What Makes the Best To-Do App for Freelancers?
There are plenty of free to-do list apps, but what makes the best one for freelancers? I looked at some of the most popular options and found that while each has its advantages, none offer everything I wanted in a simple and easy-to-use tool. I have been working as a freelancer for more than 10 years, and I’ve met my obstacles along the way.
As a Freelancer, it’s essential to save time as you often work with multiple clients, and your time is your currency. The less time you spend switching between clients, the more time you can spend on your clients.
This is why a to-do app must become an efficient tool that runs as many of your processes automatically for you. Pulling in the correct data helps you plan your day and your week and even helps you improve by reflecting on your week.
Who this is for
This is a guide for freelancers, so whether you’re a designer, developer, writer or something fourth, this is for you who sell your hours as your currency. If you’re working as a freelancer, there are many different ways to do this. I’ve chosen one method because it works best for most people. However, feel free to use whatever tool makes sense if you’d prefer another way.
Our first choice is Planzer.io. It’s simple and easy to use and Planzer.io, most importantly, helps you plan your days and weeks more efficiently.
With Planzer.io, you get the entire planning aspect, but this, combined with integrations to Trello, Notion, Asana, ClickUp, Jira and even your Outlook emails, saves a tonne of time, both planning and keeping an overview of your day and week.
Planzer.io gives you a lot of flexibility, and it’s built to help you save time so you can spend more of it on client work. You can read more about how it fits freelancers specifically.
Here are the 6 best To-Do apps for Freelancers
A to-do app should provide you with everything you need to manage your day-to-day tasks. You want it to be easy to add tasks, organize them into days and weeks, assign due dates, and even sync across devices. Here are some of my favorite to-do apps for freelancers. Prices checked in October 2026.
1. Planzer.io – The to-do app that collects all tools in one
Planzer.io is a daily planner that helps freelancers manage their tasks, projects, goals, and more. Planzer.io allows you to plan your day and week, set deadlines, set up goals, and pull in tasks from Notion, Trello, Todoist and 13 other tools. Your Google, Outlook or iCloud Calendar sits right next to your tasks, so you never miss a meeting. It works on the web, iPhone/iPad, Apple Watch, Android, Mac, Windows and Linux. The free plan covers 100 tasks and all integrations, and Pro is $10/month, or $8/month billed yearly, for unlimited tasks, AI features and file attachments.
Planzer.io is developed for freelancers to get the most efficient setup working with it every single day. I know how important time is to freelancers as it’s their currency. This means the less time they spend planning and moving between tasks and systems, the more time can be spent on the clients. It’s a personal planner, though, so it doesn’t do team collaboration or client sharing; pair it with a tool like Trello or Asana if you need that.
Some of the Top Features include:
- Task Management: Create tasks and subtasks, add due dates, estimates, priorities, tags and notes (file attachments are on Pro), and set up recurring tasks and templates for repeat client work.
- Task Integration: Connect tools like Trello, Notion, Asana, ClickUp, Monday.com, Jira, Linear or GitHub and pull in tasks to plan in Planzer.io.
- Projects & goals: Keep a project per client, set goals with a target date, and follow progress automatically from the linked projects to ensure you’re on the right path.
- Calendar Integration: See your Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar or iCloud Calendar next to your tasks and time block by dragging tasks into your calendar.
- Time tracking: Start a timer on any task and compare estimated vs. actual time, so you know where your hours go and can estimate future client work more accurately.
2. Trello – The app that makes it easy to drag and drop tasks
If you want to keep track of everything you do daily, Trello might be just what you’re looking for. This task manager offers lists, boards and project management features, making it easier to organize yourself into projects and assign tasks to different people. You can add images and videos to each card, giving it a visual appeal. Plus, you can use Trello on multiple devices without worrying about losing anything important. The free plan covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace, and Standard is $5 per user per month billed yearly, or $6 monthly.
Some of the Top Features include:
- Project management: Set up a board for each client, and keep everything organized.
- Power-Ups: Trello has a library of Power-Ups you can easily add to your account, making your experience of using Trello more seamless.
- Labels: Setting labels on your cards adds an extra layer of filtering, all in all, just making it easier for you to navigate around.
3. Todoist – A simple but very useful to-do app
Todoist is a more traditional to-do app with a list view for each day where you can easily add your tasks, mark them as done, set deadlines and so forth.
What makes Todoist so great is their simplicity. When you open up Todoist, then you immediately understand what the app can do and whether it will fit your needs or not. The more you dive into Todoist, you will find labels, reminders and even templates to help you get the full out of Todoist. The free Beginner plan gives you 5 personal projects, and Pro is $5/month billed yearly, or $7 monthly.
Some of the Top Features include:
- Interface: Simple UI that makes it easy to use Todoist, plan your day and handle all your to-dos.
- Templates: There are tonnes of templates helping you set up daily to-do tasks without forgetting the important tasks
- Reminders: Sometimes, you will have tasks which need to go out on time here reminders are a great way of ensuring this.
4. ClickUp – The more agile To-do app to help you customize your experience
ClickUp’s robust project management makes sure all your project runs smoothly. With webhooks, ClickUp connects with other apps to automate tasks. Time tracking and calendar sync help you manage your work better. ClickUp, the agile project management software, allows you to customize your experience to fit your workflow as a freelancer. The Free Forever plan includes unlimited tasks, and the Unlimited plan is $7 per user per month billed yearly, or $10 monthly; native time tracking is on paid plans.
Some of the Top Features include:
- Overview: One of my favorite features of using ClickUp is that you, in one view, can get an overview of all your projects in a list view.
- Integrations: You can connect many apps to ClickUp and automate your manual processes using the integrations.
- Everywhere: Whether you’re using Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone or Android, then ClickUp has a native app for you.
5. Monday.com – A system to manage anything
Monday.com is a work management platform where you build boards to keep track of projects, tasks and clients. As a freelancer, you can set up a board for each client or project and shape it with the columns and views you need, so everything is easy to find and understand. There’s a free plan for up to 2 seats and 3 boards, and paid plans are billed per seat.
Some of the Top Features include:
- Agility: Monday.com has many options to style and form your boards to fit your client’s needs.
- Templates: With the many templates, you can quickly start a new board and start your freelance tasks immediately.
- Integrations: Monday.com connects with many popular tools, and automations can take care of repetitive steps.
6. Asana – The automation to-do app
Asana is a project management tool that helps you as a freelancer collaborate with your clients efficiently. Asana is a web application designed to help freelancers manage their projects from start to finish. Asana helps you stay a step ahead of your day with the proper planning and sharing of information with your clients quickly and efficiently. The free Personal plan covers up to 2 users with unlimited tasks and projects. Starter is $10.99 per user per month billed yearly, or $13.49 monthly, and you need a paid plan for features like the workflow builder and workload.
Some of the Top Features include:
- Workflow builder: This allows you to set up a flow for a client’s tasks, that every task needs to go through specific steps before being approved.
- Workload: As a Freelancer, it’s essential not to take on more work than you can manage, which the workload module can help you with.
- My tasks: When you work with multiple clients, you can quickly lose the overview of your tasks, but with the “My tasks” module, you get an overview of the tasks you’ve assigned to yourself in one view.
How I tested and picked
I tested all 6 applications with the mindset of a Freelancer. As mentioned in the introduction, I’ve worked as a Freelancer for more than 10 years, and I know all the obstacles along the way. What was important for me was that the app was not overwhelming. It solved the issues I see as freelancers efficiently.
As a Freelancer, we need to be careful not to roll ourselves into too big of a system as it can have the opposite effect, and you will see yourself ending up spending too much time trying to locate lost tasks, trying to find a goal or just a simple subtask. Therefore, I recommend going simple with a to-do app explicitly built for Freelancers. If you juggle several clients, these tips to manage your freelance projects can help too.
I looked for features meant to be great for Freelancers and would save time for you but still allow you to keep an overview of all the tasks from your clients.
Based on the testing and the mindset of a Freelancer, then Planzer.io is still my first choice. The simplicity, the integrations for pulling in tasks, the built-in time tracking and the simple overview allow you as a Freelancer to efficiently plan your day and start executing.
Conclusion
When you set out to pick your to-do app, you must take into account the feeling of it as well. It will most likely be the app you spend the most time looking at and working in. If you go with a to-do app that is simply too clunky but has the functionality you need, think twice about it.
My last recommendation is that you test out the different apps. If a daily planner is what you need most, see our list of the best daily planner apps. What works for me might not work for you. This article is written from my experience working as a freelancer with the obstacles I’ve met along the way over the last 10 years, and Planzer.io is the to-do app that solves those obstacles in the best possible way.
FAQ
How to Choose a To-do App for Freelancers
Choosing a To-do app as a freelancer is a lot different than choosing a project manager. As a freelancer, you work alone, which means you don’t need assigning; you don’t need big reports or modules telling how it’s going with the team.
You need to find a to-do app built for freelancers in mind that shows the necessary information for you and helps you work more efficiently, just like: Planzer.io.
What Should Freelancers Look for In a To-do App?
A good to-do app for freelancers should be simple and reliable. It should not have too many team-focused modules, and frankly, you need to be careful going with a huge system, as it will kill your productivity in the end.
What Is the Best Free To-do App?
If you’re looking for a free to-do app, there are plenty of options. Some apps let you sync your tasks with other devices and even have built-in reminders. Others are simple task lists that can be customized in many ways. Still, others offer more features than just basic list management. If I have to point at one free to-do app, then my recommendation will go to Todoist.
How to Manage Multiple Freelance Projects in one App?
There are two things you need to keep in mind: Organization and prioritizing. If you nail these two, then you will see a great deal of success. Working with multiple projects is something you will do every single day as a freelancer, and it’s important you spend as little time as possible on doubting what to do next and instead just starting to execute because you have prioritized and organized from the beginning.
Using a tool like Planzer.io, you will be able to plan your day and week, and by doing this, you will always know what to work on next and stay on deadline with the goals you can set up.
