Goodnotes Review: AI Note-Taking App & Pricing

Goodnotes: AI-Powered Digital Paper for Notes and PDFs

Goodnotes is the note-taking app that turned the iPad into a genuine paper replacement, and with Goodnotes 6 it repositioned itself as an AI-powered digital paper company. The core experience is unchanged and excellent: handwrite with a stylus, type, sketch, record audio, annotate PDFs, and organize everything into searchable notebooks. What the AI layer adds is assistance that works on handwriting itself — a rarity among note apps.

Goodnotes 6 introduced spellcheck that corrects handwritten words in your own writing style, word completion for handwriting, and AI Math Assistance that can spot errors in handwritten equations and suggest corrections. Search works across handwritten text, typed notes, and sketches, handwriting converts to text for export, and newer collaboration features add shared notebooks and AI-generated summaries. The app runs on iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows, Android, and the web.

Key Features

Handwriting AI: spellcheck and word completion that operate directly on handwritten notes
AI Math Assistance that identifies mistakes in handwritten equations and suggests fixes
Handwriting recognition with search across handwritten, typed, and sketched content
PDF import, annotation, and organized, searchable digital notebooks
Audio recording synced to notes, plus shared notebooks for collaboration
Cross-platform apps: iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows, Android, and web

Ideal Use Case

Goodnotes is strongest for students taking longhand lecture notes on an iPad — the retention benefits of handwriting with the searchability of digital — and for anyone who lives in annotated PDFs: lecture slides, sheet music, contracts, research papers. The math assistance makes it particularly good for STEM coursework done by hand.

How Goodnotes differentiates

Goodnotes was named Apple's iPad App of the Year in 2022, when it had 19 million users; by early 2025 reporting put it at roughly 24 million monthly users worldwide. Its handwriting AI models are proprietary and run entirely on device — handwriting data is not sent to a server — which is an unusual privacy posture among AI note-taking tools.

FAQ

Is Goodnotes free? Yes, with limits: the free tier includes up to three notebooks with core features. Unlimited notebooks and the full feature set require a paid plan.

How much does Goodnotes 6 cost? On Apple platforms it is $9.99/year as a subscription or a $29.99 one-time purchase for the same features. Windows and Android access is subscription-based.

Does Goodnotes' AI send my handwriting to the cloud? The handwriting AI features (spellcheck, word complete) are built on proprietary models that run entirely on device; Goodnotes states the data is not sent anywhere and no one, including Goodnotes, can access it.

Is Goodnotes better than Notability? They are close competitors. Goodnotes leads on handwriting AI, math assistance, and cross-platform reach; Notability is often preferred for its audio-sync workflow. Both handle core note-taking and PDF annotation well.

tl;dr

Goodnotes is the most complete AI-assisted handwriting app available: award-winning note-taking with on-device AI spellcheck and math help, a genuinely useful free tier, and a rare one-time purchase option on Apple devices.

Looking for more options? Browse the Productivity directory or read our best AI productivity tools listicle. Goodnotes is also tracked on Crunchbase.