--- title: "A TickTick alternative without the list limits" description: "TickTick caps the free plan at 9 lists and 99 tasks each, and gates filters behind Premium. Here is what a smaller app gives you instead, and what it costs you." canonical: https://taskpocket.io/alternatives/ticktick/ lastUpdated: 2026-09-01 --- 1. [Home](https://taskpocket.io/) 2. [Alternatives](https://taskpocket.io/alternatives/) 3. TickTick alternative # Looking for a TickTick alternative TickTick is a bigger, more capable product than TaskPocket, and on repeating tasks it is a better one. The two real reasons people leave are the counting — 9 lists and 99 tasks each on the free plan — and the breadth, if a calendar, habits and a Pomodoro timer turned into a second job. By [Bohdan Stefaniuk](https://taskpocket.io/about/) Last updated 2026-09-01 ## Why people go looking Two reasons, and they pull in opposite directions. The counting. TickTick publishes its limits, which is more than most of this category does, and they are tighter than people expect: 9 lists, 99 tasks per list, 19 checklist items per task, 2 reminders, one attachment a day, 5 habits, and 2 members on a shared list. The one that bites is the list cap — nine is not many once areas of your life get their own — and the tasks cap arrives quietly, because 99 feels infinite until a project is real. Custom filters, task duration, activity history and integrations are Premium-only on top. The breadth. The other group leaves for the opposite reason: TickTick is a calendar, a habit tracker, a Pomodoro timer and a task manager in one application. That is genuinely good value and it is why most people choose it. It is also a lot of surface to maintain, and some people discover they are tending the app rather than doing the work. This is a taste question, not a flaw. A third reason shows up occasionally and is worth answering directly: AI. TickTick sells “AI Features” as a Premium row on its own plan comparison. If you specifically want a task manager with no model in it, see [why there is no AI here](https://taskpocket.io/no-ai/). ## Side by side *TickTick compared with TaskPocket, with the plan each feature requires* | Feature | TickTick | TaskPocket | | --- | --- | --- | | Unlimited tasks on the free plan | No 1 | Yes | | Unlimited lists or projects on the free plan | No 2 | No 3 | | Custom filters on the free plan | No 4 | No 5 | | Web app | Yes | Yes | | Windows, macOS and Linux apps | Yes | No 6 | | iPhone app | Yes | Yes | | Android app | Yes | No 7 | | Apple Watch app | Yes | No | | Reminders and notifications | Yes 8 | No 9 | | Calendar view | Yes 10 | No 11 | | Habit tracking and a Pomodoro timer | Yes | No 11 | | Sharing and collaboration | Yes 12 | No 13 | | Public API and MCP server | Yes 14 | No | | Import from other apps | Yes 15 | No 16 | | AI features in the product | Yes 17 | No | | A scheduling date and a deadline as two fields | No 18 | Partial 19 | | A start date that defers the task out of sight | Unknown 20 | Yes | | Repeat anchored to completion | Yes 21 | Yes | | Stop a repeat after N times, or on a date | Yes 22 | Yes | | Skip one occurrence | Yes 23 | Yes | | A deadline on a repeating task | No 24 | Yes | | One-time purchase available | No 25 | Yes | 1. 99 per list. 2. 9 lists free, 299 on Premium. 3. 5 projects and 2 areas free; unlimited on Premium. 4. Filter is Premium-only. 5. TaskPocket has no custom filters at all. 6. The web app, in any browser. 7. In development, not shipped. The web app works today. 8. 2 per task free, 5 on Premium. 9. None at all, on any platform. 10. Basic free, unlimited on Premium. 11. Deliberately not built. 12. 2 members per list free. 13. Single-user by design. 14. REST API with an OAuth portal, plus mcp.ticktick.com. 15. Todoist, Microsoft To Do, Wunderlist, OmniFocus, Toodledo, iCal. 16. No importer of any kind. 17. Premium-only. 18. A due date, or a Premium-only Duration range in its place. No deadline field distinct from the due date. 19. Two fields. The deadline field and the Deadlines view are Premium. 20. No deferring behaviour is documented. 21. "By Completion Date". 22. "Repeat Ends After xx times" and "Repeat Ends On". 23. "Skip the recurrence". 24. There is no deadline field to put on one. 25. Subscription only. TickTick wins most of that table, and the rows it loses are narrow: the counting, the second date field, and a one-time price. That is the whole of the case, and it is either exactly what you need or it is not enough. ## Nothing counts your tasks The direct answer to the most common reason for looking. Tasks are unlimited on both TaskPocket plans — there is no per-list cap, no total cap, and no checklist-item cap. The free plan does cap structure at 5 projects and 2 areas, which is tighter than TickTick’s nine lists, so this is a genuine trade rather than a clean win: unlimited contents, fewer containers. ## A start date and a deadline, as two fields This is the real structural difference between the products. TickTick has a due date, and optionally a Duration — a start and end time that replaces it, and is Premium-only. What it does not have is a deadline distinct from the scheduling date, or anything documented that keeps a task out of sight until its day. TaskPocket splits them: the start date decides what Today shows you, the deadline is a fact about the world with its own view. See [start dates and deadlines](https://taskpocket.io/features/start-dates-and-deadlines/). ## Seven words instead of a suite If the breadth is what wore you down, the honest pitch is subtraction. There is no calendar, no habit tracker, no Pomodoro timer and no AI, and none of them is coming — task, area, inbox, project, someday, start date, deadline is the whole vocabulary. Whether that reads as focus or as a missing product depends entirely on which of TickTick’s features you actually used. ## One payment, if you prefer that TickTick is subscription-only — $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, with no lifetime option and no free trial advertised. TaskPocket’s lifetime plan is $59.99 once. Over five years that is not a close comparison, though what a subscription buys is a much larger product under active development by a real company. ## Where TickTick is simply better Two of these matter enough that most people should stay. Recurring tasks. TickTick has the strongest repeat engine of any product covered on this site — completion-anchored repeats as a labelled option, both end conditions, and skipping an occurrence outright. TaskPocket matches it and does not beat it. The single exception is that a repeating task there cannot carry a separate deadline, because there is no deadline field. Reminders. TickTick has them; TaskPocket has none, on any platform, and there is no workaround. If a notification is how you remember to do things, this decision is already made. Breadth and platforms. Native apps on every operating system including Linux, an Apple Watch app, a public API, an MCP server, and importers from six other task managers. TaskPocket has a web app, an iPhone app, and no way in for your existing data. ## Where TickTick is the better choice - Breadth. A calendar, habit tracking, a Pomodoro timer and a task manager in one app, on every platform there is — TaskPocket deliberately has none of the first three. - Reminders and notifications, including multiple per task. TaskPocket has none at all. - A genuinely capable free tier for a single person who stays inside the limits, and a paid tier that is cheap for what it covers. - Collaboration and shared lists, which TaskPocket does not do and will not. ## Stay with TickTick if… - You use the habit tracker or the Pomodoro timer — there is no equivalent here and there is not going to be. - You need reminders, or you share lists with anyone. - You want one app for calendar and tasks rather than a task manager that stays out of your calendar. ## What each one costs ### TickTick - **Free:** Free, with published caps - **Premium:** $4.99/month or $49.99/year - **Students, faculty and staff:** 25% off — $37.99 for a year - **One-time purchase:** Not offered. Gift cards are annual. [TickTick’s own upgrade page](https://ticktick.com/upgrade), checked 2026-09-01 ### TaskPocket - **Free:** $0 — forever, no card - **Premium, monthly:** $3.99/month - **Premium, yearly:** $34.99/year - **Premium, lifetime:** $59.99 once One price covers the web app and the iPhone app — there is no per-platform purchase — though there is no Android, Mac or Watch app to cover. Nothing is deleted on downgrade: projects and areas over the free limit become read-only, and export stays free. One warning about anything else you read: almost every comparison article still quotes $35.99 a year and $3.99 a month. Those are out of date. The figures above are from TickTick’s own upgrade page and the App Store listing, checked on 1 September 2026 — the monthly price is genuinely hard to find, because the upgrade page sells only the annual plan, which is probably why the stale numbers persist. Note that both products paywall the second date in some form: Duration is Premium on their side, the deadline field is Premium on ours. ## Moving your tasks across Worth knowing before you commit: this only goes one way. TickTick imports from six other apps; TaskPocket imports from none. If you might come back, that asymmetry is the thing to weigh. 1. Take a backup first. Settings → Account → Backup & Import on the web version generates one, and it is not gated behind Premium. 2. Move only what is live. If you have been near the 99-task cap, a lot of what is in there is finished or dead. A migration is the cheapest time to not carry it forward. 3. Map nine lists onto five projects and two areas. This is the step that needs thought, because the shape is different: areas group projects rather than holding tasks. Most people find several lists were really one project. 4. Paste tasks in and let the parser do the dates. “Water the plants every 3 days” arrives as a repeating task with the phrase lifted out of the title, so most of the retyping is just the titles. ## Questions people ask ### What are TickTick’s free plan limits? Nine lists, 99 tasks per list, 19 checklist items per task, 2 reminders per task, one attachment a day, 5 habits, 5 countdowns and 2 members on a shared list. Recurring tasks, tags and subtasks are included free; custom filters, task duration, activity history, timeline view, AI features and integrations are Premium-only. ### How much does TickTick cost in 2026? Premium is $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, with 25% off for students, faculty and staff. Most comparison articles still quote $35.99 a year, which is out of date. There is no lifetime option and no free trial is advertised. ### Which has better recurring tasks? TickTick, on most measures — it documents completion-anchored repeats, ending after a set number of times or on a date, and skipping a single occurrence. TaskPocket does all of those too. The one thing it adds is a deadline on a repeating task, which TickTick cannot do because it has no deadline field separate from the due date. ### Does TickTick have a start date? Not in the sense of a date that defers a task out of sight. It has a due date, and optionally a Duration — a start and end time that replaces the due date and is Premium-only. Nothing documented hides a task until its start date arrives. ### Should I switch from TickTick to TaskPocket? Only if you are hitting the list or task caps, or you specifically want the two-date model, or the breadth became a burden. TickTick has reminders, a calendar, habits, sharing, an API and native apps everywhere; TaskPocket has none of those and cannot import your data. For most people TickTick is the better product. ## Sources 1. [TickTick — Upgrade (the plan comparison and published free-tier caps)](https://ticktick.com/upgrade) checked 2026-09-01 2. [App Store — TickTick (the monthly price, in the in-app purchase list)](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ticktick-to-do-list-calendar/id626144601) checked 2026-09-01 3. [TickTick — Set Up Recurring Tasks (By Completion Date, and both end conditions)](https://help.ticktick.com/articles/7055782206349770752) checked 2026-09-01 4. [TickTick — Task Details and Editing (Due Date and Duration)](https://help.ticktick.com/articles/7055782408586526720) checked 2026-09-01 5. [TickTick — Education discount](https://www.ticktick.com/education) checked 2026-09-01 The free plan has unlimited tasks. No card, no trial clock. ## Related reading - [TickTick vs TaskPocket (2026) — an honest comparison](https://taskpocket.io/compare/taskpocket-vs-ticktick/) — TickTick does more than TaskPocket and has the better repeat engine. TaskPocket has two dates and no counting limits. Where each one wins, with sources. - [Start dates and deadlines — two dates, two questions](https://taskpocket.io/features/start-dates-and-deadlines/) — When you plan to start and when it is actually due are different questions. Here is how the two dates work in TaskPocket, and which apps have both. - [Projects and areas — things that end, and things that do not](https://taskpocket.io/features/projects-and-areas/) — A project is something you finish. An area is something you keep doing. How the two work in TaskPocket, what the free plan allows, and how other apps model it. - [No AI in TaskPocket — and why that is deliberate](https://taskpocket.io/no-ai/) — No assistant, no summariser, no model reading your list. The date parser is a grammar, not an LLM. What that buys you, and what it costs you.