What Todoist is
Todoist is made by Doist, a remote-first company that also makes the team chat app Twist. It launched in 2007 and has kept the same core idea: an inbox for capturing tasks, projects for grouping them, and views (Today, Upcoming, filters) for deciding what to work on. It is a personal task manager first, with shared projects and a Business plan for teams.
Key features
- Natural-language quick add. Type "Send invoice every first Monday p1 #Work" and Todoist sets the recurring date, priority and project.
- Today and Upcoming views that show what is due, with drag-and-drop rescheduling.
- Projects, sections and subtasks, with list, board and (on paid plans) calendar layouts.
- Labels and filters. Saved filter queries such as "overdue or today & #Work" for custom views.
- Reminders, with custom and location reminders on paid plans.
- Deadlines and task durations (paid), so you can separate "when I'll work on it" from "when it's due."
- Todoist Assist (AI): Ramble turns spoken rambling into tasks, Task Assist breaks big tasks into steps, Filter Assist writes filter queries, and Email Assist helps turn emails into tasks.
- Integrations with Google Calendar, Outlook, Gmail, Slack and many more, plus an email address for forwarding tasks in.
- Productivity tracking ("Karma") and daily or weekly goals.
- Collaboration: share projects, assign tasks and comment; Business adds team workspaces, roles and folders.
Todoist pricing (as of October 2026)
From Todoist's pricing page, US dollars, plus local tax. Todoist raised prices in late 2025, so older articles may quote $4 and $6.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Key limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | Free | 5 personal projects, 3 filter views, 5 MB uploads, 1 week of activity history, limited Ramble | |
| Pro | $5/month ($60/year) | $7/month | 300 projects, 150 filters, calendar layout, custom reminders, deadlines, durations, 100 MB uploads, unlimited Ramble |
| Business | $8 per user/month ($96/year) | $10 per user/month | Everything in Pro per member, team workspace, up to 500 team projects, roles, admin and activity logs |
Strengths
- Fast capture. Quick add with natural language is the feature users praise most consistently, on every platform.
- Clean, calm design that stays out of your way, with themes and a well-made dark mode.
- Available everywhere, including Linux, Apple Watch, Wear OS, browser extensions and email add-ons.
- Powerful filters without making the basic app complicated.
- Ramble voice capture is a useful way to dump a list of tasks while walking or driving.
- Inexpensive Pro plan compared with AI planners and project tools.
- Long track record, with steady updates for nearly two decades.
Weaknesses
- Free plan's 5-project limit is tight once you split work and home.
- No automatic scheduling. It won't block out time for tasks on your calendar the way Motion does.
- Light on project management. No Gantt charts, time tracking, workload views or docs; teams with complex projects outgrow it.
- Calendar layout is a paid feature.
- Price increase. The late-2025 rise made Pro monthly noticeably pricier than it was; yearly billing is the better deal.
- No end-to-end encryption. Your tasks are encrypted on Todoist's servers, not just on your devices.
How Todoist compares
Todoist sits in the middle of the task-app market. Against TickTick, its closest rival, Todoist is usually described as cleaner and better connected to other tools, while TickTick packs in more extras (a habit tracker, a Pomodoro timer and a built-in calendar view) at a similar or lower price. Against Apple Reminders or Microsoft To Do, which are free, Todoist's advantages are cross-platform apps, stronger natural-language input, filters and integrations. Against Motion, Todoist is far cheaper but leaves the planning to you. And against ClickUp or Notion, it does far less, which for many individuals is exactly the point: it opens instantly and shows what is next.
Privacy and security
According to Todoist's security page, data travels over TLS 1.2 or 1.3 and projects, tasks, comments, account and payment information are encrypted at rest. Data is hosted on Amazon Web Services with redundant copies and daily backups you can restore inside the app. Attachments stored in Dropbox or Google Drive stay with those services. The page does not mention end-to-end encryption or its own SOC 2 or ISO certifications; it points to Doist's trust center for compliance details such as GDPR.
Platforms
- Desktop: Windows, macOS and Linux.
- Mobile and wearables: iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple Watch and Wear OS.
- Web, browser extensions and email add-ons.
Who should use Todoist
Todoist suits busy individuals who want a dependable inbox for everything they need to do, households sharing chores or shopping lists, and small teams that need shared task lists rather than full project management. It pairs well with a notes app such as Obsidian or Notion, which keep the detail while Todoist keeps the to-dos.
People who want their calendar to plan their day automatically should look at Motion. Teams running complex projects with dependencies, time tracking and reports will be better served by ClickUp.
Free vs Pro: what you actually get
The free Beginner plan is a complete to-do app: quick add, recurring tasks, reminders, shared projects with up to five people, and apps everywhere. People typically upgrade for one of these reasons:
- More than five projects. Separate projects for work, home, side projects and shopping lists use up the free limit fast.
- Calendar layout, to see tasks on a day, week or month grid next to your events.
- Deadlines and durations, which let you plan when you will work on something separately from when it is due.
- Custom reminders and more filters, for people who run their week from saved views.
- Unlimited Ramble voice capture and full activity history.
At $60 a year, Pro is less than a single month of some AI planners. Business at $8 per user per month billed yearly makes sense once a team wants a shared workspace, roles and admin controls rather than a few shared projects.
Tips for getting value from Todoist
- Capture everything into the Inbox with quick add or Ramble, then sort it into projects once a day.
- Use priorities sparingly. If everything is priority 1, nothing is.
- Build two or three filters, for example "today and overdue at work" and "errands," rather than dozens.
- Connect your calendar so you see meetings next to tasks and stop overloading busy days.
- Do a weekly review: clear the Inbox, reschedule what slipped and delete what no longer matters.
Alternatives
- TickTick: a similar app with a built-in calendar, habits and a focus timer. See Todoist vs TickTick.
- Motion: AI that schedules your tasks into your calendar, for much more money.
- ClickUp: full project management with tasks, docs and dashboards.
- Notion: if you want tasks inside a database next to your notes.