Best Planner Apps

Planner apps can help you stay organized and find a balance between work and life commitments through a unified platform. After reviewing dozens of planner apps on the market, we found that Todoist is the best application for most people due to its robust suite of features and customization functionalities. You can organize your entire life with Todoist while remaining flexible and in control. 

The Best Planner App for Most 

Todoist can help you plan your day in just a few clicks with to-do lists and templates. Say goodbye to stress as Todoist enables you to focus your energy on the tasks that matter—with priority levels, favorites, and reminders. Individuals can personalize their task views for easy navigation, or share the workload with others by delegating tasks for stress relief. 

The Best Planner Options to Consider

1. Todoist – Best for most
2. Notion – Best for innovative design
3. Trello – Best for team planning
4. Things 3 – Best for customization
5. Habitica – Best for gamification features

When It Makes Sense to Invest In Planner Apps

Before you invest in a planner app, you should consider why you need one in the first place. Planner apps can be useful for everyone, but they are especially useful for certain positions or jobs. 

If you manage a team and need specific organizational tools, a premium planner application can help alleviate stress. Most planner apps can scale to the size of your team, meaning you can collaborate with multiple people on a certain amount of projects, upload, share, and edit files, and even communicate through a team inbox. 

If you are a student and need help planning for exams and assignments, a planner app can help you do just that. Students might find planner apps helpful for logging due dates, creating to-do lists for exam prep, or simplifying their workload with calendar integration for in-house exams. 

Even if you don’t manage a team or aren’t currently studying, a planner app can help you feel more in control of your schedule and life overall. If you live with someone, you can split up house chores, create grocery lists, make note of appointments, and then share it with the entire household. 

#1 – Todoist – The Best for Most

Todoist can help you achieve more by supplying you with the tools you need to stay organized. Whether you need to stay on top of your day or plan an in-depth project, Todoist might be the right application for you.

With 30 million app downloads and 2 billion tasks completed, Todoist is one of the most trusted and reliable planner apps on the market today. Todoist focuses on giving you that extra peace of mind and helps you organize things easily without overwhelming you. 

As a centralized platform with an easy-to-use interface, you can simplify your workflow by connecting Todoist to your calendar, email, and files. You can add tasks via email, add comments and file uploads to your projects (including voice notes), and display your scheduled tasks in calendar feeds. 

Capture and organize your tasks in seconds with Todoist’s Quick Add feature, helping you get started without procrastination. If you need help remembering due dates and prioritizing tasks, Todoist will ensure you build healthy habits with its recurring due dates functionality. You don’t need to worry about missing that deadline or forgetting to submit your work invoice every month, as Todoist does all the work for you. 

Todoist is a customizable app, ensuring you can personalize task views to fit your unique style and create a seamless workflow. Personalize your views with Kanban-style boards, simple list views, colored labels, filters, and themes. 

Speaking of personalization, Todoist offers a wide range of unique templates, from creative and personal use to education and management use. If you need help planning a blog post or tracking a campaign, Todoist offers a template to help you achieve the best possible result through careful and creative planning. 

You can connect Todoist to hundreds of channels for improved productivity. Take your workflow to the next level with apps like Outlook, Chrome, IFTTT, Alexa, Gmail, and Slack. 

Not only can you integrate excellent apps with Todoist, but you can also sync your app with your favorite devices. You can pair Todoist with desktop, mobile, browser, smartwatch, and email. 

Some of the compatible software includes macOS, Windows 10/11, Linux, iPhone and iPad, Android, Chrome extension, Firefox extension, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Apple Watch, Wear OS, Gmail add-on, Gmail extension, and Outlook.

Todoist’s pricing is affordable, even offering a free forever plan, which includes five active projects, five collaborators per project, 5MB file uploads, three filters, and one week of active history. Here is a brief overview of the other pricing plans: 

• Pro — $4 per user per month. Includes 300 active projects, 25 collaborators per project, 100MB file uploads, 150 filters, reminders, unlimited active history, and themes. 

• Business — $6 per user per month. Includes everything in Pro, plus 500 active projects, 50 people per project, team inbox, team billing, and admin and member roles. 

#2 – Notion – The Best for Innovative Design

If you are looking for a planner app that offers nifty design features and an intuitive interface, Notion will tick all your boxes. Transform your online workspace through excellent visualization tactics and build the workflow you want from there. 

Whether you need a planner for personal use, a small team, or an enterprise—Notion is the perfect app for everyone. You can customize Notion to work the same way you do with its clean and intuitive design. 

Notion offers one of the most easy-to-navigate platforms on the market today. What’s excellent about the app is that it offers an exciting, new way to compile notes and plan projects using emojis, diverse views, and customizable design systems. 

With Notion, you can expect to view your tasks in any way you want—from roadmap and list to board and picture views—the app lets you personalize its interface for maximum productivity. 

Need to write a task but don’t know where to start? Notion offers more than 50 templates to choose from. You can use its wide range of templates to present meeting notes more concisely or craft a content calendar to share with your team—Notion can help you do it all. 

If you need Notion for a team, you can expect to benefit from features like real-time collaboration, customizable permissions, API integrations, and easy drag-and-drop editing, to name a few. 

Notion works across all your devices, including iOS, Android, browser, Mac, and Windows applications. 

Notion offers three paid pricing packages or a free forever plan, including unlimited pages and blocks, sharing with five guests, syncing across devices, and API. Here’s a brief overview of the additional pricing tiers: 

• Personal Pro — $4 per month. Includes everything in the free plan, plus unlimited file uploads, unlimited guests, and 30-day version history. 

• Team — $8 per user per month. Includes everything in Pro, plus unlimited team members, collaborative workspace, sharing permissions, and admin tools. 

• Enterprise — Contact sales for pricing. Includes everything in Team, plus user provisioning, audit log, advanced security and controls, unlimited version history, and a dedicated success manager. 

#3 – Trello – The Best for Team Planning

Trello makes it easier for your team to plan ahead with unique boards, lists, and cards. You can manage projects, organize tasks, and build team spirit, all in one centralized place. 

With more than 2 million teams worldwide, Trello offers an extensive suite of features to help your team succeed. From meetings and project planning to events and goal setting, Trello’s intuitive features and views will transform your team’s strategy tenfold. 

You and your team can start a Trello board in seconds and begin to view board data from many different angles. Trello offers multiple displays, including timeline, calendar, table, dashboard, and map views. 

Individual cards keep your Trello portal more organized, and with just one click, your team can gain a powerful perspective by managing deadlines, providing and tracking feedback, assigning tasks and handing off work, and connecting work across apps.

Speaking of connecting across apps, Trello lets you integrate your favorite work tools for maximum coverage. From reporting to custom fields, you can integrate popular apps like Confluence, Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Evernote, to name a few. 

Trello also offers a wide range of templates for you and your team to utilize. From business and design, all the way to engineering and support—you can find the exact template you need and give your team a blueprint for success. 

You can try Trello for free for personal use or if you’re a small team looking to organize tasks. With the free plan, you get access to unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per workspace, unlimited power-ups, unlimited storage, and iOS and Android apps. Here’s a brief look at the other plans:

• Standard — $5 per user per month. Includes everything in Free, plus unlimited boards, advanced checklists, single-board guests, and saved searches. 

• Premium — $10 per user per month. Includes everything in Standard, plus all views, admin and security features, priority support, and simple data export. 

• Enterprise — $17.50 per user per month. Includes everything in Premium, plus unlimited workspaces, organization-wide permissions, public board management, and power-up administration. 

#4 – Things 3 – The Best for Customization

With an all-new design, interactions, and features, Things 3 can help you manage and achieve your goals with as much customization as possible. 

Things 3 offers a few interactive features that will transform the way you plan tasks, such as the Slim Mode and Multiple Windows feature. Slim mode lets you collapse your sidebar with a two-finger swipe, giving you more room on your screen. 

Meanwhile, the multiple windows feature lets you work in a flexible environment on macOS—allowing you to open multiple displays and drag your to-do lists back and forth or open different lists on each display. 

On top of the high level of customization you get access to, Things 3 makes planning so much easier overall with batch editing, multi-select, drag to reorder, and Magic Plus, which lets you insert tasks anywhere on the platform. 

Things 3 also come with multiple displays, such as progress pie charts and list views, to make it easier to present tasks and information for teams. If you need to search for a checklist or an event date, Things 3 offers the Quick Find feature, which lets you swipe down in any list and search for keywords in an app-wide search. 

Things 3 is currently only available on Apple devices, including macOS, iPhone, Watch, and iPad. With that said, there are three different pricing plans for each device—here’s a brief overview: 

• For Mac — $49.99 one-time fee 
• For iPhone and Watch — $9.99 one-time fee
• For iPad — $19.99 one-time fee

You can download a 15-day free trial for Things 3 on macOS only. 

#5 – Habitica – The Best for Gamification Features

If you need extra help staying motivated and productive in your everyday schedule, Habitica is here to gamify your life. 

As a free planner app, Habitica takes the monotony out of planning and switches it up with next-level gamification features. With in-game rewards and punishments to motivate you, Habitica can transform your intentions for setting goals and help you achieve them with ease. 

Habitica quite literally gamifies your life by turning all your tasks and to-dos into little monsters you conquer to level up your avatar. With its easy-to-use interface, you can track your habits, daily goals, and to-do lists with a click of a button. 

You can earn rewards for completing each task or goal and unlock in-game features, such as battle armor, mysterious pets, magic skills, and quests. 

As an open-source platform, Habitica has a large social community that you can join to keep each other motivated, challenge each other, and you can even battle monsters with friends. The monsters in Habitica represent your accountability, so if you miss a day of the gym or accidentally miss a deadline, you will have to go into battle to rectify this. 

Habitica is available on both Apple and Android devices and offers third-party integrations, like Google Chrome Extension and Zapier. 

Methodology for Choosing the Best Planner Apps

There are a few factors that go into finding the best planner app. Sometimes it can be difficult to choose the right application, so we put together this methodology of the three most essential elements to consider before investing in a planner app for your balance and organization.

UI Design

An excellent planner app will always have a simple design interface that isn’t too crowded, rigid, or bland. Planner apps with lots of colors, creative intent, and flexibility are the best apps to choose from. Your planner app should make you feel inspired and improve your productivity, even if it’s through gamification or simple color-coded task views. 

Integration with Apps and Devices

Seamless integration—from popular apps to devices—is another essential factor. Does your app sync with any device? Can you receive urgent notifications through your smartwatch on an afternoon run? Integration makes this happen, and you should avoid all planner apps that don’t offer it. 

On the other hand, you can simplify your workflow by integrating your planner with some of your favorite, most-used apps. Connect with tools for project management, productivity, time tracking, and voice assistants to transform the way you plan your day or next work project. 

Multiple Displays

A simple dashboard view can be nice, but it can also get old pretty quickly. If you want to keep things new and exciting, your planner app should offer multiple display options that you can flexibly mix and match. If anything, you should find a planner app that offers at least a dashboard, list, and board view to start. 

Summary

Overall, Todoist is the best planner app for most people. The app offers an easy-to-use interface and a centralized platform to help you simplify your workflow. With robust features and customizable functionalities, Todoist can help you find that balance between work and life.

However, it may not be the right app for everyone. If you are looking for a planner app with a more innovative and exciting design, customization options, gamification functionalities, or team-focused organization, the other apps on the list are excellent alternatives.