Is TickTick Premium worth it in 2026?

For about two years the price was stable. Archive copies of the vendor’s pricing page from May 16, 2024, October 11, 2025 (a US view) and February 21, 2026 all print the same line: “Annual plan for $35.99 (less than $3/month)”.

The change shows up in mid-2026. The plan data in a July 23, 2026 snapshot still lists the yearly plan at $35.99, but now next to a struck-through $49.99. By the October 1, 2026 snapshot the page prints “Annual plan for US$49.99 (less than US$4.17/month)”, and the live US page matches it on October 30, 2026.

This matters because many 2026 comparison articles still quote $35.99. Asian Efficiency’s Todoist vs TickTick comparison, last updated July 6, 2026, builds its verdict on “$35.99/year instead of $60/year”, a $24 gap. At $49.99 that gap is now $10.01 (our arithmetic). 2sync’s comparison already uses the new figure and puts TickTick about 17% below Todoist Pro on annual billing. Prices can also vary by country: one Hacker News commenter wrote in February 2026 that TickTick “costs me 5 biriyanis per year, yes its localized pricing.” Check the price your own checkout shows.

TickTick Free includes list and Kanban views, natural language date entry, task reminders and sync across platforms for US$0. Its ceilings are numeric, so you can test them against how you work today.

The limits most people hit first are 9 lists and 99 tasks per list. Someone who keeps separate lists for work projects, home, errands, reading and a few clients reaches nine fast. The 5-habit cap catches people who use TickTick as a habit tracker too, and a limit of 2 task reminders is tight if you like a heads-up the day before and an hour before. Attachments are limited to 1 per day, and checklists stop at 19 items per task.

The bigger divide is planning. The free calendar view is marked “Basic”, while Premium gets unlimited calendar views, task duration and email reminders. One App Store reviewer gave the app one star on October 9, 2026, writing that “you must purchase the subscription to use a lot of features, including looking at the calendar from week and month view” (App Store). If you want to time-block a week inside your task app, that is the feature you are paying for.

Premium multiplies every cap: 299 lists, 999 tasks per list, 5 task reminders, 199 checklist items, 199 attachments a day, 299 habits and 299 countdowns. Shared lists go from 2 members to 29, which covers a family or a small team that only needs shared checklists. Widgets, themes, statistics and the Eisenhower Matrix move from “Basic” to “Unlimited” on the vendor’s comparison table.

Spread over a year, $49.99 is about $0.96 a week (our arithmetic). Three years at today’s price would cost $149.97, against $107.97 at the old $35.99 rate (our arithmetic). The pricing page shows the annual plan on its plan card; check the in-app subscription screen if you want to pay month to month.

Two policies lower the risk. The pricing FAQ says purchases made through Google Play, PayPal or Stripe can be refunded within 14 days, while App Store purchases go through Apple Support. It also says that when Premium expires, all your data is retained and you keep using TickTick as a free user without the Premium features. Students and staff can apply for the education discount: 25% off one year, which TickTick prints as US$37.99, after an application with educational documents.

Ratings are high and come in large numbers. In Apple’s US App Store data on October 30, 2026, TickTick averaged 4.86 out of 5 across 46,707 ratings, with version 8.2.41 released that day (App Store listing). Recent five-star reviews praise the all-in-one design, from habit tracking and the Pomodoro timer to the Eisenhower Matrix. One October 12 reviewer summed up the upgrade question: “Free version works great without a hitch, premium is even better.”

The complaints in October 2026 reviews cluster around speed and polish. A one-star review on October 21 described “the 500-1000ms delay between tapping a task as complete, and the app reacting”. A four-star review on October 14 was titled “very laggy the past few weeks”, and an October 22 reviewer called drag-and-drop task sorting a “guessing game”. One October 17 reviewer reported doing the free trial and being “charged the full amount immediately”, a reason to check the refund route before you subscribe.

Independent comparison writers agree on the trade-off. Asian Efficiency notes that TickTick “has a Pomodoro timer baked directly into the app” but that its “collaboration features are limited” and its AI is “mostly just voice transcription and basic date parsing”. 2sync calls Todoist the better app for most people and TickTick the better pick for having more tools in one place.

Todoist Pro costs $5 a month billed yearly ($60 a year) or $7 a month billed monthly. It wins on integrations and AI features according to both comparison articles above, and on team workspaces. TickTick wins on built-in extras: habits, a Pomodoro timer, countdowns and a stronger calendar view, all inside the $49.99 plan. If you would pay for a separate habit tracker alongside Todoist, TickTick is the cheaper bundle.

Sunsama is a different product at a different price: $17 a month billed yearly, or $22 billed monthly. A year of Sunsama on yearly billing is $204, about four times TickTick Premium (our arithmetic). It is built around a guided daily planning ritual rather than a list app, so it suits people who want the structure, not just more capacity. Motion and Reclaim go further and schedule tasks onto your calendar automatically, which TickTick does not attempt.

Academy data: of the 1,777 prompt packs in our library, one names TickTick (the Claude automations pack, as a destination for tasks created from email), and four target productivity, time management or habits by name, such as the ChatGPT time-management prompts.