# Penbook

> Handwriting notebooks and live planners for iPad and iPhone

Penbook is a handwriting notebook and planner app for iPad and iPhone from Pencil Research. Notebooks are built from more than 400 kinds of stationery, including Live Paper planners that show the current date, time and connected calendars, and PDFs can be imported for annotation. One notebook is free for as long as you like; Penbook Premium, sold as a yearly subscription or a lifetime purchase, removes that limit.

- **Category:** Note-Taking Apps
- **Made by:** Pencil Research (User Camp Inc.)
- **Website:** https://penbook.app
- **Runs on:** iOS
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 9, 2026

## Pricing

Penbook has a free plan. Paid plans start at $4.99 - $39.99 per in-app item (basis not shown); $49.99 lifetime.

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** All of Penbook's stationery and writing features in a single notebook, free for as long as you like. More notebooks and exports need Penbook Premium.
- **Free trial:** 7-day free trial when upgrading with the yearly Penbook Premium subscription.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 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. |

Read from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/penbook-paper-planner-notes/id1473064295 on Oct 9, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Penbook before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **Penbook Premium as a lifetime purchase** (Lifetime license): 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. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/penbook-paper-planner-notes/id1473064295

## App Store prices by country

"Penbook Premium", as each country's App Store showed it on Oct 9, 2026. These are the app's prices, not the website's.

| Country | Price | In US dollars |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | $19.99 | |
| United Kingdom | £18.99 | about $25.11 (26% more) |
| Germany | 22,49 € | about $25.20 (26% more) |
| Canada | $25.49 | about $17.92 (10% less) |
| Australia | $30.99 | about $21.63 (8% more) |
| India | ₹ 1,849 | about $19.11 (about the same) |
| Brazil | R$ 19,90 | about $3.98 (80% less) |
| Mexico | $469.00 | about $25.77 (29% more) |
| Turkey | ₺299,99 | about $6.10 (69% less) |
| Indonesia | Rp 239ribu | about $13.37 (33% less) |
| Philippines | ₱ 99.00 | about $1.58 (92% less) |
| South Africa | R49.99 | about $3.02 (85% less) |

## Key features

- **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.

## Good for

- 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

## Worth knowing

- 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.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.6 out of 5 from 45,437 ratings in the United States, read Oct 9, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1473064295

## Works with

iCloud, Apple Reminders, Siri

**Tags:** Notes, Templates, Daily notes, One-time purchase

## Alternatives

- [Goodnotes](https://toolgpa.com/tools/goodnotes): Handwritten notes, PDF markup and whiteboards with an AI assistant. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/goodnotes-vs-penbook)
- [Notability](https://toolgpa.com/tools/notability): Handwritten notes with synced audio, transcripts and AI study tools. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/notability-vs-penbook)
- [Noteshelf](https://toolgpa.com/tools/noteshelf): Handwritten note-taking and PDF annotation for stylus devices. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/noteshelf-vs-penbook)
- [Noteful](https://toolgpa.com/tools/noteful): Handwritten notes and PDF markup for iPad, with tags and layers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/noteful-vs-penbook)
- [CollaNote](https://toolgpa.com/tools/collanote): Handwriting and PDF markup notes for iPad, iPhone and Mac. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/collanote-vs-penbook)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 9, 2026:

- https://penbook.app/
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/penbook-paper-planner-notes/id1473064295
- https://penbook.app/support/
- https://penbook.app/terms-of-use/
- https://penbook.app/blog/penbook-penbook/

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/penbook
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).