Task Management Software: The Best To-Do Apps for You and a Small Team, Free and Paid

Most people who search for task management software need less than they fear. A bookkeeper with a dozen clients, a freelancer juggling deadlines or an office manager keeping the week together needs a place to write a task down in two seconds, a reminder at the right time and, often, a list they can share with one or two other people. That is a to-do app, and several good ones are free.

This guide compares seven task tools, from personal to-do apps to the lighter end of team software, on what the free plan allows and what paying adds. Every price is in US dollars from the vendor's own pricing page or Apple's US App Store. If your team needs timelines, workloads and reporting, skip ahead to our guide to the best project management software.

Task app or project management tool?

A task app is enough when:

• Each task stands on its own. "Call the supplier", "send the invoice", "renew the domain". Nothing waits for something else to finish.
• One person, or a handful, does the work. You share a list with a partner or an assistant, not a department.
• The question is "what do I do today?" not "will the project finish on time?"

You have outgrown it when tasks depend on each other, when you need to see a schedule on a timeline, when you have to balance who is overloaded, or when a client expects to see progress. That is when Asana, ClickUp or Wrike start earning their per-seat price, and when a Gantt chart tool becomes useful.

The seven at a glance

What the free plans leave out

Free plans are generous with tasks and stingy with something else. Before you commit a year of habits to one, check the limit that will bite you first:

Two patterns stand out. Personal apps (Todoist, TickTick) limit how many lists you keep, which hurts if you organize by client. Team tools (Trello, Asana, ClickUp) limit people or storage, which hurts once the team grows or starts attaching photos and PDFs to tasks. Pick the free plan whose limit you are least likely to hit in the next year, and you may never need to pay.

Todoist: best for fast capture and a clean daily list

Todoist is the app to beat for getting a task out of your head quickly and seeing today's list without clutter. The free Beginner plan gives you 5 personal projects, 3 filter views, task reminders, 5 MB file uploads and up to 5 collaborators per project, with a week of activity history. It includes Todoist's Filter Assist AI and a limited number of Ramble sessions.

Pro costs $5 a month billed annually ($60 a year), or $7 billed monthly. It raises the limits to 300 projects and 150 filter views, adds custom reminders, calendar and table layouts, task durations, deadlines, automatic backups and the full set of AI helpers (Task Assist, Email Assist and unlimited Ramble).

For a team, Business costs $8 a user a month billed annually ($10 monthly) and adds a shared team workspace with up to 500 team projects, shared templates, roles and permissions and team activity logs.

What to watch:

• Five projects go quickly. If you keep one project per client, the free plan fills up on day one.
• Custom reminders are paid. Free has task reminders, but not reminders at a time you choose separately from the due date.
• No calendar view on Free. The calendar layout starts on Pro.

Choose it if you want the fastest way to capture and sort tasks across phone, desktop and email, and might add a small team later.

TickTick: best for tasks, calendar and habits in one app

TickTick does more than a to-do list for one annual price. Premium is $49.99 a year (TickTick puts it at less than $4.17 a month), and TickTick lists no monthly option on its upgrade page.

The free plan allows 9 lists, 99 tasks and notes per list, 19 checklist items per task, 2 reminders a task, 5 habits and 2 members for sharing. It includes a basic calendar view and a basic Eisenhower matrix (sorting tasks by urgent and important). Premium lifts those to 299 lists, 999 tasks per list, 5 reminders a task, 299 habits and 29 members, with unlimited calendar views, widgets, themes and statistics.

What to watch:

• The free list limit is tight. Nine lists is fine for home, work and errands, not for a list per client.
• Sharing is per person, not per team. There is no team plan with central billing, so TickTick works for a household or two partners, not a staff of ten.

Choose it if you plan your day on a calendar and want habits and statistics in the same app, for less than Todoist Pro.

Microsoft To Do: best free task app, and the one Microsoft 365 users already have

Microsoft To Do costs nothing. Its App Store listing says plainly: "To Do is free and available on all your devices." You get My Day, a daily planner with suggested tasks, one-off and recurring due dates and reminders, tasks broken into steps, files of up to 25 MB on any task, and lists you can share with anyone to add, complete or remove tasks together.

For a business on Microsoft 365, it has one more trick. Its Assigned to me list shows every task assigned to you in Microsoft Planner, next to your personal tasks, in To Do on Windows, iOS and Android and in Outlook on the web. You turn it on under Settings, Connected apps. If the Planner option is missing, Microsoft says to ask your admin whether you have a Planner license.

What to watch:

• No paid tier means no team features. There are no projects, roles, timelines or reports; a shared list is as far as it goes.
• Planner is a separate product. Microsoft prices Planner's paid plans separately, and this guide does not quote them. Our Microsoft Project pricing guide covers Microsoft's heavier planning tools.

Choose it if you want a free, no-nonsense list on every device, or your team already works in Outlook and Teams.

Things: best for one person on Apple devices

Things is a personal task manager from Cultured Code, and it is the only app here you buy once. On the US App Store, Things 3 for Mac is $49.99 and Things 3 for iPhone and Apple Watch is $9.99, each a one-time purchase with no in-app purchases. The iPad version is sold separately. Cultured Code sets its prices in US dollars and lets Apple convert them for other countries.

Cultured Code describes it as a task manager "that helps you plan your day". What you do not get is anything outside Apple: Cultured Code lists Mac, iPhone and Watch, iPad and Vision Pro, and no Windows, Android or web version.

What to watch:

• Apple only. If you use a Windows PC at work or an Android phone, look elsewhere.
• One person. Cultured Code calls it a personal task manager, and its site lists no shared projects or team plan.

Choose it if you work alone, live on a Mac and iPhone, and would rather pay $59.98 once than $60 every year.

Trello: best for a small team sharing one board

Trello sits between a to-do app and project management. A board with columns (to do, doing, done) is the simplest team task system there is, and Trello Free covers up to 10 collaborators per workspace and 10 boards, with unlimited cards, due dates, assignees, checklists, an inbox for quick capture from email, Slack and Teams, and iOS and Android apps.

Standard costs $5 a user a month billed annually ($6 monthly) and adds unlimited boards, advanced checklists, custom fields and single-board guests. Premium is $10 a user billed annually ($12.50 monthly) for calendar, timeline, table and dashboard views.

What to watch:

• The calendar view is Premium. A free or Standard board has due dates but no calendar layout.
• Ten collaborators, then everyone pays. The free limit is per workspace.

Choose it if your team's work moves through stages you can see on one board: orders, jobs, content or hiring.

Asana and ClickUp: when the list becomes a project

Both are project management tools with good task lists at their core, and both have free plans worth trying before you buy a heavier system.

Asana's free Personal plan covers 2 users, with unlimited tasks and projects and list, board and calendar views. Starter, at $10.99 a user a month billed annually ($13.49 monthly), adds timelines and Gantt views, unlimited automations, forms, custom fields and unlimited free guests.

ClickUp's Free Forever plan allows unlimited members, unlimited tasks and subtasks, docs, boards, a calendar and a time-tracking trial, but only 60 MB of storage and 5 Spaces. Core costs $9 a user a month billed yearly and removes those limits.

What to watch:

• Both are more than a to-do list. If you only want a daily list, the setup time is wasted.
• ClickUp upgrades the whole workspace. Paying for one person means paying for everyone in it.

Choose them if your tasks have started to depend on each other. Our guide to the best project management software compares them with Wrike, Smartsheet and Basecamp for teams, and free project management software goes deeper on the free plans.

What a five-person team pays in a year

TickTick and Things have no team plan, so they are left out. Asana's free plan stops at 2 users, so a team of five starts on Starter.

Building a task system that sticks

The app matters less than the habits around it. Three rules that work in any of these tools:

1. One inbox. Every task goes into one place first, from your phone, your email or a meeting. Sort it later, but never keep a second list on paper.
2. A date or nothing. A task with no date and no project is a wish. Give it a day, put it on a "someday" list, or delete it.
3. A weekly review. Fifteen minutes on Friday to clear the inbox, move what slipped and look at next week. If you also bill by the hour, pair the list with a time tracking tool.

How to choose

1. Free, on every device, no fuss? Microsoft To Do.
2. Fast capture and the best daily list? Todoist, free or Pro at $5 a month billed annually.
3. Tasks plus calendar plus habits? TickTick Premium at $49.99 a year.
4. Mac and iPhone, no subscription? Things, $59.98 once for both.
5. A small team on one board? Trello Free, then Standard at $5 a user.
6. Tasks that depend on each other? Asana or ClickUp, and read our best project management software guide first.