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Motion vs Todoist
Side-by-side comparison of pricing, features, and trade-offs — which one actually fits your team.
What each tool does
Motion: Motion is the AI-powered calendar and task manager that automatically schedules your tasks around meetings, deadlines, and priorities. Founded in 2019, Motion has raised over $50M and serves productivity-obsessed professionals, founders, and teams who want their calendars to plan themselves.
Todoist: This is Todoist's killer feature and the reason most people stay. Type "Call mom every Sunday at 6pm" and it creates a recurring task scheduled for Sunday evenings. Write "Review PR #dev p2 @laptop" and you get a medium-priority task in your Dev project with a laptop context label. Dates, times, recurrence patterns, priorities, projects, labels, all parsed from a single text input.
Motion vs Todoist at a glance
| Motion | Todoist | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Paid | Freemium |
| Starting price | Paid | Freemium Free, $5/mo (Pro), $8/user/mo (Business) |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Category | productivity | productivity |
| Best for | Motion is a business tool available at motionapp | Task management app that helps individuals and teams organize work and life |
| Top strength | Auto-scheduling that works: actually saves planning time. | Natural language input: Once you get used to it, every other task app feels clunky by comparison |
| Main limitation | Expensive: $34/month solo is steep for personal productivity. | See review |
| Full review | Motion review → | Todoist review → |
Strengths & weaknesses
Motion highlights
Pros- Auto-scheduling that works: actually saves planning time.
- Adapts to schedule changes: reschedules automatically when meetings move.
- Cross-platform: desktop, web, iOS, Android.
- Team workload visibility: surfaces capacity issues automatically.
- Calendar integration solid: works with Google and Outlook reliably.
- Expensive: $34/month solo is steep for personal productivity.
- Learning curve: AI works best when you trust it; manual control fights the system.
- Limited project management depth: not a replacement for Asana or Jira.
- Mobile less polished: feature parity exists, UX less smooth.
Todoist highlights
Pros- Natural language input: Once you get used to it, every other task app feels clunky by comparison
- Cross-platform sync: Native apps for web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Linux, Apple Watch, Wear OS. Instant sync everywhere
- Design that respects your time: Clean, fast, no unnecessary complexity. Adding a task is frictionless
- Generous free tier: 5 projects covers most personal use cases
- Karma gamification: Gentle motivation through streaks and daily/weekly goals. Not aggressive, just enough to keep you honest
Frequently asked questions
Is Motion better than Todoist?
Which is cheaper, Motion or Todoist?
Can Motion replace Todoist?
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