Comparison

Things 3 vs Existence

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Things 3

This app helps you organize your life by planning your day, managing projects, and tracking progress toward your goals. It offers a clean interface to manage tasks from daily routines to larger life ambitions.

Highlights
  • To-Do management
  • Project organization
  • Area categorization
  • Daily planning
  • Calendar integration
  • Reminders and repeaters
  • Share extension
Features
Read full description

Get things done! The award-winning Things app helps you plan your day, manage your projects, and make real progress toward your goals. Best of all, it’s easy to use. Within the hour, you’ll have everything off your mind and neatly organized—from routine tasks to your biggest life goals—and you can start focusing on what matters today. “Things offers the best combination of design and functionality of any app we tested, with nearly all the features of other power user applications and a delightful interface that never gets in the way of your work.” —Wirecutter, The New York Times KEY FEATURES • Your To-Dos Your basic building block is the almighty To-Do—each a small step toward a great accomplishment. You can add notes, tag it, schedule it, and break it down into smaller steps. • Your Projects Create a Project for any big goal, then add the to-dos to reach it. Use headings to structure your list as you outline your plan. There’s also a place to jot down your notes, and a deadline to keep you on schedule. • Your Areas Create an Area for each sphere of your life, such as Work, Family, Finance, and so on. This keeps everything neatly organized, and helps you see the big picture as you set your plans in motion. • Your Plan Everything on your schedule is neatly laid out in the Today and Upcoming lists, which show your to-dos and calendar events. Each morning, see what you planned for Today and decide what you want to do. The rest is down to you :) MORE THINGS TO LOVE As you dive deeper, you’ll find Things packed with helpful features. Here are just a few: • Reminders — set a time and Things will remind you. • Repeaters — automatically repeat to-dos on a schedule you set. • This Evening — a special place for your evening plans. • Calendar integration — see your events and to-dos together. • Tags — categorize your to-dos and quickly filter lists. • Quick Find — instantly find to-dos or switch between lists. • Magic Plus — drag the + button to insert to-dos anywhere in a list. • Share extension — create to-dos with content from other apps. • Widgets — see lists on your home/lock screens. • Mail to Things — forward an email to Things; now it’s a to-do. • Markdown — structure & style your notes. • And much more! MADE FOR IPHONE Things is tailored to the iPhone with deep system integrations as well. A great example is the Share extension, which allows you to create to-dos with content from other apps, such as a link to a website you want to get back to. You can also enjoy a beautiful dark mode at sunset, connect your calendars, add a variety of widgets, create to-dos via Siri, import from Reminders—Things can do it all! There’s even Shortcuts integration if you want to automate your workflows. MADE FOR APPLE WATCH Things comes with a great app for Apple Watch. Just raise your wrist to glance at your Today list, mark to-dos complete as you go, and dictate new ones on the fly—all synced instantly with your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. AWARD-WINNING DESIGN Made in Stuttgart, with two Apple Design Awards to its name, Things is a fine example of German engineering: designed not only to look fantastic, but to be perfectly functional as well. Every detail is thoughtfully considered, then polished to perfection. “It’s like the unicorn of productivity tools: deep enough for serious work, surprisingly easy to use, and gorgeous enough to enjoy staring at.” —Apple GET THINGS TODAY Whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, Things can help you get there. Install the app today and see what you can do! • Things is also available for Mac, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro (sold separately). • Sync is provided for free via our Things Cloud service. • A free trial is available for Mac: www.things.app If you have any questions, please get in touch. We provide professional support and will be glad to help you!

About

Existence

This app helps you understand how you spend your time and align your actions with your intentions. It guides you through designing, accounting for, and optimizing your weekly schedule to bridge the gap between your ideal and real self.

Highlights
  • Time Intelligence Platform
  • Time Creation Cycle guidance
  • Time Block scheduling
  • Personalized AI insights
  • Time Alignment Score
  • Calendar imports
  • Predictive tagging
Read full description

A calendar reflects what you do with your time. Existence shows what type of person your time is actually creating. Existence is a Time Intelligence Platform that turns your time into data, your data into understanding, and your understanding into a life more precisely aligned with the one you intend to create. It guides you through the Time Creation Cycle. Each week, you Design your time with intention, Account for what actually happened, and Optimize based on what your record reveals. Each cycle moves you closer to the person you intend to be. DISCOVER THE REAL YOU Most people believe they know how their time is spent, yet the gap between what they think they do and what they actually do is wider than most realize. The Ideal You is the person you know you're capable of being, and the Real You is the person your time actually creates. Existence makes the distance between them visible. DESIGN YOUR WEEK Life is created week by week. Time Blocks structure your week across Work, Life, Health, and Sleep pillars, setting intentions for what you'll do, when, where, and with whom. Each week, you design your time with intention, block by block, projecting the Ideal You forward in time. ACCOUNT FOR ALL OF YOUR TIME Most time goes unaccounted for, and what goes unaccounted for can't be understood, changed, or optimized. As each Time Block passes, update it to reflect what actually happened. Over time, Existence reveals the quality of your experiences and where your life is most out of alignment with your intentions. ACCOUNT FOR ALL OF YOUR TIME Most time goes unaccounted for, and what goes unaccounted for can't be understood, changed, or optimized. As each Time Block passes, update it to reflect what actually happened. Over time, Existence reveals the quality of your experiences and where your life is most out of alignment with your intentions. INPUT YOUR DATA WITH EASE Calendar imports, recurring blocks, and predictive tagging make the practice lightweight. The more you use Existence, the more it learns, automating your Time Blocks so each cycle runs faster than the last. CONSULT YOUR PERSONALIZED AI Existence AI provides targeted insights based on your time data. Ask it why your energy drops mid-week, which environments make you most focused, or how the way you spend your days compares to the life you said you wanted. The more time you account for, the sharper its guidance becomes. LEARN FROM THE DATA Your Time Alignment Score reveals how much of your time is accounted for, how closely your actions track your intentions, and where the gaps are. That clarity is what moves you closer to the Ideal You. With the data you provide, Existence turns your record into understanding. That understanding becomes the input for the following week’s Design. Each cycle gets clearer, each adjustment more precise. Over time, the Real You and the Ideal You move closer together. Existence closes the gap between who you are and who you intend to become. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Things 34 screens
Existence4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Existence at Free against Things 3's $9.99. Existence also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 77%) and update cadence (every 4 days vs every 11 days). Things 3's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2) and ratings volume (28K vs 6). On rating, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Existence is free to download; Things 3 costs $9.99 up front. Existence sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $29.99 per month. Things 3 asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Existence holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Things 3 has 28K ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 77% of Things 3's written reviews are positive against 100% of Existence's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Things 3 ships an update every 11 days, Existence every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 4, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Things 3 versus Existence: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterThings 3Existence
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating4.8 (28K ratings)5.0 (6 ratings) — better
Positive reviews76.5% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings28K — better6
Update frequencyEvery 11 daysEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFreemium — better
Best chart rank#4 — better—
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS16.415.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size120 MB83 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCultured Code GmbH & Co. KGExistence LLC

Customer experience

Things 3

All ratings28,060 ratings
Positive96.1%
Neutral1.7%
Negative2.2%
Written reviews1,895 reviews
Positive76.5%
Neutral8.4%
Negative15.1%

Existence

All ratings6 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Things 3

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Sync issues between devices
  • Occasional crashes or freezes

Requested features

5 requests
  • Ability to collapse headings and projects
  • Location-based reminders
  • Two-way calendar sync
  • Shared task lists
  • Customizable alert sounds

Existence

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Things 3

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Existence

Subscriptions2
  • Founding Member Monthly$29.991 Month
  • Founding Member Annual$299.991 Year

Questions

Is Things 3 free?
Things 3 costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Existence free?
Existence is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Things 3 or Existence?
Existence is rated higher. Things 3 averages 4.8 out of 5 from 28K ratings, while Existence averages 5.0 from 6 ratings.
Do Things 3 or Existence have ads?
Neither Things 3 nor Existence shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Things 3 or Existence?
Things 3 ships an update every 11 days, and Existence every 4 days. Most recently, Things 3 was updated on November 4, 2026 and Existence on October 30, 2026.

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