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App Imp

Handwriting notes app

  1. Market

    Installs
    1041.3M

    Across 8 of 19 apps we could match.

    • Microsoft OneNote: 1,011,987,114 installs
    • Kilonotes-Notes & Mark up PDF: 12,748,150 installs
    • Goodnotes: 5,452,238 installs
    • Noteshelf 3: 3,260,600 installs
    • Freenotes: 3,041,547 installs
    • MyScript Notes: 2,492,290 installs
    • Notability: 2,238,562 installs
    • Noteful: 72,283 installs
    • 97% leader share. Microsoft OneNote, by Google Play installs, across the 8 of 19 apps we could match
    • #85 Productivity rank. Notability, top grossing, the best rank any app here holds
    • $4.99 median price. Lowest in-app price, median over the 13 apps that list one. 14 of 19 charge.
    • 14 of 18 recently updated. Updated in the 30 days before 2026-10-05

  2. Competition

    1. Microsoft OneNote5 Oct1.1M ratings$9.99 to $12.99
    2. Goodnotes27 Sep459k ratings$11.99 to $35.99 a year
    3. Notability28 Sep457k ratings$5.99 to $99.99
    4. Freenotes18 Sep62k ratings$9.99 to $39.99 a year
    5. Penbook29 Sep45k ratings$4.99 to $49.99
    6. MyScript Notes18 Sep39k ratings$1.99 to $29.99
    7. Noteful25 Sep24k ratings$6.99
    8. CollaNote2 Oct14k ratings$6.95 to $13.90
    9. Noteshelf 323 Sep7k ratings$19.99 to $49.99 a year
    10. Kilonotes-Notes & Mark up PDF8 Sep5k ratings$9.99 a year
    11. SuperNote Notes Recorder+PhotoNov 20174k ratings$19.99 once
    12. Prodrafts26 Sep4k ratings
    13. Element Note24 Sep3k ratings$3.49 to $4.99 a year
    14. Feenote25 Sep2k ratings$9.99 a year
    15. Papernot given2k ratings
    16. tatterMar 20221k ratings$4.99
    17. OrigNotes29 Sep341 ratings
    18. Stylus Labs WriteApr 2023300 ratings$8.99
    19. Memoz!Feb 202099 ratings

  3. Reviews

    What 6,529 reviews talk about, every star counted.

    1. Wishlist+4.3%18 of 19 apps
    2. Performance+4.1%18 of 19 apps
    3. Sync & data+3.8%17 of 19 apps
    4. Limits & caps+1.2%16 of 19 apps
    5. Ads−0.3%17 of 19 apps
    6. Billing−0.5%17 of 19 apps
    7. UX−0.6%17 of 19 apps
    8. Support−1.3%16 of 19 apps
    9. Login & auth−2.2%15 of 19 apps
    with
    without

  4. Searches

    Position in Apple’s suggestions
    1510
    0102029
    Countries
    With

  5. Traffic

    Google Ads, United States, 10 September 2026.

  6. Your test

    Free for 7 days

    What to call it. Where to launch. What a user costs.

    • What to call it
    • Where to launch
    • What a user costs
    • Every review, word for word
    Start free for 7 days

    No card. Nothing to cancel. The counted page stays free either way.

Is there a market for a new handwriting notes app?

19 apps compete here. They hold 1,041,292,784 installs on Google Play, counted across the 8 we could match. We hold 6,529 of their App Store reviews. Those are counts, not a verdict. The page shows what is unfixed, not whether to build.

How much do handwriting notes apps charge?

14 of the 19 apps we could check charge inside the app. Half of them start at $4.99 or less.

What do people search for when they want a handwriting notes app?

We scan 29 App Store storefronts. Typing handwriting notes app completes to “pencora: handwriting notes” in 26 of them. Then “notelix: ai handwriting notes” in 14, “handwritten notes widget, draw” in 8. These are Apple’s own suggestions. They show what gets typed, not how often.

What do users complain about most in handwriting notes apps?

1. Performance: in 18 of 19 apps, 15.9% of reviews (11.8% in Productivity apps); 2. Wishlist: in 18 of 19 apps, 13.6% of reviews (9.3% in Productivity apps); 3. Sync & data: in 17 of 19 apps, 5.2% of reviews (1.4% in Productivity apps); 4. Limits & caps: in 16 of 19 apps, 3.8% of reviews (2.6% in Productivity apps). Counted from 6,529 reviews of every star on the 2026-10-05 snapshot, never estimated.

Cited: What RevenueCat measures for Productivity apps

  • the monthly-first category

    77% of subscriptions sold are monthly · 91% of revenue from monthly (different denominators, both true)

  • the median app barely grows; the tails are extreme

    median MRR +5.3% YoY · top decile +306% · bottom decile contracting

  • the launch flood vs the incumbency moat

    ~2,000 → 14,700+ new subscription apps per month (Jan 2022 → Jan 2026), yet pre-2020 apps still hold 69% of subscription revenue

  • even top categories take over 100 days to reach $10k revenue

    >100 days to the first $10k

RevenueCat, State of Subscription Apps 2026, 115,000+ apps · $16B+ tracked revenue · >1B transactions. Published industry figures, shown for context; App Imp’s own numbers are counted from reviews and never mixed with these.

How this is counted

We count the reviews we hold again every week. Nothing is guessed. A topic is found by the words a review uses, so the same review always lands in the same place. Every star counts. A share is the part of all reviews here that mention a topic. We compare it with the same share across 779 Productivity apps, the group most of these apps are in. A topic is a gap when at least 20 reviews mention it, at least half the apps have it, and it comes up at least 1.15 times as often as usual. A problem in one app is that app’s bug. A problem in every app is nobody’s gap.