The short version
Pick Habitica if you would enjoy an RPG anyway. Pick Finch if looking after something gently is what gets you moving. Pick Forest if the trouble is staying off your phone. Stay on Todoist if you already live in it and want a score on the side. Pick Kudos if you want your real tasks scored with friends beside you.
We make Kudos, so weigh that as you read.
| App | The game | Free version | Paid version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Habitica | A character with health, gold, gear and party quests | Everything, with no cap | $4.99 a month to $47.99 a year, for gems and cosmetics |
| Finch | A pet bird that grows as you look after yourself | All the core features | Finch Plus, listed from $5.99 to $69.99 |
| Forest | A tree that grows while you stay in the app and dies if you leave | The timer, with ads | Plus, $5.99 a month or about $32 to $36 a year |
| Todoist | Karma points, levels and a streak beside a full task manager | Up to 5 projects | Pro, $7 a month or $60 a year |
| Kudos | XP for each task, a daily streak and a weekly race with friends | Everything | None |
US prices from each app's store listing or help pages, read between August and October 2026. They change, so check before you buy.
Habitica: the whole RPG
Habitica turns your list into a role-playing game. Finished tasks earn gold and experience for a character, missed dailies cost it health, and in a party a missed daily can let the team down. If you would play that game anyway, nothing else here comes close. If the game became a second list, our Habitica alternatives guide goes through the way out.
Finch: a pet instead of a score
Finch wraps self-care around a bird that goes on adventures as you tick things off. There is no punishment for a missed day, and the free version keeps every core feature. It leans toward mood and looking after yourself rather than getting through a workload. Our Finch review untangles what it costs.
Forest: a game about not leaving
Forest isn't a to-do list. You plant a tree, it grows while you stay in the app, and it dies if you leave, which makes this the one app here where quitting costs you something on the spot. We compared it with the other focus timers.
Todoist Karma: a score on a serious tool
Todoist is a full task manager, and Karma is a quiet score beside it, with levels from Beginner to Enlightened. You earn points for finishing tasks and for using the app's features, you lose them when tasks sit five or more days overdue, and a streak goes back to zero when you miss your goal. It's the lightest game here with the most tool under it. Our Todoist alternative page covers what you would trade away by leaving.
Kudos: a score and people to race
Kudos is a to-do list where each task earns XP by its size, from 1 for a glass of water to 32 for a marathon. It reads the size from the title, so there is nothing to price. A streak counts the days you open the app, and every ranking is XP earned this week, so everybody starts level on Monday. There is no character and no currency: the game is the work and who else can see it.
It also does less than Todoist. There are no projects, no labels and no web app.
Does gamifying your work actually help?
Part of it has good evidence behind it. A 2016 meta-analysis of 138 randomised studies covering 19,951 people found that prompting people to monitor their progress helped them reach their goals, by a small to medium amount, and a score is one way of keeping that record.
The game can also get in the way. A 2019 study of 45 Habitica users found that all of them ran into counterproductive effects, most often being punished by the app for forgetting to log something they had actually done. So the useful question isn't whether an app is gamified. It's whether you would still open it in a bad week.
Common questions
- What is the best gamified productivity app?
- It depends on how much game you want. Habitica has the most, with a character and quests. Finch is the gentlest. Forest is the one for staying off your phone. Kudos suits people who want their real tasks scored with friends beside them, and Todoist suits people who mostly want a powerful task manager.
- Are there free gamified productivity apps?
- Yes. Habitica is free with no feature cap, Finch's core features are free, and Kudos is free with nothing to buy inside the app.
- What is a productivity game?
- An app that uses parts of a game, such as points, streaks, levels or rankings, to reward real work. You aren't playing instead of working: finishing the task is the move.
- Which gamified apps work with friends?
- Habitica has parties that share quests, and Forest has group focus sessions. Kudos lets you follow friends, see what they finish, and race them on a weekly ranking, in groups of up to 50.
- Is Kudos free?
- Yes. Kudos is free on iPhone and Android, there is nothing to buy inside the app, and you can start without an account.