims from 2026 press remain useful history: $25M total at a $300M post-money valuation, and June 2026 Apple approval as a third-party agent on Messages for Business.[4][5][6]
| Attribute | Current evidence |
|---|---|
| Maker | Interaction Company of California, joining Cognition.[3] |
| Founded | 2024 |
| Funding | $25M ($15M seed + $10M extension; General Catalyst, Spark Capital).[4] |
| Valuation | $300M post-money (April 2026 press).[4] |
| Channels | Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram.[2] |
| Plans | Free; Pro $19/mo; Ultra $199/mo + PAYG.[1] |
| Founders | Marvin von Hagen (CEO), Felix Schlegel (June profile; Cognition post names Marvin). |
Product Overview
Homepage: proactive, private, personal, in your texts. The assistant handles email triage, calendar, reminders, and web research through conversation in existing threads. Recipes and MCP custom integrations remain. Poke can publish yourname.poke.site. Ultra adds Poke Human (real-world tasks); operators see task details, not chat history, memories, or integrations, per FAQ.[2][1]
Account settings URLs in the FAQ are a web surface for privacy deletion and messaging-channel choice.[1]
Key capabilities
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Gmail and Outlook are the documented clients.[1] | |
| Integrations | GitHub, Notion, Linear, custom MCP.[1] |
| Automations | Scheduling, recurring reminders, recipes.[2] |
| Poke Human | Ultra; operators see task details, not chat history.[1] |
Messaging channels
| Channel | Status (Sep 23, 2026) |
|---|---|
| Apple Messages | Homepage + Cognition post: native texting; June TechCrunch covered Messages for Business approval.[2][3][5] |
| Telegram | Listed on homepage.[2] |
| Listed on homepage.[2] |
Technical Architecture
Still a cloud SaaS behind messaging apps. No local install. This refresh did not re-open the Delve trust report or prove end-to-end encryption of chats against Interaction/Cognition staff.[1]
| Aspect | Detail |
|---|---|
| Deployment | Cloud-only SaaS |
| Gmail, Outlook | |
| Account UI | /settings/privacy, /settings/messaging.[1] |
| Privacy marketing | Homepage says private; FAQ does not restate "company cannot read chats." |
Strengths
- Zero-friction texting in apps people already have.[2]
- Published price table instead of only negotiated mystery pricing.[1]
- Apple Messages distribution, with Cognition as the new parent.[5][3]
- MCP extensibility for custom tools.[1]
- Poke Human boundary (task details, not chat history) is at least documented.[1]
Cautions
- Do not repeat "the company literally cannot see your conversations" without a current FAQ sentence that says so.
- Ultra at $199/month is a different product shape than "chat to find a price."
- WhatsApp availability still needs a live region check; homepage lists it without a market matrix in this pass.
- Cognition ownership is current context, not a completed Devin merge. The July post said users could continue as before.[3]
- Settings pages exist; "no dashboard" is overstated.
Pricing & Licensing
| Plan | Price (Sep 23, 2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | No card; email and calendar connect.[2] |
| Pro | $19/month | Frontier models for complex tasks, higher limits.[1] |
| Ultra | $199/month | Frontier on every session, PAYG beyond credits, Poke Human included.[1] |
Real-world Poke Human expenses billed at cost from credit balance. Ask-Poke-to-upgrade language remains in the FAQ alongside the public table.[1]
What Developers Say
Homepage embeds selected X testimonials. Those are marketing quotes, not a balanced sample.
The June profile quoted Product Hunt comments (Gabe Perez, Sanskar Yadav, Thorin, Lee Fuhr) from this discussion. The September 16 citation audit reported that page readable. This September 23 pass received HTTP 403 from Product Hunt, so the quotes are not re-verified here.[7]
Competitive Positioning
| Competitor | Differentiation |
|---|---|
| Lindy | iMessage-first enterprise angle vs Poke's consumer texting + Cognition |
| Manus | Autonomous execution vs conversational texting |
| OpenClaw | Self-hosted vs managed SaaS |
| Tembo | Software-engineering agent sessions, not a consumer texting assistant. No Poke integration on tembo.io.[8] |
Disclosure: Ry Walker is Tembo's co-founder and CEO.
When to choose Poke
- Choose Poke when: You want a messaging-native personal agent and will pay Free/Pro/Ultra from the public table.
- Choose OpenClaw when: You want self-hosting.
- Choose Tembo when: The job is coding agents on real repos with review.
Ideal Customer Profile
Best fit:
- Professionals who live in Messages/WhatsApp/Telegram
- Users who want AI without installing another primary app
- People who will pick a published plan instead of negotiating
Poor fit:
- Buyers who need a proven "company cannot read chats" guarantee
- Engineering teams looking for a coding-agent platform
- Anyone who needs a full web IDE rather than texts plus thin settings
Viability Assessment
| Factor | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Financial Health | $25M raised (April 2026 press); now inside Cognition |
| Market Position | Consumer messaging agent with Apple channel history |
| Innovation Pace | Public Pro/Ultra table and Cognition announcement are the 2026 changes that matter |
| Community | Cognition cited 100M messages in three months (July 23 post) |
| Long-term Outlook | Depends on how Cognition integrates Poke vs leaving it standalone |
Assessment
Price the product from the live Free/Pro/Ultra table. Treat Cognition ownership as current context, not a completed Devin merge. Do not repeat negotiated-only pricing or an unverified "company cannot read chats" absolute.
Recommended for: People who want to text a personal agent and will pay $0 / $19 / $199 from the FAQ.
Not recommended for: Privacy absolutists without reading the live policy, or teams buying a coding-agent platform.
Outlook: The acquisition is the story. Watch whether Poke stays a consumer texting product or becomes a Cognition surface.
Research by Ry Walker Research • methodology
Sources
- [1] Poke FAQ
- [2] Poke — Product and plans
- [3] Cognition — Welcoming The Interaction Company, July 23, 2026
- [4] TechCrunch — Poke funding
- [5] TechCrunch — Apple approves Poke on Messages for Business
- [6] General Catalyst — Seeding Interaction Company
- [7] Product Hunt — A week with Poke
- [8] Tembo — Cloud and self-hosted coding agent platform