Productivity · Reviewed over 31 days
Best capture speed
Todoist review: the task manager that survives being abandoned for three weeks
Natural-language input is fast enough that capture stops being a decision, and the app is forgiving when you stop using it. The free tier's five-project limit arrives sooner than it looks.
Natural-language input is fast enough that capture stops being a decision, and the app is forgiving when you stop using it. The free tier's five-project limit arrives sooner than it looks.
What earned the money
- Typing "pay rent every 1st" creates a correctly recurring task with no menus — capture stops being a decision
- Forgiving after neglect: three weeks away produced a readable list rather than a wall of red overdue items
- Genuinely cross-platform, and the web app is the same product rather than a stripped version
- Cancelling took two clicks on the web with no retention flow
What did not
- Five active projects on free, which sounds generous and is not once you separate work from home
- Filters and labels — the feature that makes it scale — are Pro-only
- No built-in calendar view without a third-party integration
- Reminders on mobile were occasionally late by a few minutes, which for a medication reminder would matter
I used Todoist as my only task manager for a month, paid for Pro, and then deliberately ignored it for three weeks to see what coming back looked like.
Capture is the whole product
The thing Todoist does better than its rivals is remove the decision from writing something down.
Typing pay rent every 1st produces a correctly recurring task. call dentist tomorrow 3pm p2
produces a scheduled, prioritised one. No menus, no date picker, no mode switch.
That matters more than it sounds because the failure mode of every task manager is not bad organisation — it is things never getting entered. An app that takes four taps to capture a thought loses the thoughts you have while walking.
The test that actually separates these apps
I stopped using it for three weeks on purpose.
Coming back, I had a readable list. Recurring items had rolled forward sensibly, one-off overdue tasks were grouped rather than screaming individually, and nothing demanded that I process several hundred items before I could add a new one.
That is the difference between a tool you resume and a tool you abandon. Every task manager works during the week you are enthusiastic about it. The question is what it looks like in the week you are not.
Where the free tier bites
Five active projects. That number sounds generous until you separate work from home, and then notice you wanted one for a house move and one for a side project.
The more consequential limit is that filters and labels are Pro-only, and those are the features that make a large list navigable. A hundred-item list is fine without them; a five-hundred-item list is unusable.
So the free tier is a real plan for a simple life and a demo for a complicated one, which is a defensible place to draw the line and worth knowing before you build a system on it.
What I would change
Mobile reminders arrived a few minutes late more than once. For “buy milk” that is nothing; for medication it would be a reason not to rely on it, and the app does not distinguish.
There is also no built-in calendar view. Todoist’s position is that your calendar is your calendar, which is coherent, and it still means seeing tasks against time requires a third-party integration.
Where I landed
Kept it, which I do not do often. Pro is around $5 a month billed annually as of September 2026 — cheap enough that the decision came down to whether I would use it, not whether it was worth it.
Cancelling, when I tested it, took two clicks on the web with no retention flow, no survey and no discount offer. That is worth naming because it is rare.
Who should install it
Anyone whose problem is capture rather than organisation, and anyone who has abandoned a task manager before and wants one that forgives it.
Who should not
Anyone happy with Apple Reminders, which is free and now competent. And anyone who wants to own software rather than rent it — Things 3 is a one-off purchase and a nicer object, at the cost of being Apple-only with no web access.
Also consider
| App | Why it might suit you better |
|---|---|
| Apple Reminders | Already installed, free, and now good enough that a paid task manager needs to justify itself. Natural-language parsing is weaker but present. |
| Things 3 | One-off purchase rather than a subscription, and a better-designed object. Apple-only, and no web access at all. |
Asked and answered
Is Todoist Pro worth paying for?
It depends on one thing: whether you need more than five projects. The free tier is otherwise a genuine plan rather than a countdown, and for a single-context life it may be all you ever need. Pro buys filters, labels and reminders, and filters are what make a large list navigable — so if your list has grown past a couple of hundred items, that is the feature you are actually buying.
What happens if I stop using Todoist for a few weeks?
This is the test I care most about with task managers and Todoist handles it better than most. Coming back after three weeks produced a readable list rather than several hundred overdue items demanding individual attention. That sounds minor and it is the difference between a tool you resume and a tool you abandon permanently.
Is Apple Reminders good enough instead?
For a lot of people now, yes, and it is worth trying first because it is already installed and free. Its natural-language parsing is weaker and its filtering is basic, but it handles lists, dates, recurrence and sharing competently. Start there and upgrade only when you hit a wall you can name.
Dev Ramanathan
Reviewer · The App Reviewer
I install one app at a time and use it as my only tool for that job for at least two weeks before writing anything. I pay retail for every subscription I review and I cancel most of them. No sponsorships, no affiliate links, no review copies.