Evernote pricing has gone through a lot of changes over the years.
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- 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.
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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.
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.
Freemium products are a great way to try out a new tool or app before committing to a subscription. Productivity tool Evernote, which first launched in 2004, is one of countless apps that come in a freemium version.
Evernote Premium, which the company introduced in 2011, was supposed to be a significant improvement on Evernote’s freemium version. It offered more features and more utility—for a price. Evernote has made several tweaks to its products and pricing over the years.
But is Evernote Premium worth it today?
That’s what we’ll be exploring in this post. We’ll look at exactly what an Evernote Premium subscription offers and what the key differences are between the free and Premium plans. We’ll also examine which types of users might benefit from an Evernote Premium subscription. Finally, we’ll be looking at Evernote Premium’s pricing and whether it’s still worth the cost.
What Does Evernote Premium Include?
In terms of functionality, Evernote Premium offers users almost everything that Evernote Business—Evernote’s costliest monthly plan—offers, with a few exceptions.
Evernote Premium can, of course, do everything that Evernote’s free version can do. But it’s not quite as fully featured as Evernote Business. Let’s take a look at the differences between Evernote’s freemium product and Evernote Premium, as well as the limitations of the Premium plan. Since all of Evernote’s plans include note-taking functionality, we’ve left that category out.
AI-Suggested Content
Over the years, Evernote has incorporated a range of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning features to make the product “smarter” and more intuitive to use. Unfortunately, none of Evernote’s AI-suggested functionality is available in the freemium product.
However, for Premium users, Evernote’s AI features, known as Evernote Context, can be a real time-saver. For example, Evernote can make personalized recommendations for related notes when creating new ones. This can help you avoid making duplicate notes and can make it easier to find relevant notes by their tags.
Evernote Premium’s AI functionality can also make content recommendations. Simply start typing a note and Evernote Premium can provide tailored suggestions for related content from leading publishers and news outlets from around the web, including Inc. Magazine and The Wall Street Journal.
Clipping and Capturing
One of Evernote’s handiest features is its Web Clipper. This tool allows you to “clip” and save practically anything you find online: articles, social media posts, ebooks, PDFs, images, videos, and more.
Evernote’s freemium version and its Premium plan offer identical clipping and capturing functionality. Both plans allow users to attach documents, files, PDFs, and receipts to notes, and both can clip full pages, text, and images from the web.
Evernote Premium Discount
Evernote Premium allows users to forward emails directly to their Evernote account. Freemium users cannot do this. Evernote Premium also allows users to create contacts from scanned business cards, while Evernote’s free product does not. Finally, Evernote Premium users can annotate PDFs, whereas Evernote’s freemium version cannot.
Integrations
Evernote Premium Annual Subscription
Evernote’s original core value proposition was to help users “remember everything.” As such, Evernote’s integrations play an important role in making the product more useful.
Evernote freemium users may be disappointed to learn that the free product doesn’t offer any external integrations whatsoever. This might not be the biggest deal if you just need a simple note-taking app. But if you’re hoping to make Evernote a central part of your daily workflow, you’ll need to upgrade to Evernote Premium.
Evernote Premium, on the other hand, integrates with many of the most widely used productivity tools on the market. Evernote Premium users can link to Google Drive files within notes and Notebooks and can also connect an Evernote account to a Microsoft Outlook account. Evernote Premium also integrates seamlessly with Slack and Microsoft Teams. It doesn’t, however, offer integration with popular CRM Salesforce; you’ll need an Evernote Business subscription if you need Salesforce connectivity.
Organization
There’s little point in taking notes if you can’t organize them in a way that makes sense and makes it easy to find them later.
When it comes to keeping your stuff organized, all three Evernote plans are fairly similar. All three plans allow you to search notes; create new Notebooks and tags; organize notes by date, tag, or title; and search for text within images. For most users, this will probably be enough.
Unfortunately, Evernote’s freemium product does not allow you to search for text strings in PDFs and Microsoft Office documents. Unlike the Premium plan, the free product doesn’t allow you to access a revision history for your notes, either.
Sharing
Evernote’s free version allows you to share Notebooks with one or more people. You can also control who can access which notes by adjusting permissions controls in the freemium version, too. There probably aren’t too many use cases that rely on advanced permissions controls, but it’s handy that the freemium product offers them.
Evernote Premium doesn’t offer a great deal more than the freemium product. One notable exception is that Evernote Premium gives you the option to turn notes into a presentation with just one click, a feature lacking from the free product.
Team Administration & Collaboration
One of Evernote’s biggest challenges of the past several years has been how to make Evernote useful for individual users and teams. Despite introducing Evernote Spaces, Evernote’s Slack-like collaborative workspace tool, it hasn’t really figured this out yet.
Unfortunately, neither Evernote’s freemium product nor Evernote Premium offers any team administration or collaboration tools at all. While this may serve as an incentive to upgrade to Evernote Business, it’s frustrating that Evernote doesn’t offer any collaboration tools to Premium subscribers.
Evernote Premium Pricing
Now that we’ve covered exactly what Evernote Premium can do, it’s time to talk pricing.
Evernote Premium costs $7.99 per month. Generally speaking, that isn’t unreasonable for a SaaS productivity tool. However, that applies only if we look at Evernote Premium in a vacuum. When you start comparing Evernote Premium to competing products on the market, it gets harder and harder to justify paying even $7.99 per month.
As we noted in our overview of Evernote competitors, many of the tools vying to replace Evernote can do everything Evernote can do, and at a fraction of the cost or even completely free.
Bear, a minimal note-taking app, offers a freemium version that can do almost everything Evernote can do. Similarly, workspace tool Notion can perform a lot of the same tasks as Evernote Premium, without having to pay for a subscription. Comparing Notion to Evernote might not be an apples-to-apples comparison, as we noted in our breakdown of the two tools, but it’s still very difficult to recommend Evernote over Notion, especially when it comes to price.
There’s nothing “wrong” with Evernote Premium’s pricing. It’s just very hard to justify paying $7.99 per month when there are so many tools that do the same things much more inexpensively.
Should You Choose Evernote Premium?
Evernote Premium is a capable tool that offers plenty of helpful features. However, whether Evernote Premium is right for you depends on your needs and budget.
In terms of pure functionality, most of Evernote Premium’s features are nice-to-haves rather than essentials. Its AI-suggested content recommendations, for example, are handy but are far from mission critical for most users. The fact that Evernote Premium doesn’t offer any team management or collaboration tools may be a deal-breaker for some users.
For simple note-taking and organization, Evernote’s freemium product will probably be perfectly fine for most users. Even then, an alternative like Bear may be a better fit. This is what makes Evernote’s Premium product so frustrating. It’s hard enough to justify paying for Evernote Premium as an individual, and the fact that Premium offers absolutely no collaborative features makes it even harder. Evernote Premium isn’t really worth it for individuals, and it doesn’t even work for teams.
Perhaps the only thing more difficult than justifying Evernote Premium’s price is figuring out who it’s supposed to be for.
Evernote Premium: Too Much for Too Little
If you’re a hardcore Evernote user, you probably don’t need to be sold on Evernote Premium. You’re either using it already or happily making notes in Evernote’s freemium product. Likewise, if you’ve been using Evernote’s free product for some time, upgrading to take advantage of Premium’s additional features might make sense for you.
That said, it’s a real shame how Evernote has lost its way in recent years. What used to be the undisputed king of note-taking apps has gradually been undercut and overshadowed by the many competing products that offer much more for far less.
It’s entirely possible that Evernote will reexamine the pricing and features included in Evernote Premium in the future. Until then, however, we’d recommend looking elsewhere.