My to-do list used to live in three places. A notes app. A sticky note. My own memory, which is the least reliable storage device I own.
Todoist was built to fix exactly that problem. One place for every task, personal or work, with enough structure to actually trust it.
I have used it on and off for years, and this time I went back in properly. The free plan, the paid Pro plan, and the Business plan all got a real test. Each one went through daily task capture, weekly planning, and a small shared project.
This review covers what Todoist actually does today, and what changed with its December 2025 price increase. It also covers how Todoist stacks up against TickTick and Microsoft To Do, the two alternatives people compare it against most.
Let’s get into it.
What Is Todoist?
Todoist is a task management app built by Doist, a company that has been making it since 2007.
Doist itself is worth knowing about before the product. It is an independent, remote-first company that has never taken outside funding and has no plans to be acquired. That independence shows up in how the product is built. Todoist has stayed focused on being a calm, fast task manager rather than ballooning into a full project management suite.
At its core, Todoist is a place to capture tasks, organize them into projects, and see exactly what needs your attention today. You type a task in plain language, like “submit report every Friday at 4pm.” Todoist understands the recurring schedule without you touching a date picker.
Over 50 million people and tens of thousands of teams use it, according to Doist’s own figures. PCMag has called it a five-star Editors’ Choice winner, and it has picked up further recognition from the Microsoft Store, Apple, and NYT Wirecutter.
Where You Can Use Todoist
Todoist works wherever you actually work.
There are native apps for iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux. Browser extensions cover Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. It also runs on Apple Watch and Wear OS, so reminders and quick task entry follow you to your wrist.
Beyond its own apps, Todoist connects to more than 80 other tools, including Slack, Google Calendar, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, and Zapier. You can turn a Slack message or an email into a task without leaving the app you were already using.
Key Features That Actually Matter
Here is what stood out most after actually living inside the app for a few weeks.
Quick Add and Natural Language Dates
This is the single feature that makes Todoist feel different from a plain checklist.
Type “Dentist appointment next Tuesday 3pm #Health p1” into Quick Add, and Todoist understands every part of that sentence. The date, the project, the priority level. It builds the task correctly without you touching a single dropdown menu.
Recurring tasks work the same way. “Every Monday,” “every 2 weeks,” and “the last day of every month” are all understood as plain English. There is no rigid recurrence menu to fight with.
Flexible Views: List, Board, and Calendar
Every project can be viewed as a simple list, a Kanban-style board with drag and drop columns, or a calendar layout.
This matters because not everyone plans the same way. Some tasks make more sense as a flat checklist. Multi-stage projects are often easier to track as a board moving from “To Do” to “Done.” Calendar view shows where tasks sit across the week. That makes an overloaded day easy to spot in advance.
Today, Upcoming, and Filters
Todoist deliberately keeps your daily view narrow. Today shows exactly what is due now, nothing more. Upcoming gives a wider, drag-and-drop view of the days and weeks ahead.
Filters let you build any custom view you want, like every priority 1 task due this week that is not in your “Someday” project. Once built, a filter becomes a saved view you can return to instantly.
Todoist Assist (AI Features)
Todoist Assist is the umbrella name for Todoist’s AI tools. Three named features sit under it: Filter Assist, Task Assist, and Email Assist. A separate but related feature, Ramble, is built on the same Todoist Assist infrastructure.
Ramble lets you speak a task out loud instead of typing it, and it understands 38 languages. Say “remind me to call the accountant about quarterly taxes next week,” and Ramble parses it into a structured task with the right due date and project. It also understands corrections made mid-sentence, so “actually, make that Friday instead” updates the task rather than creating a second one.
Task Assist breaks a large, vague task into smaller, actionable steps when you get stuck. Filter Assist lets you describe what you want to see in plain language instead of memorizing Todoist’s filter syntax. Email Assist turns a forwarded email into a task automatically, pulling out due dates and key details.
Access depends on your plan. Beginner and Pro Legacy users both get 10 Ramble sessions a month. Standard Pro and Business get unlimited Ramble sessions. For the three named Assist features, Beginner gets none, Pro Legacy gets Filter Assist only, and standard Pro and Business get full access to all three.
Ramble runs on Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash Live model, layered into Todoist’s own product rather than a separate AI tool bolted on. Doist states audio and data processed through these features are not stored or used for training.
Shared Projects and Team Workspaces
You can share any project with family, friends, or coworkers, and assign individual tasks to specific people. Comments, file attachments, and even voice notes can sit directly inside a task. That keeps discussion about the work attached to the work, instead of scattered across email and chat.
On the Business plan, this becomes a proper team workspace, kept separate from anyone’s personal tasks. It comes with its own roles, permissions, and admin controls.
Security
Todoist encrypts data in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher, and encrypts stored data using AES-256. Everything is hosted on Amazon Web Services, which holds globally recognized certifications including ISO/IEC 27001.
Todoist’s pricing page states the company holds SOC2 Type II certification, the more rigorous of the two SOC 2 report types, since it evaluates how well security controls actually hold up over a period of months rather than at a single point in time.
Todoist Pricing: What You Actually Pay
Todoist raised its prices on December 10, 2025, the first increase since 2022. Older reviews and comparison articles online often still quote the previous, lower numbers. Here is what’s confirmed directly from Todoist’s own official pricing-update pages.
Free Plan (Beginner)
- $0, no credit card required
- 5 active projects
- 5 collaborators per project
- 3 saved filter views
- Automatic reminders, up to 700
- List and board layouts
- 1 week of activity history
- Smart Quick Add, recurring due dates, and limited Ramble voice capture
The free plan is genuinely usable for simple, single-area task lists. The 5-project cap is the wall most people hit first, especially once work and personal life both want their own space.
Pro Plan
Pricing changed in December 2025. The current confirmed rates are:
- $7 per month, billed monthly
- $5 per month, billed annually ($60 billed per year)
This is a real increase from the previous $5 monthly and $4 annual rate. Doist has been transparent about it, and attributes the increase to ongoing investment in newer features like Ramble and Task Assist.
Pro includes everything in the free plan, plus:
- 300 active projects
- 5 collaborators per personal project, same cap as the free plan
- 150 saved filter views
- Custom reminders, including time and location-based reminders on mobile, up to 700 combined with automatic reminders
- Calendar layout, deadlines, and task duration tracking
- File attachments
- Unlimited activity history
- Automatic daily backups
- Unlimited Ramble sessions, plus full access to Task Assist, Filter Assist, and Email Assist
Business Plan
Business pricing also increased in December 2025, to:
- $10 per user, per month, billed monthly
- $8 per user, per month, billed annually ($96 per user, per year)
Business includes everything in Pro for every team member, plus:
- A shared team workspace, kept separate from personal tasks
- Up to 500 team projects, organized into folders, with room for up to 1,000 team members and guests in the shared workspace
- Team roles and permissions
- Centralized billing
- Granular activity logs across the team
- Shared project templates
- A 14-day free trial for teams, compared to a 7-day trial on Pro
Legacy Pricing
If you subscribed to Pro before June 2022, or subscribed through the Apple App Store at any point before December 10, 2025, you may be on a Pro Legacy plan. That keeps your old price. The tradeoff is real: Pro Legacy subscribers only get Filter Assist from the Todoist Assist suite. Task Assist, Email Assist, and unlimited Ramble sessions are reserved for standard Pro and Business subscribers.
Student Discounts
Todoist does not currently offer a student or educator discount. This is a change from past years, so do not assume one still exists if you remember seeing it before.
How Todoist Compares to Other Options
Todoist vs TickTick
TickTick is the most common budget alternative people bring up against Todoist, and the comparison is genuinely close on price.
According to its own pricing page and confirmed across multiple independent sources, TickTick Premium costs $35.99 per year, or $3.99 per month if billed monthly.
Feature for feature, TickTick includes some things Todoist does not offer at all. A built-in Pomodoro timer and dedicated habit tracking with statistics are both native to TickTick. Todoist’s free plan is more generous in one specific way. TickTick’s free tier caps you at 9 lists with 99 tasks each. Todoist’s free plan allows 5 full projects with no stated task-count ceiling per project.
Where Todoist pulls ahead is natural language task entry and team collaboration. Todoist’s Quick Add and date recognition are consistently described as more advanced than TickTick’s. Todoist’s Business plan also offers deeper team workspace structure than anything TickTick currently provides.
If a built-in Pomodoro timer and habit tracking matter more to you than team features, TickTick is worth trying. It also remains the cheaper paid option. If natural language task capture and team collaboration matter more, Todoist’s Pro and Business plans justify the higher price.
Todoist vs Microsoft To Do
Microsoft To Do is completely free, with no paid tier at all, confirmed directly from Microsoft’s own site.
For anyone already living inside the Microsoft ecosystem, that free price tag is hard to argue with. To Do syncs across web, iOS, Android, and Windows. It integrates directly with Outlook tasks and includes a smart daily planner called My Day.
The honest tradeoff is depth. To Do has no calendar view, no Kanban-style board layout, no habit tracking, and no Pomodoro timer. It is a clean, capable list manager, not a flexible planning system. Todoist’s natural language Quick Add is also considerably more advanced than To Do’s task entry.
If you are already deep in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with simple list and reminder needs, Microsoft To Do costs nothing and does the job. If you want flexible views, filters, and natural language scheduling, with room to scale into team collaboration later, Todoist’s free plan is the better long-term pick. That’s true even though To Do is free forever and Todoist’s free tier is more limited in project count.
My Take: Who Should Actually Use This
Individuals juggling work and personal tasks across multiple devices get real, daily value from Todoist’s natural language Quick Add. The calm, uncluttered approach to daily planning helps too.
Small to mid-sized teams that want lightweight shared workspaces fit well with the Business plan. This is especially true for teams who tried something heavier, like Asana or Monday.com, and found it more complex than they actually needed.
Anyone on a tight budget who specifically wants habit tracking and a built-in Pomodoro timer should look closely at TickTick first. It remains the cheaper option and covers that specific need natively.
Anyone fully embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem with simple list and reminder needs should try Microsoft To Do first, since it costs nothing.
Long-time Todoist users on a Pro Legacy plan should weigh Task Assist, Email Assist, and unlimited Ramble against the cost of upgrading, since Legacy only includes Filter Assist from that suite.
For the everyday mix of personal and professional task management this review was written for, Todoist remains a genuinely calm, capable tool. That holds true even at its new, higher price.
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