The best assignment tracker for college depends on where your work already lives.
If your assignments show up in Canvas or another LMS, Coursicle syncs them for free. If they live in a spreadsheet, keep the spreadsheet, or hand it to ours and skip the retyping. If you want a phone app with reminders, myHomework costs $4.99 once. Everything below was read on their own pages on 20 September 2026.
The seven trackers, side by side
Four columns decide most of this: what it costs, whether it can take the list you already have, whether it will tell you about a deadline, and whether you have to make an account to start.
| Tracker | Cost | Takes your spreadsheet | Reminders | Account |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A free Google Sheets template | Free | It is the spreadsheet | None | A Google account |
| A Notion assignment tracker | Free templates | Retype or rebuild | Notion reminders | Notion account |
| Coursicle | Free | No import | Via Google Calendar | Coursicle account |
| MyStudyLife | Free, capped | No import | Yes, on the free plan | MyStudyLife account |
| myHomework | Free; $4.99 premium | No import | Premium | Optional, premium needs one |
| Shovel | $9.79/month or $39/year | No import | In-app planning | Shovel account |
| StudyRows | Free; $5/month automation, free in beta | Paste or upload it | Email, free during the beta | Not for the tracker |
Prices and limits are the vendors’ own, read on 20 September 2026. They change; check before you pay for anything.
Where each one wins, and where it does not
A free Google Sheets template
Spreadsheet Point publishes one with nine columns: days remaining, status, subject, task type, assignment, description, files, date given and due date. A second version adds priority, a grade field and a dashboard tab. From Spreadsheet Point's template, read 20 September 2026.
Better at
You copy it and it works. Formulas, colour rules and a dashboard, with nothing new to learn and nobody else holding your data.
Worse at
It cannot remind you. Nothing in a spreadsheet sends you anything, so the tracker only works on the days you remember to open it.
A Notion assignment tracker
Notion's gallery listed 228 assignment tracker templates when we counted, the visible ones free. From Notion's template gallery, read 20 September 2026.
Better at
If your notes already live in Notion, your deadlines sit beside them. Relations and rollups do things a spreadsheet cannot.
Worse at
You are maintaining a database. A template is a file someone made once, not a thing that keeps working, and moving a messy sheet into it is manual.
Coursicle
Coursicle says its core features, including assignment and Google Calendar syncing, are free, and that it syncs Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, Google Classroom, Moodle and Sakai. From Coursicle's own description, read 20 September 2026.
Better at
If every assignment you have appears in your LMS, automatic sync beats any amount of typing. This is the strongest free answer for most US students.
Worse at
It is built around the LMS. A reading list on a paper syllabus, a lab notebook, a group deadline agreed in a chat: none of that reaches Canvas, so none of it arrives here either.
MyStudyLife
The free plan allows up to 5 tasks at a time, with reminders. MSL+ removes the cap and adds subtasks, repeating tasks and calendar sync, with the first 7 days free. From the MSL+ page, read 20 September 2026.
Better at
Timetables, including the A-week / B-week kind, and phone apps that are older and steadier than anything else here.
Worse at
Five tasks is the wrong thing to cap in a tracker. A normal week is eleven readings and two problem sets, so the free plan runs out on day one.
myHomework
A student planner rated 4.5 from 4,300 ratings on the App Store. Premium costs $4.99 and adds sync across devices, web access, reminders and the ability to join a teacher's Teachers.io class. Themes are $0.99 each. From the App Store listing, read 20 September 2026.
Better at
One payment, not a subscription, and a design students have used for years. If you want a simple planner on a phone and nothing else, this is the cheapest way to stop paying monthly.
Worse at
The iPhone app's last update on the App Store was 5 February 2025. Everything goes in by hand, and the company's own site now sells hall passes to schools rather than leading with the planner.
Shovel
A study planner built around fitting work into the hours you actually have. The first 7 days are free, then it bills. From Shovel's pricing page, read 20 September 2026.
Better at
It answers a question none of the others ask: whether the work fits in the time left before the deadline.
Worse at
It is the most expensive option here, and the time budgeting only pays off if you keep it current.
StudyRows
Ours. It takes the sheet you already keep and keeps up with it when the sheet changes.
Better at
The import shows every date it could not read, and will not import until you decide each one. Re-importing an updated sheet shows what changed instead of adding everything twice. Four views over the same rows, and export that never gets locked.
Worse at
No LMS sync, so Coursicle beats it for anyone whose work is all in Canvas. No app-store app, no syllabus PDF scanning, no group features. It is new, and it has not been through a full academic year.
How this page was checked
Every row above comes from the vendor’s own page, opened on 20 September 2026 and linked beside the claim. That is weaker than running the tools, and we would rather say so than imply a test we have not run.
What we have run is our own import, on a sheet built to break it: a row dated 3/4/2027, a row whose date says TBD, and a row dated 10/15/26. The import stops and offers both readings, Thursday 4 March 2027 and Saturday 3 April 2027, and will not write anything until each doubtful row is settled or marked undated. Two-digit years import correctly. You can repeat it in about two minutes on the tracker, and the rules are written out in how importing works.
Testing our own product and reading everyone else’s marketing is a comparison with its thumb on the scale, and it stays that way until the same sheet has gone through all seven. That test is on the list. When it is done, the rows change and this paragraph goes.
Monday, Asana and ClickUp also sell assignment templates. They are project management tools for teams, and one student tracking eleven readings does not need dependencies and dashboards, so they are not compared above.
The short version
Work all in the LMS: Coursicle. Twelve rows that never change: a free Sheets template. A phone app with reminders and no subscription: myHomework.
A sheet you already keep, that keeps changing, where the retyping is the part you are tired of: this one.
Questions students actually search for
What is the best free assignment tracker for college students?
Coursicle, if your assignments appear in Canvas, Brightspace, Blackboard, Google Classroom, Moodle or Sakai: it says assignment and Google Calendar syncing are free, and syncing beats typing. If your deadlines live in a spreadsheet instead, a free Google Sheets template costs nothing and StudyRows turns that same sheet into a calendar without retyping it.
Which app is best for college assignments on a phone?
myHomework or MyStudyLife. Both are years-old phone apps with reminders. myHomework charges $4.99 once for sync and reminders; MyStudyLife is free up to 5 tasks at a time and charges for more. StudyRows installs from the browser rather than an app store, which is lighter but less familiar.
What is the best way to keep track of college assignments?
One list, updated when the deadline moves. The tool matters less than that. A spreadsheet is enough if you open it; an app is better if you need reminders; a tracker that reads your spreadsheet is better if the list keeps changing and retyping it is the part you skip.
Is a spreadsheet good enough for tracking assignments?
For twelve rows that rarely change, yes, and a free template gets you there in a minute. A spreadsheet stops being enough when you need to be told about a deadline rather than go and look, or when the same file has to work on a phone in a corridor.