It was written by Billy Steinberg, Josh Alexander and Ruth-Anne Cunningham, and produced by the former two with Da Family Records founder Vincent Herbert.

A power ballad, "Too Little Too Late" is a pop and R&B breakup song about a girl who struggles about dealing with her first love as she refuses to reconcile with her ex-boyfriend despite his efforts to convince her.

Although Cunningham always envisioned the song being recorded by JoJo, the songwriters had considered offering "Too Little Too Late" to American girl group The Pussycat Dolls.

"[5] Born in Ireland, "Too Little Too Late" was one of the first songs Cunningham was hired to write professionally after moving to Los Angeles, California from Dublin at the age of 17.

[7][8] After hearing Cunningham perform one of her original songs, Steinberg invited her to co-write "Too Little Too Late", which they successfully completed by the following day during a writing session with Alexander.

"[14] JoJo claimed that she knew she wanted the song to be the album's first single from the moment she recorded it,[12] and in April 2006, she announced a pending release date of either August or September 2006.

[18] Beginning "Come with me/Stay the night", Bob Waliszewski of Plugged In (publication) identified "Too Little Too Late" as a song in which the protagonist "rejects a smarmy guy's game-playing advances".

"[21] Kelefa Sanneh, music journalist for The New York Times, observed that production-wise, the single features "airy synthesizers and synthetic-sounding strings" as opposed to loud guitars.

[21] Incorporating teen pop influences,[2] JoJo performs several R&B-style arpeggios throughout the ballad,[28] while her vocal range on the track spans three octaves, from D3 to E6.

[2] JoJo herself explained that the track discusses moving on from one's first heartbreak,[11] calling it a "big song" about expressing disappointment in a first love that is not as angry-sounding as her debut single "Leave (Get Out)".

[29] Contributing to HuffPost, Sam Lansky concurred that the single is "more restrained but no less bitter" than "Leave (Get Out)" while remaining "a guitar-driven sigh of impotent resignation.

"[30] Musically, JoJo identified "Too Little Too Late" as a pop song into which R&B elements had been incorporated using various harmonies and chord progressions, "but still kept it rock in the hook when it explodes.

[11] AXS contributor Jason Burke summarized that, in "Too Little Too Late", JoJo refuses "to be a slave to a conditional or convenient relationship",[32] realizing she is stronger on her own despite sometimes experiencing temptations to relent due to the fact that her former partner continues to know "all the right things to say".

[11] According to Max Goldberg of Complex, the break up song narrates "The story of a fed-up JoJo curbing some guy who wasn't up to snuff", with the artist taking a different approach to dealing with teenage heartbreak that does not involve crying about the situation to her mother.

[24][42][41] Believing that "art predicted life" when she was first introduced to the track, JoJo explained, "when I started dating a few years later, I wondered if those songwriters hadn’t instinctively picked up on something.”[43] "Too Little Too Late" received positive reviews from music critics.

[14][44] Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt cited "Too Little Too Late" as an example of "the best songwriting a major-label budget can buy",[45] while Billboard identified the song as a track "that can dwell comfortably on both the pop and AC charts", appealing to "listeners of all ages.

[47] Another Billboard critic felt that the song was better than most singles playing on the radio at the time, lauding it as a track that "provides desperately needed balance to a top 40 landscape that is lacking a lot in the way of singable melodies.

[21] About.com's Bill Lamb was receptive towards JoJo's vocal performance, writing that the singer "provides just enough control to keep [its] sentiments ... from going overboard and, by the end of the song, proves high notes are well within her range".

In a more lukewarm review, Evan Sawdey from PopMatters described the track as "appropriately melodramatic," drawing similarities between it and JoJo's debut single "Leave (Get Out)" only "without the angry chorus".

[51] Contributing to Rolling Stone, music critic Jenny Eliscu wrote that the ballad demonstrates JoJo's "nuanced command of how to work an R&B; arpeggio like a pro.

"[13] Alex Macpherson from The Guardian wrote that the singer remains "at her best when compulsively dissecting emotional situations straight out of high-school movies via the medium of big, heartfelt choruses", identifying "Too Little Too Late" as a "wonderfully weepy pinnacle".

[41] Furthermore, the critic wrote that the single is "not a one-hit-wonder teen peak, but in fact, only the start of JoJo’s artistic trajectory", concluding, "After almost a decade, the prescient maturity of 'Too Little Too Late'  ... baffles me every time.

This broke the record previously set by American singer Mariah Carey for her song "Loverboy" (2001),[64][63] and became the biggest one-week jump in the chart's history.

"[71] JoJo's then-relationship with soccer player Freddy Adu, combined with the fact that the 2006 FIFA World Cup was approaching, are believed to have inspired the music video's theme.

[71] Professional soccer player Mike Zaher, junior defender of the UCLA Bruins,[73] was cast as JoJo's boyfriend David in the music video.

[44] AllMusic's Matt Collar wrote that the video demonstrates JoJo's "suburban cheerleader slinging hip-hop attitude", comparing her persona to those of actress Jennifer Aniston and singer Beyoncé.

[15][76] Mehek Seyid, a writer for Live in Limbo, reviewed the singer's rendition at the Mod Club in Toronto as having "attitude and confidence that defined the Billboard hit [when it] first circulated in the 2000s.

[82] In late October 2007, Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear recorded a version of the song in honor of bandmate Ed Droste's 29th birthday.

[85] Sam Willett of Consequence of Sound reviewed Rossen's version as "a killer cover" that has been arranged "into a simultaneously soothing and haunting collage of echoing harmonies and guitar textures.

"[40] According to The Guardian music critic Jude Rogers, the cover was part of the band's effort to make their live performances more enjoyable to audiences "when you're a man in your late 20s who can't hide behind a persona.