The verdict
If you sell time, or want to know which clients make money, pick Clockify. You can start on the free plan and build the habit before you pay for anything.
If your pain is things slipping through the cracks and you want one fast, shared to-do list, pick Todoist.
If you have both pains, run both. Todoist holds the tasks and Clockify holds the hours. They do not compete for the same job.
If I could only buy one for a small service business, I'd pick Clockify, because unbilled hours cost money and a task list can live in many places. If you work on fixed-price projects and never look at hours, Todoist is the better fit.
Side by side
Plans and pricing
Clockify
- FreeFree
- Basic$4.99/mo/seat
- Standard$6.99/mo/seat
- Pro$9.99/mo/seat
- Enterprise$14.99/mo/seat
- CAKE.com Bundle$15.99/mo/seat
Todoist
- BeginnerFree
Who each is for
Choose Clockify if…
Pick Clockify if you are a freelancer, a small agency or a consultancy that bills by the hour. The free plan covers unlimited time tracking, timesheets and reports, so a solo person can stay on it for a long time. Paid plans add invoicing, approvals and budgets, and it connects to accounting tools such as QuickBooks and Xero.
Within a few weeks of tracking, a team of five or ten can see which clients are profitable and which ones eat more hours than quoted. The catch is discipline. A tracker only works if people log time the same day, so pick one method and stick to it.
Skip Clockify if you only want a private timer with no billing angle.
Choose Todoist if…
Pick Todoist if you are a founder, freelancer or small team that wants a quick, reliable list of what needs doing. Quick Add reads plain language such as a task name plus "every Monday" and sets the date and the recurrence. Filters build any view you like, and workspaces keep team tasks apart from personal ones.
It has a REST API, webhooks and a hosted MCP server, so it connects to other tools and AI assistants. I first tried it in 2017 and found it a great tool for personal productivity.
Its strength is that it stays simple, and so does its limit. It has no time tracking, no timesheets and no billing, so it will not answer how long a project took.
Other options worth a look
Organise team projects, tasks and workflows using focused task-centric lists, boards and timelines.
Brings tasks, documents, goals and time tracking together in one workspace with flexible views for your team.
Manage projects and workflows on flexible visual boards with automations, dashboards and team coordination.
Automatically transcribes and summarises your meetings directly into your Notion workspace for teams.