The research in brief
Todoist is a mixed fit for free project management for startups. Two of the six included platforms named Todoist during the ranking stage - a 33% share - at an average listed rank of 8.5 and a best rank of 7 (Claude, DeepSeek). The strongest reason to consider it is a genuinely free, no-cost Beginner plan with fast task capture, list and board layouts, and basic reminders [15]. The main limitation is capacity: five active personal projects, five active team projects, three filters, one week of activity history, and 5 MB attachments [13]. Most platforms rated it mixed; only DeepSeek rated it good.
Research Snapshot
| Field | Finding |
|---|---|
| Platform mentions in ranking stage | 2 of 6 included platforms (Claude, DeepSeek) |
| Share of included platform responses | 33.3% |
| Average listed rank | 8.5 |
| Best listed rank | 7 (DeepSeek) |
| Software offering | Todoist Free Plan (Beginner) |
| Overall use-case fit | Mixed |
| Research date | 2026-10-01 |
Why Todoist Qualified for This Study
Questions explored
- Why did only two AI platforms name Todoist for free project management for startups?
- Is Todoist a good choice for a startup founder who needs a permanently free task tool?
Todoist qualified because it met the study's minimum-mention threshold of two platforms while clearing the free-tier criteria the research prompt specified: a permanently free plan rather than a time-limited trial, no software budget required, and simple setup without training [15]. Anthropic listed it at rank 10 and DeepSeek at rank 7, producing the 8.5 average and 33.3% share shown above.
Qualification is not endorsement. Four of the six included platforms did not name Todoist in their ranking stage at all, and five of six rated its fit for this use case as mixed rather than good (Claude, Gemini, Grok, Kimi, ChatGPT). DeepSeek alone rated it good. The consensus index for this category, free project management for startups, shows how Todoist compares against the other finalists.
The software offering in focus
Questions explored
- Which Todoist plan is actually free for a startup team, and what does it include?
- Is the Todoist Beginner plan the same thing as the Todoist Free plan?
The relevant product is the Todoist Free Plan, which Todoist's own materials also label the Beginner plan [15]. OpenAI's assessment treats Beginner and Free as the same tier because the pricing page labels Beginner as always free [15]. Buyers should expect both names to appear in Todoist documentation.
The free tier includes Smart Quick Add, task reminders, list and board layouts, sections, labels, priorities, recurring due dates, and integrations with email and calendar tools [13]. Board layout on the Beginner plan supports sections as columns, task cards, drag-and-drop movement, and synchronized changes for collaborators [14].
Todoist's own terms state that it does not represent or guarantee when, if ever, Todoist Pro features will be available in the free version [17]. That is a company-owned statement about the free tier's ceiling, not an independent finding.
What the AI Platforms Agreed About
Questions explored
- What do AI platforms agree the Todoist free plan does well for startups?
- Is Todoist free forever, and does it require a credit card?
The clearest cross-platform agreement concerns cost and setup friction. Multiple platforms reported the free plan as $0 with no expiration and no trial clock [15]. Anthropic and Grok both state no credit card is required [30]. OpenAI could not verify a credit-card requirement from the official pages it reviewed and flagged this as unverified [15] - so the no-credit-card claim rests on independent and platform-reported sources, not on company documentation confirmed in this study.
Platforms also agreed on ease of use. Anthropic describes a minimal learning curve and distraction-free design [20]; Kimi reports users can begin capturing tasks within minutes [6]; Google cites frictionless setup and natural-language parsing [24]. OpenAI notes these features support fast initial setup but states the source provides no independent time-to-implementation measurement [13].
Agreement on core task features was also broad: list and board layouts, quick task entry, reminders, and recurring tasks appear across OpenAI, Anthropic, Grok, Google, and Kimi findings [13].
Where the AI Platforms Disagreed or Were Uncertain
Questions explored
- Do AI platforms disagree about whether Todoist free includes Kanban boards?
- Is Todoist's free plan limit 5 projects or 80 projects?
The sharpest conflict is board availability. OpenAI, Grok, and Google report board or Kanban layout as available on the free plan [14]. Kimi states the opposite - that the free plan offers only list-based views and that native Kanban boards require Pro [7]. This is a direct contradiction between platforms, and buyers should verify board availability in their own account before committing a workflow to it.
A second conflict concerns project limits. Anthropic notes one older independent review citing an 80-project free limit, which it treats as outdated, against the current consensus of five projects [28]. Anthropic also reports the limit was reduced from 80 to 5 in 2021 [28].
Reminder status is a third area of drift. Anthropic and Grok report basic automatic reminders are now included on the free tier while custom reminders remain Pro-only [32]. Google notes legacy reviews describe the free plan as having no reminders at all, which it attributes to older documentation [24].
Pricing figures vary slightly across aggregators. Anthropic reports CostBench and some aggregators listing Pro at $4–6.25 per user per month against the vendor's $5 annual figure, which it attributes to stale caches around a documented increase from $4 to $5 [18]. DeepSeek explicitly declined to assert exact paid prices and rated its pricing confidence low [15].
Features for this workload
Questions explored
- Does Todoist free include enough task and board features for a four-person startup?
- What free-tier limits will a startup hit first in Todoist?
Core task execution is the free plan's strength. Smart Quick Add, reminders, list and board layouts, sections, sub-tasks, labels, priorities, and recurring dates are all reported as available [13]. Kimi reports sub-tasks up to five levels deep and CSV/JSON export on all plans including Free [6].
Capacity is the constraint. The free plan allows five active personal projects and five active team projects, three filters, one week of activity history, 5 MB comment attachments, and 10 Ramble sessions per month, with general limits of 300 active tasks per project and 20 sections per project [13]. OpenAI notes the nominal team-size ceilings - 250 people per team project and 1,000 administrators per free team workspace - are far above the target buyer's under-10-person requirement and do not remove the five-project restriction [13].
Collaboration is limited but present. Free users can collaborate in personal projects and use a free team workspace, capped at five active team projects, three team filters, one week of team activity history, and up to five guests, with less granular roles than Business [13]. Anthropic reports up to five collaborators per project on free versus 25 on Pro [22].
Features absent from the free tier include calendar layout, custom reminders, task duration, advanced filters, AI Task Assist, and full reporting history [19]. Kimi reports no native time tracking or project-level reporting on any Todoist plan [6].
Pricing, renewal terms, and ongoing costs
Questions explored
- How much does Todoist cost per month, and are there setup or cancellation fees?
- What happens to a startup's data if it downgrades from Todoist Pro to the free plan?
The free plan is listed at US$0 [15]. Paid tiers are Pro at US$5 per user per month billed annually or US$7 monthly, and Business at US$8 per user per month billed annually or US$10 monthly, with local tax noted for Business [15]. Kimi lists Pro monthly at $6 rather than $7, a minor discrepancy buyers should confirm at checkout [7].
No setup fee is reported for the free plan, and no paid contract is required for it based on the reviewed pricing page [15]. Todoist's terms state that all fees are non-refundable except as expressly provided by applicable law or required by law, and that prepaid fees are non-refundable and non-cancellable unless otherwise stated on the help page [17]. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled, and cancellation must occur before the renewal date to avoid the next charge [17].
Several terms remain unverified. OpenAI reports that refund, renewal, cancellation, and downgrade data-retention rules were not fully specified in the sources it reviewed [15]. Kimi notes it is unclear whether annual Pro refunds are prorated on cancellation [7]. Anthropic reports Business seat billing scales linearly with headcount, so ten people would cost roughly $960–1,200 per year depending on plan and billing cycle [18].
Best Suited For
Questions explored
- Who gets the most value from Todoist free as a startup project management tool?
Solo founders and very small teams get the most from Todoist free. OpenAI lists solo founders organizing personal and startup work in a small number of projects, teams under 10 needing lightweight task lists or Kanban-style boards, and startups prioritizing fast setup, reminders, recurring tasks, and integrations over reporting or advanced collaboration controls [13].
Anthropic narrows this further to solo founders managing a single project or one primary initiative, individuals with fewer than five distinct projects, teams of one to two people using basic task lists and recurring tasks, and users prioritizing speed of task entry through natural language input [20]. DeepSeek frames the fit as solo founders tracking personal tasks and simple to-dos, teams under roughly five people with few active projects, and startups wanting fast, low-friction setup with no credit card [15].
Google describes the best fit as solo founders wanting a clean personal task manager with natural-language parsing, very small teams whose operations fit into five shared projects, and teams needing highly mobile cross-platform syncing with no credit card [24].
Probably Not Best Suited For
Questions explored
- Who should not choose Todoist free for startup project management?
- Is Todoist free a bad choice for a startup tracking six or more projects?
Startups tracking more than five active projects should look elsewhere. OpenAI states the free plan is not a strong general-purpose project management platform for startups whose workflows span more than a few active projects or require advanced collaboration and reporting [13]. Anthropic states the five-project cap is deliberately restrictive and forces upgrades for any startup with multiple product lines, client work, or strategic initiatives [28].
Teams needing calendar visibility, custom reminder timing, or longer audit trails are also poorly served. Anthropic reports calendar view is locked behind Pro, custom reminders require Pro, and one week of activity history limits retrospectives [18]. Google reports the same calendar and custom-reminder exclusions plus a 5 MB attachment cap [23].
Teams needing Gantt charts, time tracking, dependencies, workload views, or granular permissions fall outside the free tier's scope. OpenAI lists these as reasons to choose a more full-featured platform [13]. Kimi reports no native time tracking, reporting, or sprint analytics on any plan [6]. DeepSeek notes the free plan is less suited to timelines, dependencies, and workload management [29].
When Another Option May Be Better
Questions explored
- What is a better alternative to Todoist free for a startup that needs unlimited projects?
- When should a startup choose ClickUp, Plaky, or Notion instead of Todoist free?
Several platforms named specific alternatives. Anthropic reports ClickUp's free tier offers unlimited projects and is explicitly called out as best for startups, that Plaky allows unlimited users on its free plan, and that TickTick and Any.do include calendar views on free [2]. Anthropic also notes ClickUp, Trello, and Asana offer more comprehensive project management capabilities and greater customization [27].
Kimi points to Kanbanq, Comuna, AlianHub, and EzNxt as free tiers with board-based project management and more generous team limits [11]. These are vendor-owned comparison pages, so the claims are company-reported rather than independent.
Google recommends Trello, ClickUp, or Notion when a startup needs a larger portfolio of initiatives, and notes that visual timeline scheduling and calendar-based roadmapping are fully locked on Todoist's free plan [8]. DeepSeek suggests tools with higher free project limits, dedicated PM tools with Gantt or portfolio views in their free tiers, and all-in-one suites combining docs and project management [15].
Switching costs at this stage are low. Anthropic notes that if the free tier does not serve the workflow, migration costs to ClickUp, Plaky, Notion, or TickTick are low for an early-stage team [2].
Questions to ask before choosing a provider
Questions explored
- What should a startup confirm with Todoist before relying on the free plan?
- Does Todoist free require a credit card in the United States?
Confirm the credit-card requirement at signup. OpenAI could not verify from official pages whether a card is ever requested for the free plan and recommends confirming during signup [15]. Anthropic and Grok report no card is required [30], but this rests on non-company sources.
Confirm the live limits. OpenAI recommends verifying whether five active personal and five active team projects cover the expected workflow including archived-project handling, whether all required collaborators can edit shared projects without paid seats, and which paid features become unavailable to free collaborators or guests [13]. DeepSeek recommends confirming current exact limits on active projects, collaborators, filters, and history, and whether board view is supported and for how many projects [15].
Confirm downgrade and data behavior. OpenAI lists what happens to projects, filters, attachments, and historical activity after downgrading from Pro or Business as an open question [13]. Kimi asks whether all data including comments and attachments can be exported if the team migrates away [6].
Confirm pricing and terms at purchase. OpenAI recommends verifying current monthly prices, taxes, renewal terms, and refund rules at the time of purchase [15]. Todoist's terms state fees are non-refundable except as required by law and that subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled [17].
The consensus assessment
Todoist Free is a mixed fit for free project management for startups. Two of six included platforms named it in the ranking stage at an average rank of 8.5, and five of six rated the fit mixed, with DeepSeek alone rating it good. The consensus is that Todoist free is a genuinely usable, no-cost task manager with fast capture, list and board layouts, and basic reminders, but that its five-project cap, three filters, one week of history, 5 MB attachments, and Pro-gated calendar and custom reminders make it a weak central hub for a startup running multiple concurrent workstreams.
Platform agreement here reflects repeated reporting from overlapping sources, not verified product quality. The board-availability conflict between Kimi and the other platforms, the credit-card uncertainty, and the unverified refund and downgrade terms all remain open. Buyers whose workflow fits inside five projects and who value speed of capture over project controls have a low-risk free option; buyers who need portfolio views, calendar planning, or team collaboration depth should evaluate the alternatives named in this study before committing.
How This Review Was Produced
This review synthesizes fit assessments submitted by six AI platforms for the research prompt: a first-time startup founder with a team of four and no software budget needing to organize tasks, deadlines, and project boards on a permanently free plan. Each platform returned a fit rating, strengths, limitations, pricing findings, and questions to verify. Todoist was named during ranking discovery by two of the six platforms, meeting the study's minimum-mention threshold of two. All platform outputs are platform-reported and were not independently verified by the writer stage. The category context for this review sits within project management and team collaboration software.
Research limitations
The authoritative research date for this study is 2026-10-01. Platform-reported research dates differ: DeepSeek reported 2026-01-15 while the other five platforms reported 2026-10-01. Platform-reported dates are provenance metadata and do not independently prove freshness.
Platform mentions count only platforms that named Todoist during ranking discovery; all six included platforms evaluated fit. DeepSeek ran with search disabled, so its findings are model-reported rather than retrieved. The supplied URLs were collected from platform responses and were not independently validated by the writer stage. Citations are platform-reported evidence, not independently verified facts. Conflicting product names, pricing, and capabilities were described rather than resolved. Several vendor-owned comparison pages appear in the alternatives discussion and are company-reported. No personal testing, customer experience, or independent verification was performed for this review.
See the broader Startups and Solo Founders consensus index for comparisons across qualified options.
Sources
Company-Owned Sources
- AlianHub - Open-Source Project Management: https://alianhub.com/
- Best Free Project Management Software in 2026: https://clickup.com/blog/free-project-management-software/
- Free forever - the whole product, no tiers: https://comuna.work/free/
- Work with others in Todoist: https://lp-regional-test.todoist.com/help/account-and-billing/teams/work-with-others-in-todoist-WOpFVjup7
- 10 Best Todoist Alternatives in 2026 (Free & Paid, Tested: https://plaky.com/blog/todoist-alternatives/
- Todoist Help Center: https://todoist.com/help
- Todoist Pricing: Which plan is right for you?: https://todoist.com/pricing
- Todoist Plan Comparison - Official Help: https://vertexaisearch.cloud.google.com/grounding-api-redirect/AUZIYQH241jNmiD9hcDvgPRZQ6GGfItznGjC9nMS_XGeNokGIIqDRT0VYH95Jwcrd8hgfRKjDi8RV7i98uOkRsNIEnQgnuBZcC88E9swSgCnTdKztqkzdon1Di3CMUiUxih8_9dCTbZeRvRUg2Rc118Wa2O6enusa_Kb3zQMbjDWLXdFafLc3Q21Lxm5bQYFaY3JKWKFM5U8GDCR5aBMN-DdeDtOgA==
- Free Project Management Software - Kanban, Gantt & Time Tracking: https://www.eznxt.com/projects
- Free Project Management for Unlimited Users: https://www.kanbanq.app/free-project-management-unlimited-users
- Todoist plans, pricing, and billing FAQ: https://www.todoist.com/help/account-and-billing/plans/todoist-plans-pricing-and-billing-faq-Vq2z0HWL6
- Usage limits in Todoist: https://www.todoist.com/help/account-and-billing/plans/usage-limits-in-todoist-e5rcSY
- Use the board layout in Todoist: https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/board-layout-in-todoist-nutzen-AiAVsyEI
- Pricing | Todoist: https://www.todoist.com/pricing/
- Official pricing and terms source: https://www.todoist.com/
- Official pricing and terms source: https://www.todoist.com/terms-of-service
Independent Sources
- Todoist Pricing 2026: 3 Plans from Free–$8/user/month: https://costbench.com/software/project-management/todoist/
- Todoist Pricing 2026: The 5-Project Free Cap That Forces $5 Pro: https://get-alfred.ai/blog/todoist-pricing
- Todoist Review 2026: Pricing, Features, Pros & Cons, Ratings & More: https://research.com/software/reviews/todoist
- Todoist Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Alternatives: https://smartremotegigs.com/software/todoist/
- Todoist Pricing Tiers & Costs: https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/tools/todoist-pricing/
- Top 10 Todoist Alternatives & Competitors in 2026: https://www.g2.com/products/todoist/competitors/alternatives
- Todoist Pricing, Features & Limits: Is It Worth It in 2026?: https://www.morgen.so/blog-posts/todoist-pricing
- Todoist Review: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/todoist
- Todoist Pricing 2026: Free Plan vs Paid - What's the: https://www.spotsaas.com/product/todoist/pricing
- Todoist Free Plan Limits: Projects, Filters & More (2026: https://www.usecarly.com/blog/todoist-free-plan-limits/
- Todoist Pricing in 2026: Free, Pro at $5, and Business at $8: https://www.usecarly.com/blog/todoist-pricing/
ChatGPT
Claude
DeepSeek
Grok
Perplexity
Kimi
Gemini