Goodnotes vs Noteful
We give Goodnotes a 3.8 GPA and Noteful a 3.2, out of 4.0. Goodnotes grades higher on features and platforms. Noteful grades higher on the free plan. They get the same grade on value for money and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Goodnotes
Handwritten notes, PDF markup and whiteboards with an AI assistant
Noteful
Handwritten notes and PDF markup for iPad, with tags and layers
How we grade them
| 3.8GPAGoodnotesExcellent | 3.2GPANotefulVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AEssential is $11.99 a year and Pro is $35.99 a year. That's about $1 and $3 a month, in a category where paid plans typically start at $5.99 a month. On Apple devices there's also a one-time Special Edition at $35.99. | ANoteful Pro is $6.99 once on the US App Store, for life. Paid plans in this category typically start at $5.99 a month, so that's about five weeks of somebody else's subscription. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree forever, but tight: 3 files in total, 100 MB of storage, 20 minutes of audio recording and a watermark on exports. Enough to see if you like the pen feel, not enough for a term of lectures. Essential and Pro have a 7-day trial. | AFree with no time limit: handwriting, PDF and Office import, tags, audio recording and PDF export. Only layers and sync between your iPhone and iPad are held back for Pro. On one iPad, most people could stay free. |
| Features | AHandwritten notebooks you can search, PDF markup, an infinite whiteboard, typed documents and audio recorded in sync with what you write. An AI assistant answers from your handwriting and PDFs and cites the page. Several happy reviewers do call the typed text tool clunky. | BVector ink built for Apple Pencil, markup on PDFs and Office documents, tags you write as #tag anywhere on a page, and audio that plays back in step with your notes. Pro adds layers you can hide and rearrange. Solid, but the listing shows no collaboration and no AI tools. |
| Ease of use | A4.7 from about 460,000 App Store ratings. Writing by hand and still being able to search it is the thing reviewers keep naming. | A4.8 from about 24,000 App Store ratings. There are no plans to puzzle over either: it's the free app or the one $6.99 upgrade. |
| Platforms and integrations | AiPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, Windows and the web, with Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Calendar hooked in. Two catches: syncing one library between Apple and non-Apple devices needs Pro, and the non-iPad versions don't have every feature. | DiPad and iPhone only, on iOS or iPadOS 16.4 or later, which we grade the same as an app that's Android only. The App Store marks it as not verified for macOS, and there's no Android, Windows or web version. |
| Best for | handwritten notes and PDF markup on an iPad | handwritten notes on an iPad for a one-time $6.99 |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Goodnotes and Noteful. How we grade
Where they differ
- Goodnotes starts at $11.99 per year (Essential). Noteful starts at $6.99 one-time purchase (Noteful Pro, Lifetime).
- Only Goodnotes lists a web app.
- Only Goodnotes lists macOS, Android and Windows apps.
- Goodnotes also covers transcription and whiteboard.
At a glance
| Goodnotes | Noteful | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $11.99 per year (Essential) | $6.99 one-time purchase (Noteful Pro, Lifetime) |
| Free plan | Free forever: up to 3 files in total across notebooks, whiteboards and text documents, 100 MB of storage, a 5 MB import limit, 20 minutes of audio recording and watermarked exports. | Free with no time limit: handwriting, PDF and Office import, tags, audio recording and PDF export. Layers and sync between iPhone and iPad need Noteful Pro. |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on Essential and Pro; 30-day free trial on Teams. | None listed |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Goodnotes Limited | Noteful Technologies Limited |
| Price read from | goodnotes.com | apps.apple.com |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 9, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Goodnotes
- Handwritten notes on an iPad with Apple Pencil
- Marking up PDFs such as contracts, reports and lecture slides
- Students who want audio synced to their lecture notes
- K-12 schools using iPads, where Goodnotes Education is free
Noteful
- iPad users who write with Apple Pencil and prefer to pay once
- Annotating PDFs, slides and textbooks on separate layers
- Organizing handwritten notes by tag as well as by folder
Worth knowing
Goodnotes
- The Free plan stops at 3 files in total, 100 MB of storage and 20 minutes of audio recording, and its exports carry a watermark.
- Keeping one library in sync between Apple and non-Apple devices needs Goodnotes Cloud, which is included only from Pro.
- Goodnotes says the Android, Windows and web versions do not offer the full range of features available on iPad.
- Essential, Pro and Teams are priced per year, and AI Pass is a separate $9.99 per month add-on for more AI credits.
Noteful
- Made for iPad and iPhone only. The App Store shows it as "Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS", and no Android, Windows or web version is offered.
- Layers and sync between devices are locked until the Noteful Pro upgrade is bought.
- The App Store listing requires iOS or iPadOS 16.4 or later.
Key features
Goodnotes
- Handwritten notebooks
- Notebooks mix handwriting, typed text, images and stickers on customizable paper templates. Handwriting stays searchable and can be converted to text.
- PDF annotation
- Imported PDFs are highlighted and marked up by hand, searched alongside notes, and keep their table of contents for navigating long documents.
- Whiteboards and text documents
- An infinite-canvas whiteboard for diagrams and mind maps and typed text documents with inline blocks sit in the same library as notebooks.
- Audio recording and meeting notes
- Audio is recorded in sync with what you write. On Pro, Goodnotes AI for Meetings transcribes and summarizes discussions and links notes to calendar events.
- Goodnotes AI
- An in-app assistant answers questions from handwriting, typed text and PDFs, with citations back to the source page. AI credits vary by plan; AI Pass adds about 12 times more.
- Sharing and real-time collaboration
- Every plan can share documents by link. Essential can join real-time collaborative documents, and Pro can host them and share by private link.
Noteful
- Vector ink for Apple Pencil
- A custom ink engine turns strokes into high-resolution vector ink, with ballpoint pen, fountain pen and highlighter brushes and recognition of geometric shapes.
- PDF and document markup
- PDFs and Microsoft Office documents import into a notebook for annotation alongside images, shapes and typed text, and the annotated pages export as PDF.
- Tags and nested tags
- Writing #tag or #nested/tag anywhere in a notebook files it. Notebooks and pages can be browsed by tag, and tags can be renamed, deleted or reassigned.
- Layers
- Annotations can sit on separate layers that are hidden, shown and rearranged independently, leaving the original content unchanged. Layers are a Noteful Pro feature.
- Audio recording
- Audio can be recorded while taking notes, and the playback position is synced with the notes written at that moment.
- Sync across iPhone and iPad
- Noteful Pro syncs notebooks between a user's iPhone and iPad devices. The listing says notebooks synced with iCloud are encrypted via account-based keys.
Plans
Goodnotes
Free$0
Up to 3 files, 100 MB of storage, 20 minutes of audio recording, limited sharing and limited Goodnotes AI usage.
Essential$11.99
per year
Unlimited files and audio recording, 5 GB of storage, exports without a watermark, basic Goodnotes AI and Google Calendar integration.
Pro$35.99
per year
Adds cross-platform library sync, private link sharing, hosting real-time collaboration, Drive integration and advanced AI including meeting notes.
Special Edition$35.99
one-time purchase, Apple devices only (US App Store)
Unlimited note-taking on Apple devices without a subscription. Limited Goodnotes AI and not eligible for Goodnotes Cloud.
Teams$120
per seat / year
Everything in Pro, plus SAML SSO, domain control, consolidated billing and user and admin management.
EnterpriseCustom
For 25 seats and above: AI permissions, the Microsoft Intune App SDK, dedicated account support and custom contracts.
Noteful
Noteful$0
Free to use without a time limit, minus the features the App Store listing marks as Pro: layers and sync across iPhone and iPad.
Noteful Pro, Lifetime$6.99
one-time in-app purchase on the US App Store
Unlocks the Pro features for good, including layers and sync to all of a user's iPhone and iPad devices.
Ways to pay less
Goodnotes
- Education
Goodnotes Education is free for K-12 schools
K-12 schools get Goodnotes Education at no cost, with no trial period, including its classroom tools for teachers and students. It currently works only on Apple devices.
- Lifetime license
Special Edition one-time purchase on Apple devices
Special Edition unlocks unlimited note-taking on Apple devices without a subscription and is listed at $35.99 on the US App Store. Availability varies by region.
Noteful
- Lifetime license
Noteful Pro as a one-time purchase
The App Store listing says Noteful Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks its features forever, listed in the US as Noteful Pro, Lifetime at $6.99.
