Best free task manager in 2026

Freemium with meaningful limits

The core app works, but key features are locked. Todoist's free tier limits you to 5 active projects and strips out reminders, calendar feeds, and the new Deadlines feature. You can manage tasks, but you hit walls quickly if you use it seriously.

Real Free plan with a bounded founding offer

A useful permanent Free tier with sensible limits, plus a paid Pro tier — and a capped founding-member program (e.g., first 30 customers lock in a permanent discount). The Free plan stays free; the founding rate is finite. SingleFocus follows this model.

One-time purchase (no subscription)

Pay once, own forever. Things 3 costs $50 for Mac + $10 for iPhone + $20 for iPad but has no subscription. After the initial purchase, it's “free” indefinitely. Not truly free, but a different cost model worth considering.

Google Tasks — free forever, minimal forever

Google Tasks is genuinely free with no limits because there's almost nothing to limit. You get lists, tasks, subtasks, due dates, and Google Calendar integration. That's it. No start dates, no priorities, no tags, no projects, no review mode, no NLP input. It's a digital checklist inside Gmail.

Best for: People who just need a basic grocery list or a few reminders tied to their Google Calendar. Not suitable for any structured productivity system.

Microsoft To Do — the Wunderlist successor

Microsoft To Do is fully free for anyone with a Microsoft account. It has a thoughtful “My Day” feature — a daily planning view where you manually select today's tasks each morning. Steps (subtasks), due dates, reminders, list sharing, and a clean interface. Integration with Outlook is seamless if you're in the Microsoft ecosystem.

What's missing: No start/defer dates, no projects (just flat lists), no sequential ordering, no review mode, no NLP input, no custom views. My Day resets daily, which is intentional but means you're manually curating every morning.

Best for: Microsoft 365 users who want a simple, integrated task list. Falls short for GTD or any structured methodology.

Todoist Free — good capture, frustrating limits

Todoist's free tier has the best natural language input of any task manager and works on every platform. But the limits bite quickly: 5 active projects, no reminders, no calendar feed, no Deadlines feature, and labels can't be used in filters. For casual use, 5 projects is enough. For real GTD — where 30–100 active projects is normal — it's a hard ceiling.

The free tier is designed to get you hooked on Todoist's excellent capture and then push you to Pro ($60/year) when you hit the walls. It's a fair business model, but the free version isn't suitable for serious task management.

Best for: Light personal use. Students or anyone with fewer than 5 areas of life to track. See Todoist alternatives if you need more.

TickTick Free — the most generous freemium

TickTick's free tier is arguably the most generous of any traditional task manager. 9 lists, calendar view, basic Pomodoro timer, habit tracker, and NLP input. The paid version ($36/year) adds more lists, Kanban, custom filters, and the full Pomodoro. The free-to-paid jump is smaller than Todoist's, which means the free version is more usable.

What's missing on free: No defer dates (even on paid), no sequential projects, no review mode, no focus mode. The Eisenhower matrix and habit tracker are available on free, which is genuinely useful.

Best for: People who want a capable free app with Pomodoro and habits built in. See TickTick vs Todoist for the full comparison.

Notion Free — unlimited but unstructured

Notion's free Personal plan gives you unlimited pages and blocks, which means unlimited tasks in theory. You can build any system you want: Kanban boards, database views, filtered lists, custom properties. The limits (1 guest, small file uploads, limited page history) rarely matter for personal task management.

The problem isn't the free tier — it's the tool itself. Notion is a general-purpose workspace, not a task manager. There's no inbox, no defer dates, no focus mode, no review, no NLP capture, no mobile-optimized task entry. You have to build everything from scratch, which is the opposite of what most people need. See Notion for task management for the full analysis.

Best for: People who enjoy building systems and want everything (notes, docs, tasks, wikis) in one tool. Not recommended for ADHD or GTD users.

SingleFocus — full GTD app, real Free plan

SingleFocus has a real Free plan ($0): unlimited tasks, 5 projects, 3 areas, 1 custom perspective, 1 shared list, weekly review, NLP capture, and full data export. Pro ($8/month or $72/year) unlocks unlimited projects and areas, smart focus and "what's next" suggestions, advanced review, calendar integration, MCP / REST API / Zapier / Apple Shortcuts, voice input, and priority support.

It's newer than the established players, which means a smaller community and fewer third-party integrations for now. The first 30 paying customers lock in founding-member pricing — $36/year for life — while that window is open.

Best for: GTD practitioners who want the full feature set on every device. People who've been waiting for OmniFocus-level depth in the browser. Anyone tired of hitting free-tier walls on Todoist or TickTick.