This $5 lifetime note-taking app beats every paid one I tried

While there are plenty of note-taking apps available that are designed to help you supercharge productivity, the vast majority of them come at a cost. Although there are a few that are completely free, you begin to notice with time that they lack features here and there. So, unless you’re willing to settle for basic note-taking features, you’re often left with no choice but to spend a few more bucks on a note-taking app subscription.

In the past few years, I’ve tried nearly every note-taking app on the App Store, including the big-shot ones like GoodNotes 6, Notability, Nebo, CollaNote, and Kilonotes. I eventually settled for GoodNotes’ one-time payment option for $29.99. I don’t mind spending on tools that genuinely improve my workflow. After all, I spent hundreds of dollars on my iPad and its accessories when I could’ve stuck to pencil and paper. But if I’m getting something equally as good as (or better) for free… I’m taking it — every single time.

I randomly came across Notedrafts when scrolling on Reddit. It was created by someone who claimed they quit their job to build a free note-taking app for iPhone and iPad. Frankly, what the app promised felt too good to be true initially. Nonetheless, I decided to download it, and not only did I absolutely love it, but I also regret spending so much on paid note-taking apps in the past.

Notedrafts is the perfect mash-up of Apple Notes, Goodnotes, and Freeform

A perfect blend of the best

Most note-taking apps out there seem to only focus on one layout style. For instance, Apple Notes only has infinite vertical scroll, which means you can keep writing without ever hitting a page break. Freeform gives you an infinite canvas, perfect for brainstorming and mind-mapping. On the other hand, like a lot of note-taking apps, GoodNotes sticks to the classic page-by-page notebook format. Notedrafts combines all three of these layout styles. When you launch the app and tap the plus (+) icon at the top-right corner, you’ll have the option to choose from Notebook, Canvas, or Note.

Notebook is pretty much the same as what Goodnotes and other note-taking apps offer. You can customize the notebook’s cover and choose from a range of templates, including Basic, Squared, Ruled, and Cornell.

Each of these categories has multiple options to choose from. If note-taking isn’t your forte, or you’d simply like to use the app for more than that, you can also pick from various customizable templates like Habit, Expenses, and Calories Trackers, Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly Planners, and more.

The Canvas layout is similar to what Freeform offers, and oddly feels more infinite than their infinite canvas. Unlike Freeform, where you have barely any customization options (only the option to switch between a blank and dotted page), Notedrafts lets you change the canvas background to any color of your choice and currently offers five different background styles, including blank, two squared styles (narrow and wide), ruled, and dotted.

The Notes option offers the same level of customization as Canvas, and offers infinite vertical scroll like Apple Notes. Ultimately, it’s like you get the best of all three worlds with Notedrafts, and surprisingly, it pulls the respective modes off better than any of the originals.

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Notedrafts offers one of the best writing experiences

Writing so smooth, you’ll think it’s butter

While Apple Notes has a ton of great features, it still doesn’t offer a lot of what you’ll find in every note-taking app. But there’s one thing that’s always made me want to switch over immediately — the writing experience it offers. I use Apple Notes quite a bit, and the smoothness of the writing experience is unmatched. Unlike other note-taking apps, including Goodnotes 6, there’s no delay between when I move my Apple Pencil to write something and when it appears on the screen.

My handwriting always feels consistent in Apple Notes. When I was initially testing note-taking apps, Notability’s writing experience came the closest to matching Apple Notes. What stopped me from subscribing to Notability was that it didn’t offer a one-time payment option like Goodnotes did, and I ended up with no choice but to sacrifice the smooth writing experience.

Notedrafts has flipped the story for me. It offers more or less the same writing experience as Apple Notes, and since it includes the same features as Goodnotes and Notability, it’s a win-win all around.

Notedrafts also offers advanced writing and drawing tools. In the toolbar, you’ll currently find seven inks: Regular Pen, Monoline Pen, Fountain Pen, Pencil, Highlighter, Watercooler, and Crayon. You can change the stroke size and the ink color as well.

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The best zoom in any note-taking app

It’s 2025, why don’t all apps have this?

All the way through middle school, my teachers would always complain that I’d lay my hand on the table and lean over my notebooks, just to ensure my handwriting was as precise as possible. When I switched to digital note-taking, that pretty much turned into zooming in on the screen to maintain the same level of precision and control I had with pen and paper.

Strangely enough, most apps don’t seem to get that. Apple Notes doesn’t let you zoom into your notes at all, and while Goodnotes 6 does, it never felt like enough. Notedrafts offers the best zoom I’ve seen in any note-taking app so far, and makes writing in small spaces a breeze. Whether I’m squeezing notes into the margins of a PDF or trying to annotate an already overflowing lecture slide, the level of zoom Notedrafts offers makes it way easier than any other app I’ve tried.

The image right below the heading in this section shows the difference in zoom between Notedrafts (left) and Goodnotes 6 (right), and it probably says it all. While I’d love to see a zoom level indicator to be able to tell exactly how zoomed in I am, the app’s still in its early stages, so I’m not complaining.

Notedrafts has every feature you’d need, and lifetime access for just $5

All for the price of a coffee

Saving the best for last, the Notedrafts Pro version is priced at only $4.99. Though the app’s App Store listing doesn’t explicitly mention it, I’ve been in touch with the developer, who confirmed that you can only create three free notes before you’ll be prompted to upgrade.

Once you hit the limit, you’ll see a pop-up with five different payment options under the Pay What You Want header: $4.99, $9.99, $14.99, $19.99, and $24.99. No matter what you choose to pay, you’ll get the same exact benefits. The developer mentioned that the higher tiers are simply tips, which they’ll use to improve the app and add new features.

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Don’t sleep on Notedrafts

Given that the app has an incredibly easy-to-use interface, is a note-taking app that syncs to the cloud, doesn’t miss out on any major features you’d find in other similar apps, and costs far less than its competitors, it’s honestly hard to find a reason not to upgrade.