Goblin Tools alternatives that are actually for ADHD
Real alternatives to Goblin Tools' Magic ToDo for ADHD task breakdown — Tiimo, Llama Life, Numo, Saner.ai, and ChatGPT prompts — with 2026 prices.
July 26, 2026 · 4 min read
Stay with Goblin Tools if breaking tasks down is your only problem; it's free and still the best at it. Pay for an alternative only when the breakdown needs a schedule, a timer, or witnesses attached. Five real options below, with 2026 prices running from a ~$2.99 one-time mobile app to $59.99/year. We're independent and don't sell any of these.
If you googled "Goblin Tools alternatives," odds are the top results tried to sell you note-taking apps. Different product, different problem. Goblin Tools is a task breakdown tool for neurodivergent people, and its alternatives are the apps that do that same job: turn "clean the kitchen" into steps small enough to start.
What Goblin Tools does
Goblin Tools is a set of small, single-purpose AI helpers built for people with ADHD, autism, and executive dysfunction. The famous one is Magic ToDo: type a task, set the "spiciness" level (how granular you need the breakdown), and it splits the task into subtasks, recursively if a subtask is still too big. The rest of the set includes the Formalizer (rewrites your blunt text politely), the Judge (reads tone in messages you received), the Estimator, and a couple of others.
The pricing is the best part. The website is completely free, no ads, no paywall, no account. The mobile apps cost a few dollars once, about $2.99 on iOS and $3.49 on Android, purely to help fund the free site.
Why you'd want an alternative at all
Goblin Tools breaks tasks down and then... stops. There's no scheduling, no reminders, no timers, no sense of when any of these subtasks happen, and nothing that notices you never did them. For a lot of ADHD users the breakdown was never the hard part. Starting is. Staying on the task is. If you keep generating beautiful subtask lists and never doing them, a better breakdown tool won't save you; the breakdown has to land on a schedule, a timer, or another human. Each alternative below adds one of those.
The real alternatives
| Tool | What it adds over Goblin Tools | Price (2026, US) |
|---|---|---|
| Goblin Tools (baseline) | Nothing, it's the baseline | Free web; ~$2.99–3.49 one-time mobile |
| Tiimo | Visual schedule + AI co-planner | ~$42–54/yr, free mobile tier |
| Llama Life | Timers + AI breakdown, one task at a time | $6/mo or $39/yr |
| Numo | Accountability squads, gamified tasks | $7.99–15.99/mo, $59.99/yr |
| Saner.ai | AI notes-to-tasks brain dump organizer | ~$17/mo, free tier |
| ChatGPT | DIY breakdown with full control | Free tier works fine |
Tiimo attaches the breakdown to a schedule. Its AI co-planner creates, prioritizes, and breaks down tasks, then puts them on a visual timeline with focus timers and reminders, the whole pipeline Goblin Tools lacks. It's the most complete option here and priced like it: roughly $42/year on the web and up to $54 via the App Store (the gap is real; we broke down Tiimo's pricing here), with a limited free tier on mobile only.
Llama Life attaches it to a timer. Built by an ADHDer, Llama Life shows you one task at a time with a countdown timer, and its AI can break a big task into timed chunks. If your failure mode is "made the list, blacked out, it's 6pm," this is the closest philosophical sibling to Goblin Tools with the missing execution layer added. $6/month or $39/year with a 3-day trial; no free tier.
Numo adds witnesses. Numo's angle is accountability: gamified tasks plus "squads" of other ADHD users who see what you finish. It won't out-break-down Goblin Tools. But if being observed is what makes you do things, it's the only one offering that. $7.99–15.99/month or $59.99/year depending on region, with enough pricing and billing complaints that you should read our full Numo review before starting the trial.
Saner.ai works upstream of the task list. You dump messy thoughts by voice or text and its AI sorts them into notes and actionable tasks. The pick if tasks die in your head before reaching any app. Around $17/month, with a free tier to start.
ChatGPT (or any decent chatbot) is the free DIY route. Goblin Tools is, at heart, a well-designed prompt in a friendly wrapper. You can replicate the core with a saved prompt like: "Break this task into steps small enough that each takes under 10 minutes and none requires a decision. If a step is still vague, break it down again. Task: [x]." Add "I have ADHD; assume task initiation is the hard part" and tune from there. Clunkier than Magic ToDo, and free, and endlessly flexible. The honest catch is that it lives in a chat window, so it has the same no-schedule, no-timer gap as Goblin Tools itself.
How to choose without spiraling
Match the tool to your failure point rather than the feature list:
- Tasks feel too big to start → stay with Goblin Tools. It's free and does this best.
- Lists get made, never executed → Llama Life (timer-driven) or Tiimo (schedule-driven). Our Tiimo vs Structured comparison helps if you're weighing full planners, and the comparison index covers the wider field.
- You do things only when observed → Numo.
- Everything dies in your head first → Saner.ai.
- You're broke → Goblin Tools + a saved ChatGPT prompt covers 80% of any of these for $0.
And if what you need is a full daily planner rather than a breakdown tool, that's a different shopping trip. Start with our honest review of ADHD planner apps.