An honest comparison
Limbo vs TripIt: two good apps, built for different trips
TripIt has spent years perfecting one thing: turning forwarded booking emails into a clean personal itinerary. Limbo starts from a different question: how does a group of travelers actually agree on anything? Here is where each app earns its place.
At a glance
- Included free
- Partial / limited
- Behind a paywall
- Not offered
| Feature | Limbo | TripIt |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free core; optional Pro Core planning is free. Limbo Pro is US$29.99 a year at the base price, with your store's local price (A$49.99 in Australia), and adds Smart Route, Open in Maps, offline trip access, offline travel packs, trip attachments, and a Gmail booking inbox, with no ads. | Freemium Free tier; TripIt Pro is $49/year after a 30-day trial. |
| Group voting | Built in Yes / No / Abstain ballots, sealed until the deadline or everyone votes, then revealed. | Not offered |
| Trip chat | Built in Photos, replies, quick polls, and live ballot cards. One chat per trip. | Not offered Trips are shared with view or edit permissions. |
| Email import | Forwarding free; Gmail scan with Pro Forward bookings to addthis@getlimbo.app for free. Pro can connect a Gmail account read-only and scan it. Either way you review each draft in Incoming Plans before filing it. | Included Forward to plans@tripit.com; the itinerary builds automatically. |
| Flight alerts | Free refresh; Pro live alerts Refresh a saved looked-up flight for free, subject to a rate limit. Pro editors can enable live schedule, delay, gate, landing, and baggage updates where available. | TripIt Pro only Real-time alerts are part of the $49/year plan. |
| Offline | Pro only Pro opens cached trips with no connection and holds your edits, and an offline travel pack downloads a trip, its Checklist tasks, linked guides, and saved attachments in advance. | View only Your itinerary stays static until you reconnect. |
| Budget split | Included Estimated vs. actual costs, per-person split, multi-currency, plus record who paid and settle up who owes whom. | Not built in |
| Shared tasks (Pitch In) | Included Claim or assign the prep work and track who's on what. | Not built in |
| Platforms | iOS & Android | iOS, Android & web |
TripIt details checked against tripit.com and help.tripit.com in June 2026.
Where TripIt shines
TripIt does itinerary filing about as well as it can be done. Forward any confirmation email to plans@tripit.com and a master itinerary appears, synced to your calendar and available on iOS, Android, and the web. For frequent business travelers, TripIt Pro adds real-time flight alerts, a seat tracker that notifies you when a better seat opens up, fare-refund monitoring, alternate flight suggestions, and interactive airport maps. Pro's Inner Circle can automatically share every upcoming trip with a partner or an assistant.
If your travel life is mostly you, your inbox, and a calendar, that is a polished and mature toolset, and the free tier alone is a perfectly good filing cabinet for your bookings.
Where Limbo shines
Limbo assumes the trip has people in it. Flights, hotels, restaurants, events, and car rentals all land on one shared timeline that updates for everyone at once. When the group needs to make a call, anyone can put a plan to a vote: Yes, No, or Abstain, sealed so nobody anchors on the first response. Ballots can run up to 30 days and stay sealed, tallies hidden, only your own vote visible, until the deadline passes or everyone has voted. Then Limbo reveals the full result, including who didn't vote, and ballots can be anonymous when the question is delicate.
The conversation lives next to the plan. Each trip has its own chat with photos, reactions, replies, quick polls, and live ballot cards, so a decision never gets buried under fifty messages. Email import works the way you would hope: forward bookings to addthis@getlimbo.app, review, confirm. Saved looked-up flights have a free, rate-limited manual refresh. The free budget tracks estimated versus actual costs and splits per person across currencies. Record who paid and it works out who owes whom so the group settles up without a spreadsheet. With Limbo Pro, cached trips stay open without a connection and an offline travel pack downloads the trip in advance; chat and Google map tiles still need a connection. Crew join with a 6-character code, and every core trip workflow is free. Optional Limbo Pro adds Smart Route, Open in Maps, offline trip access, offline travel packs, trip attachments, and an automatic Gmail booking inbox, and removes ads.
Which one fits your trip
Pick TripIt if you travel solo or for work and your main problem is scattered confirmations. It files everything neatly, the web app is genuinely useful at a desk, and Pro's flight tooling is built for people who board a plane every week.
Pick Limbo if your trips come with a group attached: a bachelorette weekend, a family reunion, or six friends who cannot settle on a restaurant. TripIt can show everyone the itinerary; Limbo is built for the harder part, which is agreeing on it in the first place. Our guide to group trip planning covers how that works in practice. And if you are weighing collaborative planners against each other, see how Limbo compares to Wanderlog.
Frequently asked questions
What does Limbo cost, and is there a paid tier like TripIt Pro?
Every core Limbo workflow is free on iOS and Android, including group voting, trip chat, cost splitting and settle-up, Checklist tasks, manual booking-email forwarding, and rate-limited flight refreshes. Optional Limbo Pro adds Smart Route, Open in Maps, offline trip access, offline travel packs, trip attachments, an automatic Gmail booking inbox, and live flight alerts where available, and removes ads. It is an annual subscription with a US$29.99 base price, shown in your store's local currency, currently A$49.99 a year in Australia. TripIt's free tier covers itinerary basics, while real-time flight alerts and seat tracking sit behind TripIt Pro at $49 per year.
Can I forward booking emails to Limbo the way I do with TripIt?
Yes. Forward flight, hotel, car rental, event, and restaurant confirmations to addthis@getlimbo.app. Limbo extracts the details, you review and confirm, and the plan lands on the shared timeline for everyone on the trip.
Does TripIt have group voting or a trip chat?
No. TripIt lets you share an itinerary with per-person view or edit permissions, which works well for keeping someone informed. It does not include group voting or a built-in chat, so group decisions still happen somewhere else.
Should I switch from TripIt to Limbo?
If you mostly travel solo or for work and just want bookings filed into one itinerary, TripIt remains a strong choice. If your trips involve a group that needs to agree on dates, stays, and plans, Limbo handles the deciding as well as the organizing. Some travelers simply use both.
Plan the next one together
Get Limbo on iOS and Android. Core trip planning is free.
