Todoist
Todoist is the task manager that 30 million people keep coming back to after trying everything else — and for good reason. The natural language input is best in class, the app works on literally every platform, and the Pro plan at $5/mo is one of the most defensible software purchases in a freelancer's toolkit. The free tier, however, caps you at 5 projects and locks reminders behind a paywall, which ends the free ride faster than most new users expect.
SRG Bottom Line
One-Line Verdict: Todoist Pro at $5/mo is one of the best-value productivity subscriptions available for freelancers in 2026 — but the free plan’s 5-project cap means most working freelancers will hit the upgrade wall within the first week.
What is Todoist?
Todoist is a task management and to-do list app built by Doist, a fully remote company that’s been shipping this product since 2007. It runs on every platform that matters — web, iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, Apple Watch, and WearOS — with fast sync and a natural language input engine that converts plain-text entries like “Follow up with client every second Thursday at 3pm p1 @work” into a structured recurring task with the correct project, priority, and reminder attached.
In 2026, Todoist has added meaningful AI features without bloating the product: Todoist Assist handles task decomposition and smart scheduling suggestions, and Ramble — launched in January 2026 and powered by Google Gemini 2.5 Flash — lets you dictate task lists verbally and have them parsed into organized items with due dates, labels, and priorities applied automatically.
At Smart Remote Gigs, I used Todoist Pro for a full six-week stretch covering three concurrent client projects, several recurring admin workflows, and daily personal task capture. I tested the free tier honestly, hit its walls, and tracked how the Pro upgrade changed my day-to-day. Here’s what I found — including the catches that the enthusiastic Reddit crowd tends to gloss over.
🚀 Key Features for Freelancers
Natural Language Input
Type a task the way you’d say it out loud and Todoist parses the due date, recurrence, priority, and project assignment from the text. No dropdowns, no clicking through date pickers. For freelancers capturing 20+ tasks per day across multiple clients, this saves real time compared to every task manager that still makes you manually set each field. In my testing it handled complex inputs — including relative dates, recurrence patterns, and priority flags in the same string — better than TickTick, Notion tasks, or any other tool I’ve tested at this price point.
Ramble (Voice-to-Task AI)
Speak naturally — a brain dump after a client call, a list of deliverables from a meeting, a set of ideas you want to capture on a walk — and Ramble converts your voice into structured, labeled tasks with due dates and project assignments applied. Free users get 10 sessions per month; Pro and Business get unlimited. For freelancers who think faster than they type, this closes the gap between capturing an idea and having it land in the right place immediately.
Integrations (150+ native)
Todoist connects natively to Slack, Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, Zapier, Make, IFTTT, and over 150 other apps. For freelancers whose client work flows through email, Slack, or specific project management tools, this means tasks can be captured directly from the tools where the work actually happens — rather than maintaining a separate mental layer between “where I get work” and “where I track work.”
Filters and Advanced Views
Build custom filter views using Todoist’s query syntax — for example, pulling all high-priority tasks due this week across every project except personal — and save them as named views you can return to in one click. On Pro, you get 150 custom filter views. For freelancers managing multiple clients with different urgency levels and project structures, this is the feature that makes Todoist feel like a real system rather than a list of lists.
Recurring Tasks and Subtasks
Set invoices, weekly check-ins, or retainer deliverables to recur on whatever schedule you need — daily, weekly, monthly, every second Thursday — and Todoist handles the reset automatically. Subtasks let you break client deliverables into specific action items nested under the parent task, which maps cleanly to the GTD methodology that a large portion of Todoist’s user base actively follows.
🗣️ Voice of the Street: “I’ve created over 1,400 tasks across three years of daily use and it’s never let me down. The natural language input is so fast that switching away would feel like going back to Excel.” – verified Capterra reviewer
⚖️ Pros & Cons
✅ The Good:
- Natural language input is best in class — complex task entries including priority, date, recurrence, and project are parsed correctly in a single text string, faster than any competing tool at this price
- Runs on every platform including Linux and dual wearable support (Apple Watch and WearOS) — no other major task manager matches this cross-platform reach
- Pro at $5/mo (annual) remains one of the best-value software subscriptions for individual freelancers even after the December 2025 price increase, unlocking 300 projects, reminders, custom filters, file attachments, and unlimited Ramble sessions
- 150+ native integrations make Todoist the task manager most likely to fit into an existing freelance tool stack without requiring manual bridging through Zapier
- Ramble voice-to-task is genuinely useful for capturing ideas without stopping what you’re doing — and on Pro it’s unlimited
❌ The Bad (The Catch):
- Free plan caps at 5 projects with no reminders and only 1 week of activity history — freelancers with more than a handful of active clients will hit the wall almost immediately, and the upgrade prompts inside the app are frequent and distracting
- No built-in time-blocking or true calendar integration — Todoist’s calendar layout shows tasks by due date but doesn’t sync bidirectionally with your actual calendar or let you block time; freelancers who want to see tasks alongside calendar events need a separate tool or a paid add-on like Morgen ($15/mo)
- Pro pricing increased 25–40% in December 2025 (from $4/mo to $5/mo annual, from $5/mo to $7/mo monthly) — still reasonable, but the direction of travel is upward
- No task dependencies — Todoist is a task manager, not a project management tool; if your workflow requires “Task B can’t start until Task A is complete,” you’ll need ClickUp or Asana instead
- Business plan at $8/user/mo scales linearly with no flat-rate cap — a 10-person team pays $960/year for what is, at its core, a shared task list
💰 Pricing Breakdown (Is it worth it?)
Todoist’s pricing is the cleanest in the task management space — three plans, no credit systems, no add-on packs, and the free tier is a genuine long-term option if you truly have five or fewer active projects and don’t need reminders. The catch is that almost every working freelancer hits both of those walls within the first week.
The good news: Pro at $5/mo annual ($60/year) unlocks everything the free plan lacks. The bad news: the December 2025 price increase moved Pro from $48/year to $60/year, and the monthly billing rate jumped 40% from $5 to $7/mo — a meaningful change if you’re paying month-to-month. TickTick Premium at $35.99/year is $24 cheaper annually for a comparable feature set, which is a real consideration if budget is tight.
Plan | Price | Limits/Credits | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
Beginner (Free) | $0/mo | 5 projects; 5 collaborators per project; 3 custom filter views; 1-week activity history; 10 Ramble sessions/mo; no time-based reminders | Freelancers with very simple needs or students testing the platform — runs out of headroom fast for anyone with multiple active clients |
Pro | $5/mo (annual) / $7/mo (monthly) | 300 projects; unlimited collaborators; 150 custom filters; unlimited activity history; reminders; file attachments; calendar layout; task durations; unlimited Ramble; full Todoist Assist AI | Solo freelancers and independent professionals managing multiple client projects — the sweet spot for most Smart Remote Gigs readers |
Business | $8/user/mo (annual) / $10/user/mo (monthly) | All Pro features; shared workspace; 500 team projects; granular team activity logs; admin controls; shared templates; roles and permissions; priority support | Small agencies or studio teams needing shared workspaces and admin visibility — costs scale linearly so evaluate carefully past 5–6 seats |
⚔️ The Kill-Matrix: Todoist vs Competitors
The real question isn’t whether Todoist is good — it is — but whether the feature gaps versus cheaper alternatives like TickTick or more powerful ones like Notion are worth the price difference for your specific freelance workflow.
Feature | Todoist | TickTick | Notion |
|---|---|---|---|
Free Tier | 5 projects; no reminders | ✅ More generous — includes reminders on free tier | ✅ Unlimited personal pages |
Entry Paid Price | $5/mo (annual) | ✅ $3/mo (annual — ~$36/year) | $12/mo (Plus) |
Natural Language Input | ✅ Best in class — complex parsing in one string | Basic — date entry requires explicit formatting | ❌ No native NLP task input |
Native Integrations | ✅ 150+ apps | ~30 native integrations | Moderate — strong API, fewer native task integrations |
Built-in Time Blocking | ❌ Calendar view only — no true time blocking | ⚠️ Better calendar view but still limited | ❌ Requires manual setup |
AI Features | ✅ Todoist Assist + Ramble voice-to-task (Gemini-powered) | ❌ No AI features | ✅ Notion AI ($10/mo add-on) |
Built-in Pomodoro / Habit Tracking | ❌ None | ✅ Built-in Pomodoro timer + habit tracker | ❌ Requires custom setup |
Task Dependencies | ❌ Not supported | ❌ Not supported | ⚠️ Possible via database relations — requires setup |
Best For | GTD practitioners, multi-client freelancers, cross-platform users | Budget-conscious users wanting built-in productivity tools at lower cost | Freelancers who want tasks integrated with notes, wikis, and client documentation in one place |
SRG Verdict
For freelancers managing multiple client projects with consistent daily task capture, Todoist Pro at $5/mo (annual) is genuinely hard to argue against. The natural language input is the fastest task capture experience I’ve tested at any price, Ramble voice-to-task is legitimately useful for capturing ideas without stopping what you’re doing, and 150+ native integrations mean it’ll fit into whatever tool stack you’re already running.
If you’re a GTD practitioner or someone who’s tried four different task managers and keeps bouncing back to Todoist, the Pro upgrade at $60/year ($1.15/week) is obvious ROI.
The caveats that matter: if you need time-blocking built in, Todoist isn’t the answer — you’ll need to pair it with another tool or look at TickTick, which has a better native calendar view at $36/year. If budget is the primary constraint, TickTick Premium at $36/year versus Todoist Pro at $60/year is a $24 annual gap for a comparable feature set, and TickTick throws in a Pomodoro timer and habit tracker that Todoist doesn’t have.
If you need task dependencies, sub-project reporting, or Gantt chart views for complex client projects, you’ve outgrown both tools and should look at ClickUp or Asana.
My SRG recommendation: start on the free tier, create your five projects, and use Todoist for two weeks. If you’re hitting the project cap or wishing for reminders before the two weeks are up — which most working freelancers will — upgrade to Pro.
Don’t pay monthly at $7/mo; commit to the $60/year annual billing and you’ll save $24/year over the monthly rate. For solo freelancers, this is almost certainly a better-value subscription than half the tools in your stack.
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