Evernote pricing has gone through a lot of changes over the years.
Years ago, Evernote was one of the primary examples of how a freemium pricing model could build an amazing business. Dropbox and Evernote were the shining successes of freemium.
Then Evernote hit some rough patches.
Unfortunately, their freemium plan has become much more limited than it used to be. And the paid plans had their pricing increased.
Today, we get less for free and have to pay more once we upgrade.
Evernote Business supports office productivity by collecting, organizing & sharing information across teams. Learn more about our business software solutions! With Evernote Business, you can collect and share all your team's work in one place so you can organize, focus, and achieve more, together. Evernote Business Collaborate more effectively with powerful administrative tools. $14.99 / User / Month.
Evernote Premium Offer for Students What's being offered? Eligible college students can get 50% off a one-year subscription to Evernote Premium. Evernote’s Business pricing model. Last but not least, we have the Business version, costing $14.99 per month per user. As the name suggests, this payment tier is aimed at business owners.
So is it still worth it? Or is it time to use one of the other note-taking apps?
Let’s dig in.
The Evernote Pricing Plans
First, the pricing itself is nice and simple:
Either use the basic version for free, upgrade for some extra features at $8/month, or use the Business version at $15/user per month. Nice and simple.
However, the feature differences between the plans get a bit confusing. It’s difficult to sort through all the options and see the key differences between the plans. Here’s the feature table by plan:
Let’s break each of these categories down to see what’s truly valuable.
Take great notes
This is all the basic note features that you’d expect from a note-taking app. Create and edit notes however you like, clip text and screenshots from websites, and record audio notes. All these features are available across all plans.
Capture inspiration
Every plan can upload documents or clip web pages to Evernote. But freemium can’t forward emails to Evernote, scan business cards, or annotate PDFs. Premium and Business can do all of this.
Be organized
This category includes all the search and organization features in Evernote. The only difference to worry about is that freemium can’t search within PDFs and won’t have version history for notes.
Share with others
Basic sharing and permissions are available on all plans. Premium does unlock an option to turn a note into a presentation. Not sure this is worth upgrading though, great presentations take a lot of work and polish to get right.
And the business plan lets you share notes with anyone at your company.
AI-suggested content
None of the AI features are available for freemium. They include recommendations for related notes, LinkedIn information on contacts, and extra info from sources like The Wall Street Journal and Inc.
In my opinion, these features are hype and you won’t miss much from not having them. Don’t bother upgrading just for these.
Integrations
None of the integrations are available on freemium. With the premium plan, you do get access to Google Drive, email tools, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. The business plan also gets access to CRM integrations.
Team collaboration
These are all the basic features for teams to take notes. Nothing in here would be valuable to someone deciding between the freemium and premium plans.
Team administration
Another set of basic admin features for managing a team. Just like the collaboration features, it covers all the basics without doing anything other team document tools don’t already have.
Other Plan Limits
Outside of the features, there are a few other limits that you’ll want to pay attention to:
A few things are worth calling out here.
First, the device limit on freemium is a real constraint. Evernote used to allow their freemium users more devices but added this limit to try and convince more folks to upgrade to premium. To me, it’s not worth upgrading to premium just for an extra device. The loophole around this is to install Evernote on two devices (like your phone and laptop) and then log into Evernote through the website on any other device that you want to use. You’ll barely notice the difference.
Second, the upload and note limits are easy to hit. If the majority of your notes are text with a few photos, you’ll be fine. But if you upload a lot of photos or PDFs, you’ll hit the limits very quickly. In that case, you’ll need to upgrade.
Third, the freemium plan does lack offline access for mobile. If you regularly take notes in areas without cell reception, you’ll need to upgrade.
How to Pick the Right Evernote Plan
Which plan is right for you? And should you go with Evernote at all?
Is the Evernote Freemium Plan a Good Deal?
Yes, Evernote freemium is still a great, free note-taking plan even after Evernote has increased the restrictions on it.
If you predominately take notes as plain text with occasional photos, you’ll never have to worry about the upload or note size limits. And while the limit on devices is kind of a pain, simply use Evernote’s web-app after you hit the 2 device limit.
Whether or not you decide to use the freemium Evernote plan compared to other note-taking apps will come down to personal preference. Some folks still love Evernote, others rave about OneNote which is bundled with Office 365. Notion has also been getting a lot of buzz recently and has a freemium plan. Find the best app that feels right for you.
Stick with Freemium or Upgrade to Evernote Premium?
It’s no secret that Evernote wants you to upgrade to the Premium plan. Does it make sense to upgrade though? When is it worth the price?
We believe that there are a few situations where it is worth upgrading to Evernote Premium.
Heavy Usage of PDFs or Photos
If you use a lot of PDFs or photos in your note-taking, you’ll want to upgrade to Evernote Premium for a few reasons:
- You’ll hit the upload and note size limits really fast. There’s no real way around this unless you want to stop taking notes until the following month when your upload credit restarts.
- You’ll get access to the search functionality for PDFs. This is super useful if you’re doing a lot of research and analysis with PDFs. Having to search within individual PDFs is an enormous pain, using Evernote to search all of them at once is a game-changer.
Offline Access for Mobile
If offline access to Evernote on your phone is really important to you, upgrade to Premium. Occasionally I find myself wanting to jot down a few notes without a cell connection or while traveling internationally. For a while, I tried using two note-taking apps to solve this problem. I used Evernote most of the time and then had another one that I used offline. Without a doubt, this was more trouble than it was worth. I ended up getting rid of my second note-taking app and now I just avoid taking notes if I don’t have a connection. If I needed this feature more regularly, I could definitely see myself upgrading.
Version History
In my experience, version history isn’t a major feature for most people. It becomes extremely important for businesses that need to keep records of what was changed and when. For an individual, it’s usually not a big deal. But if you see a ton of value in being able to get a version history of your notes, it’s worth upgrading to Premium.
What about the other features?
Integration, AI-recommend notes, email forwarding, and a few other features are available on Premium. In our view, these features don’t offer enough actual value to be worth the upgrade to Premium. We consider them extra perks.
Should You Use Evernote Business?
No, we don’t believe Evernote Business is a good choice for businesses.
We have two reasons for this.
- Evernote has always had “personal note-taking” as its core product DNA. That’s part of why it became as successful as it did. In that category, we still believe it’s a viable contender. But businesses don’t need to pay for note-taking products for all their employees, they need to pay for a tool that manages their documents. It’s a subtle but important distinction that demands completely different products.
- Within the document tool space, there are a lot of competitors that do a much better job than Evernote. G Suite, Office 365, Notion, or Confluence are all much better options for managing documents as a business.
In other words, buying a note-taking app for a business doesn’t make much sense. You’ll need a tool to manage your documents: Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), internal reference documents, analysis, drafts of deliverables, spreadsheets, presentations, and everything else. At that point, you might as well pay for Office 365 or G Suite. Paying for a dedicated note-taking app on top of that would be a bit excessive.
Not to mention the fact that note-taking is extremely personal. Some folks love Evernote. Others hate it and prefer OneNote. I’ve even met folks that prefer the Stickies app that’s bundled on every Mac. Since note-taking apps are a very personal choice for people, I’d never try to get an entire business taking notes in the same way. FYI makes it easy to search and organize all your documents regardless of what tool they’re in anyway. I prefer to give people the flexibility to use the note-taking app that they want.
Modern pace of life oftentimes encourages us being superheroes: while building our business, family, and social relations, we need to sharply concentrate and swiftly change our focus in order to stay relevant and effective everywhere. No marvel that all of us need some support and structuration of an informational avalanche that is faced by us sometimes.
Note taking and organizing services can be of great help here, and they are naturally very popular among all of us. Thus, if you are wondering how to build an app like Evernote, you are thinking in the right direction! Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of developing apps for notes management.
See also: How to Estimate Budget for Mobile App Marketing?
What is Evernote and who needs it?
Evernote is a very handy service for managing notes, handwritings, screenshots, notifications, photos and other types of information that prove useful for working, studying, time management and personal effectiveness. You can download these files from the Internet, share them with other people and access them from your synchronized devices. Users are able to chat with each other within the app and receive notifications. Premium services include working with PDF files, extended search in Office and PDF documents, working in offline notepads, sending emails within the program, scanning and digitizing of electronic business cards, access to notes history etc.
What also makes Evernote so attractive is that you can access the data stored in it from any device and any platform.
Tips for startups: Evernote App Development Alternatives
If you decided to make a mobile app for notes, pay attention to the alternative applications that are also popular and can be stars to steer by in some way:
Simplenote
A reliable alternative to Evernote in terms of simplicity and intuitive user experience. Instant search and simple tags help to stay neatly organized, and note backup feature makes you feel you are guarded against a random deletion. Simplenote helps to synch the notes across all your devices regardless of a platform type they are located on. The program is free and works for iOS, Macintosh, Android and Kindle platforms.
Nevernote
This is an open source Evernote clone, which was specially made for working with Linux client. It’s a great choice for the people who support the idea of open source joint creation and are not afraid of testing something new. The application is naturally free and is supported by Linux, Windows, and Mac platforms.
DEVONthink
DEVONthink’s options go beyond a digital notepad, giving users tools of a full-fledged personal assistant. The provider offers four types of premium accounts, one of which is designed for mobile usage – DEVONthink To Go. With it, users can create and manage documents, view images, make notes and bookmarks, etc. A range of professional features makes this program a decent alternative of Evernote. However, it is available for Mac devices only. The price for a mobile version equals $14.99.
As you can see, building a product of this kind may be quite a reasonable solution. The question arises:
How much does it cost to develop the Evernote app?
If you are new to iPhone and Android custom app design and development costs, check out our article, dedicated to general expenses on mobile app development.
As for the specific estimates on the cost to develop an Evernote app, we’ve prepared the estimated figures on this point.
Step 1. General preparations
It includes a project description, REST API implementation and setup of the required database model. Our developers can make a good job of it in about 30 hours of work.
Step 2. Estimating basic functionality.
You may wish to apply for a freemium product, offering additional options at extra charge, but any Evernote-like app should include the following key options:
• Registration via email;
• Sign in and sign out;
• Organization of notes at various platforms;
• Copying web pages and images;
• Search option;
• Tutorials and help pages;
• Notifications;
• Profile editing.
Estimated time for the accomplishment of this step is 40 hours.
Read also: Why Do You Need to Outsource Mobile App Development?
You may also wish to add some other options like:
• Geolocation;
• Password-based locking;
• Security settings;
• Offline mode of navigation;
• Extended search;
• Web clipping;
• Hand-written notes;
• Taking and uploading photos by smartphone camera;
• Social media integration;
• Shared access;
• Chats and discussions;
• Adding tags;
• Emails importing;
• Business cards scanning;
• Presentations in the full-screen mode.
All these extra functionalities may require much more time than the implementation of the basic ones. Each case should be discussed individually; each of them will take 8-40 hours depending on a case and complexity.
What does also influence the sum your app like Evernote cost?
Evernote App For Desktop
• Synchronization options (about 25 hours). If you are planning to have your app working at not only a smartphone but also tablets and laptops, you should have this option implemented.
• Backend operations (about 400 hours). In order the application can start working as a full-fledged product, you need to put spirit into it by means of some backend work. Some features can be implemented on the server side only, which is essential for synchronization, storage, and structuration of information.
• Design (about 100 hours). It may not seem obvious, but design step is crucial for the successful creation of the best application and incarnation of your bright ideas. Your application should not only look nice but also be user-friendly. Thus, UI/UX design will take much time as well.
• Quality assurance (about 200 hours). Creation of applications implies testing and bug fixing among other things, which may take up to 100 hours of work.
Read also: How Much Does it Cost to Design an App?
Evernote App Cost
As you can see, the cost to develop an Evernote app may vary greatly, but we recommend sticking to 1100 hours while making your final calculations. Accordingly, you may figure the total cost, knowing our hourly rate.
Anyways, we are ready to discuss any details and assist you on the topic. Just contact us right now!