Roughly 30 million people have a registered Todoist account, according to the app's own project history and user figures, and the wider to-do list app category is not slowing down. One market research estimate values the global to-do list app segment at 3.2 billion dollars in 2025, projected to more than double by the mid-2030s. Two Android apps sit at the center of nearly every list-app comparison people search for: Todoist and TickTick.
Both do the basic job well. Type a task, set a date, get reminded. The real difference shows up once you start using either app daily. Todoist stays narrow and polished, built around getting a task into the system in one line of typed text. TickTick tries to be the whole planning stack: task list, calendar, habit tracker, and focus timer in one app.
That difference creates real friction for anyone picking between them on a phone. Todoist's free plan caps you at 5 personal projects and 3 saved filter views, pushing habitual users toward Pro faster than expected. TickTick's free plan is more generous on paper, but its calendar view and deeper habit stats are still locked behind Premium. Neither app is free and unlimited once you actually depend on it, so knowing exactly where each draws that line matters before you commit a workflow to one of them.
The Real Challenges Choosing Between Todoist and TickTick
- Free plan limits bite at different points. Todoist caps personal projects and filters early; TickTick caps lists, tasks per list, and reminders per task instead.
- Pricing changed recently on both sides. Todoist raised Pro pricing in December 2025, and third party pricing pages for TickTick disagree on the exact current figure.
- "All-in-one" adds setup time. TickTick's calendar, habit tracker, Pomodoro timer, and Eisenhower matrix are all toggled on individually in settings, which means a new user has to go find them.
- Natural language input is not equally reliable. Both apps parse typed dates and times, but complex one-line entries still trip up TickTick more often than Todoist.
- Switching later is a real cost. Once projects, labels, and recurring tasks are built up in one app, exporting that structure into the other rarely comes across cleanly.
Quick Comparison
Here is how Todoist and TickTick stack up on the factors that actually change daily use on an Android phone.
| Factor | Todoist | TickTick |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan core limit | 5 personal projects, 3 filter views | 9 lists, 99 tasks per list |
| Built-in productivity tools | Projects, labels, priorities, Karma | Calendar, habit tracker, Pomodoro timer, Eisenhower matrix, all included |
| Natural language quick add | Handles complex, multi-part phrases in one line | Reads dates and times reliably; struggles more with complex phrasing |
| Paid tier price (annual) | Pro: 5 dollars a month, 60 dollars a year | Premium: 35.99 dollars a year, about 3 dollars a month |
| Calendar layout | Pro-only feature | Free tier has list view; full calendar grid is Premium |
| Home screen widgets | Task list and quick add, free | Task list, calendar, and habit widgets, free |
| Best for | Fast typed capture and clean, focused lists | People who want planning, habits, and focus timing in one app |
What Todoist Is Built Around
Todoist's whole design points at one moment: getting a task out of your head and into the app as fast as possible. Its own product page describes Quick Add as something that lets you "capture and organize tasks the moment they come to you with easy flowing, natural language." Type "call the dentist tomorrow at 3pm #Personal p2" and it correctly separates the task name, date, project, and priority without any extra taps.
Everything past that first capture stays clean rather than expansive. You get projects, labels, priority levels, sections, and subtasks, plus the option to switch a project between list, board, and calendar layouts. Doist, the company behind Todoist, also runs Todoist Business, used by over 50,000 teams for shared workspaces and role-based permissions.
Todoist also gamifies consistency through Karma. The official Karma system awards points for completing tasks on time, adding new tasks, and keeping streaks alive, moving you through nine levels from Beginner up to Enlightened at 50,000 points. Let tasks sit overdue by four days or more and you start losing points, which is a quiet but effective nudge to actually clear your list instead of letting it grow.
What TickTick Packs Into One App
TickTick takes the opposite bet: instead of staying narrow, it tries to replace three or four separate apps. Its own features page groups everything under one roof, offering calendar views described as "Yearly, Monthly, Weekly, Agenda, Multi-Day, Multi-Week," a habit tracker with detailed statistics, a built-in Pomodoro timer, and an Eisenhower matrix that auto-sorts tasks by urgency and importance.
None of that is buried in a separate app or an integration. Settings has a Features menu where you switch on Calendar, Eisenhower Matrix, Habit Tracker, Pomodoro Timer, and Countdown individually, which is a small extra setup step compared to Todoist's everything-on-by-default approach. Once enabled, the Eisenhower matrix works from rules you define, sorting tasks into quadrants based on list, tag, date, priority, or the task itself, according to TickTick's own help documentation.
TickTick also handles natural language input, recognizing dates and times as you type, though independent comparisons like The Digital Project Manager's side by side testing consistently find it less reliable than Todoist on longer, multi-part phrases. For a short "buy milk tomorrow" style entry, the two are close to equal.
Free vs Paid: Where Each App Draws the Line
Todoist's free plan, sometimes labeled Beginner, includes 5 personal projects, task reminders, list and board layouts, 3 saved filter views, and one week of activity history. Upgrading to Pro raises that to 300 personal projects, unlocks the calendar layout, custom reminders, 150 filter views, full reporting history, and Todoist's AI-assisted Task Assist. Todoist Pro now costs 7 dollars a month billed monthly, or 5 dollars a month billed annually at 60 dollars a year, a price change that took effect on December 10, 2025, according to Todoist's own pricing update notice.
TickTick's free plan is roomier on raw list and task counts: 9 lists holding up to 99 tasks each, 2 reminders per task, and up to 19 subtasks. The basic Pomodoro timer and habit tracking work on the free tier too. What stays behind TickTick Premium is the fuller calendar layout, custom smart lists, historical productivity stats, extra themes, and unlimited reminders. Premium pricing sits well under Todoist Pro. TickTick's own upgrade page lists Premium at 35.99 dollars a year on the annual plan, or 3.99 dollars a month billed monthly, so even the pricier monthly route stays below what Todoist charges.
Neither company hides a free unlimited tier behind a marketing label. Both gate the features that turn a simple checklist into a planning system, just at different points in the feature set.
Widgets and Everyday Android Use
On a phone, the app you actually reach for is usually the one with the least friction between "I thought of something" and "it is written down." Both apps ship home screen widgets aimed at exactly that. Todoist's widget keeps to a task list plus a quick add button, matching its narrow focus. TickTick's widget options extend further, including calendar and habit tracking widgets alongside the task list, described on its features page as letting you "view your tasks but also quickly add new ones" straight from the home screen.
If your workflow already leans on notes and long-form planning alongside tasks, the same "focused tool vs all-in-one system" tradeoff shows up again once you start comparing note-taking apps built for deep work.
Todoist and TickTick Side by Side: Upsides and Downsides
Todoist upsides:
- The most reliable natural language quick add of the two, even on complex one-line entries
- Clean, consistent interface across Android, desktop, and web with no visual clutter
- Karma turns finishing tasks and clearing overdue items into a small game instead of a chore
- Business plan scales to shared workspaces for teams that outgrow a personal list
Todoist downsides:
- Free plan's 5-project cap is tight for anyone running separate work and personal lists
- Calendar layout, custom reminders, and most filter views require Pro
- No built-in habit tracker or focus timer, so you would run a second app for those
TickTick upsides:
- Calendar, habit tracker, Pomodoro timer, and Eisenhower matrix all live in one app
- Free plan's list and task limits are more generous than Todoist's free project cap
- Premium costs noticeably less per year than Todoist Pro
TickTick downsides:
- Natural language input trips up more often on longer, multi-part typed entries
- Full calendar grid view and deeper habit statistics still sit behind Premium
- More toggles and settings to learn before the app feels fully set up
How to Pick Between Todoist and TickTick
Pick Todoist if your main habit is typing a task fast and moving on. Its quick add is still the sharpest tool of the two for turning a messy sentence into a structured task, and Karma gives you a reason to actually finish what you type in.
Pick TickTick if you have been juggling a separate calendar app, a habit tracker, and a Pomodoro timer alongside your task list. Consolidating those into one Android app, for less money than Todoist Pro, is a real practical win, even with a few more settings to configure up front.
If neither app fully fits and you want to see how a focused writing and research tool compares to an all-in-one workspace in a different category, our Notion vs Obsidian breakdown walks through that exact tradeoff from another angle.
