Remember The Milk vs Toodledo on the web and iPhone

Remember The Milk and Toodledo are the two best online to do list and task management applications available. They both have iPhone applications with push notification feature to alert you when a task is due. Having used both of these services, I can give a fair comparison of what they can do and where they disappoint.

On the Web :

Remember The Milk is completely free to use on the web while Toodledo offers one free and two paid versions. If all you need is a simple to-do list application with basic functionality, both Remember The Milk and Toodledo’s free service are more than sufficient for you. Toodledo’s ‘Pro’ and ‘Pro Plus’ offer extra features such as subtasks, collaboration and file uploads. While Remember The Milk offers collaboration features for free, it lacks subtasks and file uploads. Toodledo website has a nice tabular comparison page that compares almost all of the to-do list applications available.

The only thing I ever missed in Toodledo free when compared to Remember The Milk is the ability to use more than one reminder service (you need to upgrade to Pro to use up to 5 reminder services).

Toodledo offers two types of professional accounts. Pro account costs $14.95 per year and Pro Plus costs $29.95 per year. The only additional feature at this point for Pro Plus is the ability to upload files (in addition to the subtasks, collaboration etc that a Pro account can do).

On the iPhone :

The iPhone offering is where Remember The Milk is often criticized for. Though you can download the iPhone app for free, it is tied with Pro account. iPhone app works with the Pro account only (there is a 14 day trial) and a Pro account costs $25 per year. One problem here is that iPhone users expect to pay for an app once and use it forever. So, this tying with the Pro account makes them pay every year.

The other problem here is that there is only one price point and it is too big for a basic user who just wants the ability to view the tasks on iPhone. Though there is an iPhone-optimized web edition, it also is tied to the Pro account. Remember The Milk should have offered the iPhone-optimized web edition for free (or a small one-time fee) while the app version is reserved for Pro users. There is nothing called one size fits all. You need to offer different versions for different people.

Toodledo does a much better job on the iPhone front. It has an iPhone app that costs $2.99 (at the time of writing this post). And you don’t have to have a Pro account to use it. So, you just pay a one time fee and can use it with the free web version. If you are a Pro user, your additional features such as subtasks sync with the iPhone too. Simple, elegant and no twists.

Conclusion :

If you don’t own an iPhone or don’t care about the app, you can use either Remember The Milk or Toodledo for free. If you need advanced features such as subtasks or file uploads, you need to go for a Pro account with Toodledo.

On the iPhone, I definitely think that Toodledo delivers the best value for money.