What Is the Best Task Management App for Students in 2026?

TickTick takes the top spot because its free plan genuinely lasts a school year. You get 9 lists, 99 tasks per list and 2 reminders per task. In practice: one list per class and two alerts on every deadline, one three days out and one the night before. That setup alone kills most all-nighters.

User feedback backs this up. Across the student threads we read, one line keeps coming back: people who only use the free version and say it does everything they need.

Premium costs $49.99 a year and raises the caps to 299 lists, 999 tasks per list and 5 reminders per task. The good part: TickTick publishes a 25% education discount on one year of Premium, which brings it to $37.99, for eligible students, faculty and staff. It isn't a one-click deal. You submit proof of enrollment, the team reviews it, and you get a purchase link by email.

The limit: 99 tasks per list is plenty for a single class, but a catch-all inbox list fills up. And nearly every negative review we read is about billing: users say they were charged after canceling, often when the subscription went through the App Store.

Tip: don't buy Premium inside the iPhone app first. The discount comes through the emailed link, and an App Store purchase is refunded and canceled through Apple, not TickTick. If you ever want out, see switching from TickTick.

Power Planner is a school planner, not just a list. You enter your classes, rooms and times, then every assignment and exam sits under its class with automatic reminders. It also works out your weighted GPA, which tells you exactly what you need on the final to hold your grade.

The app is free and ad-free. Premium is $4.99 on the US App Store, once, for life. It unlocks more than 5 grades per class and unlimited semesters. Students in the reviews keep making the same point: a single payment instead of yet another subscription, and a free version they call perfectly functional.

It holds a 4.8 out of 5 on the US App Store across about 1,700 ratings, and it still gets updates this year. That matters in a category where plenty of school planners have been abandoned.

The limit: on the App Store, Power Planner is offered for iPhone, iPad and Mac. On Android, look at MyStudyLife instead. It isn't built for group projects either: no shared lists. The online account is optional and mostly there to sync your devices.

Tip: stay on the free plan for your first semester. Once you track more than 5 grades per class or want several semesters of history, $4.99 for your whole degree is an easy call.

Notion isn't a task app in the strict sense. It's a workspace for your class pages, where a database can become your assignment tracker, with a board view, a calendar view and a filter per class. If you already take notes in Notion, keeping tasks next to them saves you from juggling two apps.

The Education plan is free. You get a 1-member workspace with unlimited pages and blocks, file uploads and 30 days of page history. It's for students and educators at an accredited higher-education institution. K-12 doesn't qualify, a student ID card isn't accepted, and eligibility is rechecked every year.

Where Notion falls short as a to-do list: recurring tasks have no reminder by default, and the flexibility has a cost. Plenty of users call it over-complicated for a simple to-do. Full Notion AI isn't part of the Education plan: it comes with Business, at $20 per member per month billed annually.

Running a club or a group project? Student organizations get a free plan with up to 100 guests.

Tip: the Education plan only activates if your school email is the primary email on the account. Switch it in Settings before you request the plan, or the request fails. And plan for graduation: once that address goes away, export your pages.

Todoist is the fastest way to get a task down. Type "stats problem set due Thursday" and the date sets itself. When instructions come at the end of class, in the hallway or by email, that speed matters more than any advanced feature.

The free Starter plan gives you 5 personal projects, 5 people per project, 3 filter views, 5 MB file uploads and one week of activity history. Task reminders are included. Custom reminders need Pro, at $5 a month billed annually ($60 a year) or $7 monthly.

The catch: Todoist has no student discount. Its help center says it plainly: no extra discounts or separate promotions for students, families or nonprofits. Only people who had the old discount before the program ended keep it. Some roundups still claim students get 25% off Todoist. They don't.

The free-plan limit: 5 projects. With six classes, one project per class breaks in week one.

Tip: create one "Classes" project and one label per class. You keep a filter per class and still have 4 projects left for work, life and group projects. Torn between the two big names? Read our Todoist vs Notion comparison.

MyStudyLife is the best-known school planner, and the only one in this ranking that covers Android, iPhone and the web. It handles messy schedules: A/B weeks, rotations, even importing your timetable from a photo. Homework and tasks come with reminders and subtasks, exams get a countdown, and your grades live in the same place.

For college students, the big plus is integration: it syncs with Canvas and Blackboard, plus Google, Apple, Outlook and iCal calendars. It adds a Pomodoro timer, an AI coach called Scout that drafts weekly and revision plans, and a family space for parents.

Pricing: free, with MyStudyLife+ at $6.99 a month or $39.99 a year on the US App Store. It holds 4.5 out of 5 there across about 6,200 ratings.

The limit is real. The 2024 redesign brought a wave of one-star reviews: lag, tiny text, painful date picking on desktop. Some features moved behind the subscription, including recurring tasks according to a recent review. At least one student says they moved to Power Planner over it. The developer replies that the subscription funds development and says a rebuilt desktop version is coming.

Tip: before you pay, check that the feature you miss is really in MyStudyLife+. If it's only recurring tasks, a free to-do app on the side (TickTick, Microsoft To Do) covers it.

Microsoft To Do is free, with no paid tier to unlock. You get My Day to pick what you'll do today, due dates, one-time or recurring reminders, and attachments up to 25 MB. Its App Store listing even pitches it for sharing lists and tasks with classmates, which is handy for splitting up a group presentation.

Its hidden strength is your school account. If your college runs Microsoft 365, you can usually sign in with your university email, and tasks assigned to you in Teams or Planner show up in the "Assigned to me" list. It depends on what your IT department has turned on, so check with your school address before you count on it.

The limit: To Do knows nothing about your class schedule or your exams. It's a good list, not a school planner. And anything on a school account follows your enrollment.

Tip: keep personal lists on a free personal Microsoft account, and use the school account only for Teams tasks. Nothing disappears on graduation day. If you ever want to move, see switching from Microsoft To Do.

Any.do is built around your day. The free Personal plan gives you tasks, subtasks, unlimited lists, reminders, a calendar and a daily planner, all synced. If you work shifts on top of classes, seeing work hours, lectures and deadlines in one view helps you spot the week that's about to go wrong.

Premium is $4.99 a month billed annually or $7.99 monthly. Any.do says students, teachers and nonprofits can ask support for a Premium offer. The amount isn't published, so email them before paying full price.

The limit: Any.do knows nothing about classes, exams or grades. And billed annually, Premium comes to $59.88 a year, more than TickTick with its education discount.

Tip: use the daily planner at night to pick tomorrow's three tasks. It works better than reopening a list of forty assignments every morning.

Google Tasks is the simplest list in this ranking. It lives in the side panel of Gmail, Calendar, Drive and Chat on the web, and in mobile apps. A dated task shows up in Google Calendar next to your classes, and an email from your professor becomes a task in one click.

You get reminders with a date and time, mobile notifications, and repeats from daily to yearly. That's enough for "submit the lab report every Monday". It's free with any Google account.

The limit: that's about it. No advanced sublists, no class schedule, no grades. And despite what you might expect, Google doesn't present any direct link between Classroom and Tasks, so don't count on your assignments syncing automatically.

Tip: if your school runs Google Workspace, turn every assignment email into a dated task the moment it lands. The instructions stay attached to the task, and you see it in Calendar.