Reviewed by Francesco D'Alessio
Todoist Review
Best Features, Pricing, Alternatives & Opinion
A classic task management application with tasks, projects, and list management. Let's explore whether it is a to-do list application for you, and matches your needs.
What is Todoist?
Todoist is a to-do list application with tasks, lists, projects, and collaboration abilities.
How does Todoist work?
Todoist is a simple to-do list app meaning you can add tasks to an inbox, allocate a due date for said task, and organize it into the project of your liking. Many people get on with the Todoist thanks to the basic nature of the structure and feel of the application.
Todoist is used by individuals primarily boasting over 30M people worldwide and some teams (typically between 5-10 people teams) use it to manage their tasks.
Todoist Pros: Things We Liked
Here are the best bits within Todoist that made it a standout to-do app for us.
1. Karma Scoring
A feature that many people will like is Todoist Karma.
This allows you to give yourself a score for the day on your productivity and allows you to reach your objective targets. For some people, this might be a vanity metric, but for others allowing them to set a task goal of 10 per day and a weekly target allows them a focus on what they can do in their day and structure for progressing forward.
You have a score that is calculated and updated with vacation mode and other factors in mind but allows you once starting to climb up the leaderboard of Todoist Karma status to the legendary modes like Enlightened.
2. Project Boards & Lists
Within Todoist, you can plan your work in both project lists or project boards (with a project calendar on the horizon according to Doist) - this means you can plan and plot tasks in a Kanban-style view and move things around.
One of the features worth noting within this experience is the focus on detail. Inside of the views you can use custom view modes to help narrow down what primary and secondary factors influence the positions of the tasks in that said list or board. This is perfect for narrowing down things to the way you'd like to see them, but not limiting you. This is one of the better features of the abilities too.
You can use templates and import and export them, but to be honest, unlike Notion, Todoist can be easily built without the need for templates really.
3. Reliable & Availability
Todoist has been around for over 10 years now and they've built a brand, ethos, and well-known company when it comes to productivity management. This is evident throughout their application, reliable and speedy - it works well on most devices and is popular with GTD lovers alike for the speed for capture for tasks on the go.
We typically recommend this app as an all-rounder due to the reason of reliable nature of the software when using it, from my own experience using it over 9 of the 10 years that it has been out in the wild, I've had no issues with a lost task or syncing that wasn't correlated to a beta feature that I was testing, and that for the regular user is worth the weight in gold.
Todoist Cons: What We Didn't Like
Elements of Todoist that lacked were the following:
1. No Calendar
Apps like TickTick offer a calendar experience for planning and plotting things visually. This is not available currently in Todoist, but they do have plans for this in 2024 allowing them to catch up with TickTick in the feature race with the calendar.
For now, as planning modes you have today, upcoming, and Kanban views that can be applied to inbox, upcoming, projects, and today modes too. All good features.
Calendar is set to launch in 2024.
2. No Workspaces
Right now, Todoist lacks workspaces which means you have to use projects to organize and separate the type of work you're doing. This has long been one of the main issues with using Todoist, but by the looks of it, the Todoist team has plans for the release of workspaces in 2024, as it is currently in beta access.
Workspaces is set to launch in 2024.
Todoist Pricing
Here's a look at the Todoist pricing options. Updated December 2023.
How much does Todoist cost?
Todoist costs $5 or $4 monthly ($48) if billed annually.
There are $6 per user, per month options for Todoist Business customers.
Todoist Review: Is It Right For Me?
Todoist is a fantastic all-rounder.
We'd recommend it to our grandmas, and we'd recommend it to a high-flying business person who needs to keep a tally of their tasks.
Todoist oozes brilliance in general task management including reliable service, great capture for on-the-go users, and a solid ethos that backs the company up. With a combination of tasks and Kanban boards, we'd recommend Todoist for anyone who needs a solid to-do list app with low-cost (sub-$10) pricing and a wide range of use cases.
Best Todoist Alternatives
The best Todoist alternatives would be TickTick, Superlist & Things 3.