Penbook vs Pencil Planner

Penbook

• People who keep planners, journals or bullet journals on an iPad
• Students who want subject paper such as Cornell, graph or chemistry
• Annotating PDF planners and worksheets with Apple Pencil

Pencil Planner

• iPad users who want to handwrite a planner with Apple Pencil
• People who want handwriting layered over a digital calendar
• Paper-planner users moving to a tablet

Penbook

• The free version is limited to a single notebook; unlimited notebooks and exports need Penbook Premium.
• The US App Store lists Penbook Premium at several amounts from $4.99 to $39.99 without stating the billing period for each.
• Penbook is built for iPhone and iPad. There is no Android, Windows or web version, and the App Store marks the Mac build as not verified for macOS.
• The Penbook 8 Live Paper engine appears only on iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, and only in newly created books.

Pencil Planner

• iPhone and iPad only. The vendor's roadmap lists a Mac app as an upcoming feature.
• The free version is limited and the vendor does not say where the limits fall. There is no lifetime purchase, only monthly and yearly plans.
• Planner data is stored on the vendor's own Pencil Planner Cloud. There is no iCloud, Dropbox or Google Drive backup option.
• The vendor's upgrade page quotes $24.99 a year for Pro, while the US App Store lists Pro Yearly at $19.99.

Penbook

Live Paper planners

Stationery that updates itself: a day planner with a live timeline, a weekly planner that shows connected calendars, and monthly and yearly planners that track the current date.

Over 400 stationery types

Ruled, graph, dot, Cornell, music staff, chemistry, storyboard and engineering paper among others, with adjustable density, margins and layout. Each page of a notebook can differ.

Apple Pencil inking

Writing with Apple Pencil, a stylus or a finger, with shape recognition and a lasso that resizes, recolors, reflows and straightens ink or copies handwriting out as text.

PDF import and export

PDFs import as notebooks or as custom stationery, selected pages can be dropped into notes, and a notebook or the whole library exports as vector PDF.

Handwriting search and Siri

Handwritten notes can be searched for words or phrases. Siri can find something in a notebook or take a note that lands in the Inbox notebook.

On-device AI and page history

With Apple Intelligence, to-dos written on a page become Reminders without notes leaving the device, and each page keeps a local history that can be rewound.

Pencil Planner

Handwriting on the calendar

Plans are written directly over and around calendar events with Apple Pencil, Logitech Crayon or a finger, including priorities, time blocks and sketches.

Day, week, month and year layouts

With the Version 2 layouts, schedule handwriting is shared between the Day and Week views, and a day's highlights also appear in the Week and Month views.

Calendar events from the device

Events come from the accounts connected in the iPad or iPhone Calendar settings, so iCloud, Google, Outlook and Yahoo calendars appear once added there.

Apple Reminders lists

The Version 2 Day tab shows lists from Apple Reminders next to the schedule. Lists are still added and edited in the Reminders app.

Linked notes

Handwritten or typed notes can be linked to a date or a calendar event, organized in folders and pinned. Handwritten notes take blank, lined or dot-grid pages.

Drawing tools

Pens, pencils and highlighters have adjustable colors and thickness. Handwriting can be moved, erased by whole stroke or in part, and zoomed for precise writing.

Penbook

• Free$0

  Every stationery type and writing feature in one notebook, with no time limit.

• Penbook Premium$4.99 - $39.99

  per item on the US App Store; billing basis not shown

  Unlimited notebooks and exports plus new stationery and covers. Described as a yearly subscription, but the listing shows several amounts without periods.

• Penbook Premium Lifetime$49.99

  one-time in-app purchase on the US App Store

  The same Premium features as a single purchase with no renewal.

Pencil Planner

• Free$0

  A limited version of the planner. The vendor does not publish exactly which features or how many entries it includes.

• Pro Monthly$4.99

  per month

  Pro Access to all planner features, with unlimited entries, storage and devices plus cloud backup and sync.

• Pro Yearly$19.99

  per year

  The same Pro Access billed once a year, as listed among the in-app purchases on the US App Store.

Penbook

• Lifetime license

  Penbook Premium as a lifetime purchase

  Penbook Premium can be bought as a one-time in-app purchase in place of the yearly subscription. The US App Store lists Penbook Premium Lifetime at $49.99.

Pencil Planner

• Annual discount

  About 67% less on the yearly plan

  The US App Store lists Pro Monthly at $4.99 and Pro Yearly at $19.99. Twelve monthly payments come to $59.88, so the yearly plan costs about 67% less.

• Other savings

  $10 off the first year for buyers of the original app

  People who bought the earlier Pencil Planner & Draw Calendar app can email support for a promo code worth $10 off their first year of Pro.