Choose TickTick if one person values native focus tools, several reminder modes, and a lower annual individual price. Choose Todoist if project structure, documented team limits, templates, or developer access matter more. Neither app is the universal winner. The better choice depends on the plan, device, people, and workflow you need to support.
This comparison uses official pricing and feature documentation reviewed November 6, 2026. Prices and plan entitlements can change by country, currency, tax, purchase channel, legacy subscription, or renewal date, so verify the official pages before buying.
TickTick vs Todoist: the short answer
Start with the constraint your workflow cannot compromise on. That might be annual individual cost, a location reminder, a native focus timer, project capacity, team membership, or a documented API. Then compare the relevant plan and behavior instead of scoring every feature equally.
Choose by the constraint your workflow cannot compromise on, not by the longest feature list.
Current pricing: compare equivalent plans and billing periods
The prices below are US-facing figures shown in the official documentation reviewed on November 6, 2026. TickTick Premium and Todoist Pro are individual-plan comparisons. Todoist Business is a team-oriented plan and is not a like-for-like alternative to one individual TickTick Premium subscription.
| Plan | Annual price | Monthly option | Useful limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| TickTick Free | Free | Not applicable | 9 lists; 99 tasks per list |
| TickTick Premium | US$49.99/year | Not listed on the reviewed page | 299 lists; 999 tasks per list |
| Todoist Beginner | Free | Not applicable | 5 active personal projects; 3 filters |
| Todoist Pro | US$60/year | US$7/month | 300 personal projects; 150 filters |
| Todoist Business | US$96/user/year | US$10/user/month | Up to 1,000 team members and guests |
Sources: TickTick’s official plan comparison, Todoist pricing, the Todoist plan and billing FAQ, and Todoist usage limits. Todoist Pro is equivalent to US$5 per month when its annual price is divided across 12 months. Show both the actual billing interval and the equivalent monthly figure when comparing costs.
Do not use the older comparison figures of US$27.99 per year for TickTick Premium or US$4 per month for Todoist Pro as current prices. For a team purchase, count the people who need access, identify the features they need, and then compare the total annual cost.
Reminders and focus tools: compare the exact behavior
A reminder can mean an automatic alert for a dated task, a custom alert at a chosen time, a recurring alert, a location-based alert, or repeated notifications. These are different capabilities, so the statement that an app “has reminders” is not enough.
Todoist Beginner includes automatic reminders for tasks with a date and time. Its current plan documentation lists custom, time-based, recurring, and location-based reminders on Pro and Business. TickTick documents multiple reminders, Constant Reminder, email reminders, repeat reminders, and location reminders. TickTick’s location reminder instructions specify iOS and Android conditions. Check the relevant plan and device before relying on a particular alert.
TickTick also documents a native Pomodoro and Focus feature with focus records and session settings. Todoist can be paired with third-party focus tools, but that is not the same as an in-app timer. If a native timer is essential, test TickTick’s feature on the device you plan to use rather than treating an external integration as equivalent.
Todoist Karma is not simply a rewards-only system. Its official help documentation says that Karma awards points for activity and can deduct points when tasks are five or more days overdue.
Write the alert events you actually need, such as “notify me at the deadline,” “remind me again,” or “alert me when I arrive.” Verify each event against the intended plan and device before subscribing.
Useful sources for this check include Todoist’s plan documentation, TickTick’s reminder instructions, and TickTick’s Pomodoro help page.
Organization and collaboration: match the limit to the scope
Todoist is a stronger candidate when your workflow depends on project hierarchy, filters, team spaces, templates, or explicit team capacity. Its official template catalog contains project templates for work, personal, education, marketing, development, and other categories.
TickTick should not be dismissed as having no templates. Its current Premium comparison lists templates, along with filters, calendar views, task duration, and collaboration features. The older comparison’s no-template claim is therefore outdated or requires qualification.
Compare collaboration at the same data grain. TickTick’s Premium comparison lists a member count of 29, but the reviewed page does not clarify whether the account owner is included. Todoist documents up to five people on a personal project, up to 250 people per team project, and up to 1,000 team members and guests on Business. These figures describe different scopes. They are not interchangeable measures of “collaborators.”
Before choosing, record who needs access, which list or project they need, and what permissions they need. A household sharing a few lists may need only a simple shared-list setup. A team that needs centralized workspace capacity, defined project structures, or broader membership limits should inspect Todoist’s documented team scopes.
Integrations and automation: check the access path, not the logo
Todoist has a documented developer platform covering an API, SDKs, CLI, MCP server, authentication, resources, and webhooks. This makes it a candidate for a custom or event-driven workflow, provided you verify authorization, resource access, rate limits, and the exact API operation. Start with the Todoist developer hub and then check the relevant API documentation.
TickTick’s integration directory lists services including Zapier, IFTTT, Gmail, Spark, Telegram, Shortcuts, Outlook, Slack, and Chatmind. The directory confirms that TickTick advertises these integrations. It does not establish a connector’s exact triggers, actions, fields, sync direction, rate limits, or plan requirements. Verify the live connector before designing a workflow.
For example, consider an internal intake form that submits an approved task request. This is a proposed architecture, not a vendor-provided recipe. The intake system supplies a stable event ID, task text, a proposed date, and an approved project mapping. Todoist is the task system of record, while the integration stores the source event ID and returned Todoist task ID in its own record.
Use deterministic rules for known fields. Validate the project against an approved mapping, validate the date syntax, and reject missing task content. AI may propose a title or date from genuinely unstructured text, but it should not select a project or assignee without an approved mapping. Send ambiguous dates or assignments to the person who submitted the request.
{
"source_event_id": "intake-84721",
"task_content": "Review the supplier renewal",
"due_date_text": "2026-11-20",
"project_id": "project-id-from-approved-configuration",
"requested_assignee": "operations-owner",
"command_uuid": "caller-generated-stable-uuid",
"sync_status": "pending",
"todoist_task_id": null,
"last_sync_at": null
}This is an illustrative integration record, not a Todoist API request schema. The workflow validates that the authorized account can access the project and any referenced section, parent task, label, or assignee before writing. After a successful write, it stores the returned task ID, source event ID, request UUID, response status, and last-sync timestamp separately.
For safe retries of the same Todoist Sync API command, reuse its command UUID. If multiple workers can process the same event, enforce uniqueness on the source event ID with a database constraint or transactional upsert. A lookup followed by an insert is not race-safe. Authorization failures, deleted projects, rate limits, malformed dates, plan restrictions, and webhook redelivery should create an actionable exception for the workflow owner. Measure whether each approved intake has one corresponding task, whether retries create duplicates, and whether exceptions reach the assigned owner.
The same discipline applies to a TickTick integration. Confirm whether the connection is one-way, two-way, import-only, or calendar-subscription-only. Check whether completion, edits, comments, labels, dates, and attachments actually synchronize. A calendar feed should not be described as native task creation or bidirectional task updates.
Choose by operating situation, then run a short fit test
- One person who wants focus sessions and varied reminders: start with TickTick and verify the required reminder types and mobile behavior.
- One person managing many projects or filters: compare Todoist Pro’s documented limits with the current workload before paying.
- A household or small team sharing work: count participants at the list or project level, then compare the relevant plan cost and permissions.
- A technical team requiring documented developer access: evaluate Todoist’s API documentation against the resources, events, authorization model, and retry behavior the workflow needs.
Test representative work before migrating everything: one recurring task, one deadline-sensitive task, one shared workflow, and one integration requirement if applicable. Record time to capture, missed or duplicated tasks, reminder behavior on the actual device, clarity of task ownership, and total subscription cost for the intended users.
- Run and complete one recurring task in each app.
- Test a deadline-sensitive task on the device you actually use.
- Share one representative workflow with the intended participants and confirm the access scope.
- Check the exact repeated or location-based alert you require, including its plan and platform conditions.
- Calculate the total plan cost for every person who needs access.
Choose the app that satisfies the required constraints with the least operational friction. If a workflow crosses several systems, map ownership, access, validation, and failure handling before selecting an automation path. ConsultEvo’s systems and automation consulting page outlines relevant support.