Tody - Smarter Cleaning

Review by eFreeware

If the cleaning plan in your home exists only in your head, Tody is built for that problem. It is a schedule app that tracks chores and their timing, so the routine does not depend on one person remembering everything. The people most likely to want it are those running a shared home, where the question of who last cleaned the bathroom comes up more often than anyone would like.

What the app offers is a visible plan. Instead of assigning chores to fixed days, Tody manages tasks by indicators of actual need, which the developer describes as putting you in control of your routines rather than the other way around. That is the core idea, and everything else in the app hangs off it.

It is free to install and available on Android as well as iPhone and iPad. The developer calls it the top-rated cleaning app, and with over a million installs and a 4.7 average from more than 21,000 ratings, plenty of households have given it a try since its release at the end of 2018.

A schedule that follows need, not the calendar

Most cleaning routines fall apart because they are tied to dates. You schedule the floors for Saturday, Saturday gets busy, and by the following week the plan is a memory. Tody takes a different route: tasks are managed by indicators of actual need, so the app is telling you what is due based on how much use something has had rather than what day it is.

The developer frames this as flexibility, and I can see the logic. A guest room that sat empty for a month does not need the same attention as a kitchen that gets used three times a day, and a date-based list treats them identically. An indicator-based one lets the two drift apart without the whole schedule collapsing.

The app also shows how dirty things have become, meant to motivate you to clean, and then shows the effect of cleaning once it is done, meant to make the result feel satisfying. Whether that feedback loop works for you will depend on how you respond to seeing a task build up, but it is a deliberate design choice rather than a gimmick.

Setting up a plan that fits your home

Tody is meant to be set up quickly. Building a customized cleaning plan is described as easy and intuitive, and the app is designed to scale, from a single person in a small apartment to a large household with several members. That range is the interesting part: the same structure has to work for someone cleaning a studio and for a family dividing up a whole house.

Because the plan is customized rather than fixed, what you get out of Tody depends on the work you put in at the start. You decide what counts as a task in your home and how often it should come around. The app then keeps the running total for you. For anyone who has tried to hold that list in their head, moving it into a shared, visible place is the main appeal.

Even professionals use Tody as their preferred tool, which suggests the customization goes further than a basic chore list. I would treat that as a claim rather than a guarantee, but the underlying point stands: the app is built to be shaped around a household rather than the other way around.

Sharing the load without the arguments

For shared homes, Tody turns cleaning into something closer to a game. Household members can check in to claim credit for what they have done, so the record of who cleaned what is visible to everyone rather than remembered selectively. That is a small feature in theory and a significant one in practice, because most friction over chores comes down to nobody being sure what has actually been done.

The check-in system also means the app is not just a private to-do list. It is a shared account of effort, which is what makes it useful for couples, families and house shares where the work needs to be seen to be fair.

The most recent addition is Reports, which gives a clear overview of cleaning progress that can be shared with the rest of the household. If you have ever wanted to settle a discussion about who does more around the house with something other than memory, that is the feature aimed at you.

What it costs and what comes with it

Tody is free to download, and it contains ads. It also offers in-app purchases, so there is a paid element inside the app alongside the free version.

The app is rated for Everyone and is available on Android, iPhone and iPad. It was last updated in September 2026, which is a reasonable sign that the developer is still adding to it rather than letting it sit.

If ads are something you find disruptive in an app you open several times a week, that is a factor to weigh. The same goes for the presence of in-app purchases: some people would rather avoid them, and that is a preference Tody may not match.

How it compares with simpler options

The obvious alternative is a general-purpose task manager. Those handle reminders well and are often already on your phone, but they tend to be built around dates, which is exactly the model Tody steps away from. If your problem is that scheduled cleaning days keep slipping, a dated to-do list may reproduce the issue rather than solve it.

A shared calendar has similar limits. It can tell everyone that the bathroom is due on Sunday, but it cannot express that the bathroom is not really due because nobody used it much this week. Tody's indicator approach is the difference, and it is the reason someone might choose a dedicated cleaning app over the tools they already have.

A paper checklist or a whiteboard on the fridge is the other common route. It is free and needs no setup, and for a single person in a small home it may be enough. Where it struggles is scale: once several people are involved and the list grows, keeping it current becomes its own chore, which is the gap Tody is designed to fill.

A cleaning plan worth handing over to an app

Tody is a good fit for households where cleaning is a shared responsibility and the current system is memory, goodwill and the occasional argument. The indicator-based approach is the reason to pick it over a plain to-do list, and the check-in feature is what makes it work for more than one person. Singles in small homes can use it too, but the case is strongest when several people are involved.

It has been around since late 2018 and was updated recently, with a large install base and a strong average rating behind it.

If you want a cleaning routine that adapts to how much things are actually used, and you are willing to spend a little time setting up a plan that matches your home, Tody is worth installing. If you would rather not deal with ads or purchases in a household tool, that is worth considering first.

What's new in version 3.6.8

Introducing Reports — a clear overview of your cleaning progress, ready to share with your household.