I went looking for a to do list app without subscription because the exact phrase kept surfacing from several different seed searches. On October 21, 2026 I ran Google’s autocomplete (firefox client, English, US) from five seeds, and that phrase came back as a suggestion from two of them, with a “best” variant and a “free, no subscription” variant repeating from a third and a fourth. A fifth seed, about habit trackers rather than to do lists, returned the same shape of request with a different noun in front.
So I opened the official pricing or App Store pages for five apps that answer that request, rather than reading someone else’s comparison post about them.
What a to do list app without subscription gives up when it is genuinely free
A to do list app without subscription, when it truly has no paid tier anywhere, tends to pay for that in features instead of money. Diem, on its App Store listing, states plainly: “no sign-up, no subscriptions, no due dates.” It is free, built for iPad, and that is the entire feature list in one sentence. No folders, no snooze, no subtasks, one reminder for the whole list. Tasks.org makes the same trade from the other direction: it is open source, licensed under the GNU GPLv3, with no ads and no data sharing, and its own site lists filters, tags, infinite-depth subtasks, and manual sorting as its feature set. Neither page mentions habit tracking, streaks, or recurring behavior of any kind. Both apps keep their promise of zero subscription by staying simple enough that there is nothing left to charge for.
What the capped ones charge for, specifically
Todoist’s own pricing page puts the free Beginner tier at 5 personal projects, each with up to 5 collaborators. Pro raises that ceiling to 300 projects. Any.do’s pricing page says its free Personal plan is “Free Forever. No credit card,” and its FAQ adds that tasks, subtasks, and shopping lists are unlimited on that free tier, but the same page lists recurring tasks as a Premium-only feature, alongside WhatsApp reminders, AI features, color tags, and location reminders. TickTick’s upgrade page sets the free tier at 9 lists and 99 tasks per list, and its comparison table lists a Habit Count of 5 on the free plan against 299 on Premium ($49.99 a year).
Line those three up and a pattern appears that none of the five pages states out loud: the feature that gets capped, across all three freemium apps, is the one a person trying to run a daily routine actually needs. Todoist caps how many ongoing projects you can run at once. Any.do removes recurring tasks from the free tier entirely, which means its free plan cannot repeat a task automatically without paying. TickTick lets you track five habits for free and then charges for a sixth.
The gap this leaves
Someone searching for a to do list app without subscription is not asking for a blank list. The two apps with no subscription at all (Diem, Tasks.org) have no habit or recurring feature to speak of. The three apps with habit or recurring features (Todoist, Any.do, TickTick) all put a number on exactly that feature and sell the next number. I did not find one official page, among the five, offering unlimited recurring todos and habit tracking without a subscription wall somewhere in between.
This is the part where I say plainly that I built the app I am about to describe, so weigh the comparison with that in mind. DreamStore’s own Google Play listing states: “Repeating todos come back on the weekdays you picked,” with no count attached to that line, and no separate pricing tier gates it. The listing also states the app is “free to use and supported by ads,” and that the optional DreamStore Pro subscription “removes ads and adds more planet decor slots, a full year of stats, extra widget colours and higher video and AI limits.” Recurring todos, routines, and the count of habits or routines you can keep running are not on that list of things Pro unlocks. What is actually free, without a subscription, is the thing the five pages above charge for once you need more than a handful.
The other piece DreamStore adds, which none of the five apps mention at all, is that a completed todo or routine step makes a small planet on the screen grow, and growth stages never move backwards, so a day you miss is not counted against you the way TickTick’s habit count or Todoist’s project cap would be. I wrote more about the no-streak mechanic itself in a separate post about removing streaks entirely.
Where this does not fit: DreamStore runs ads on the free tier, so if an ad-free experience without any subscription at all is the actual requirement, Diem or Tasks.org answer that better than this app does. DreamStore now runs on iPhone as well as Android (the iPhone version shipped on October 23, 2026), though the home screen widget is still Android only. And DreamStore is not a minimalist list; it carries a planet, a photo and video diary, and health and reading sections built in, which is more surface area than someone who wants exactly what Diem offers is asking for.
What I checked, and what I did not
As of October 2026, I read the official pages directly for all five comparison apps: Diem’s App Store listing, Tasks.org’s own site, Todoist’s pricing page, Any.do’s pricing page, and TickTick’s upgrade page. I did not install any of the five apps, so I cannot confirm whether the limits stated on each pricing page match what the app itself enforces, or whether any of the five has quietly changed its free tier since I read these pages. Todoist’s pricing page did not display Pro’s monthly price as a number in the text I could extract, so I am not citing that figure. TickTick’s own site uses the label “Habit Count” rather than “habit tracker,” and I am reporting that exact label rather than assuming it means the same feature a dedicated habit app would call tracking.
DreamStore’s own facts above (recurring todos, the ad-supported free tier, what Pro unlocks, the no-streak planet growth) are current as of the Google Play listing I read on October 21, 2026.