CardBeat vs Story Plotter
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CardBeat
This app provides a digital cork board for writers to plot novels, screenplays, or short stories. It allows users to break down stories into acts, sequences, and scenes, and rearrange them freely. Users can customize cards with colors, lines, or grids, and choose from various drawing tools or keyboard input.
- Digital cork board for story plotting
- Structure stories into acts, sequences, and scenes
- Rearrange plot elements freely
- Customizable cards with colors and backgrounds
- Multiple drawing tools and keyboard input
- Export boards as PDF
- iCloud syncing
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A digital corkboard for plotting your novel, screenplay or short story. CardBeat keeps all the fun things about index cards – and gets rid of all the rest. Break your story into acts, sequences and scenes. Put each beat on a card, pin it to the board and shuffle until the structure works – without wasting ink or paper. WRITE YOUR WAY - Handwrite with Apple Pencil or just your finger – pens, pencils, markers and brushes in any color. - Prefer typing? Every card takes keyboard input, too. - Choose blank, lined, dotted or grid cards in different colors to track characters, subplots or timelines. SEE THE WHOLE STORY - Place cards anywhere on the board – no rows, columns or table cells. Turn on snap-to-grid when you want things tidy. - Zoom out for the big picture, zoom in to work on a single scene. - Working in a writers' room? Connect a TV, monitor or projector and show a clean view of the board while you plot. SHARE AND SYNC - Your boards stay in sync across iPhone and iPad with iCloud – or turn sync off with a single switch. - Export a board as a PDF for feedback, or as a CardBeat file your co-writer can import and keep working on. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No accounts, no ads, no third-party analytics. CardBeat doesn't collect any data. FREE TO START Plot up to two boards for free. Unlock unlimited boards with a one-time purchase – no subscription.
Story Plotter
This app helps you craft compelling stories for novels, comics, movies, and more. It offers tools for organizing ideas, developing characters and their relationships, and structuring plot points. AI-powered brainstorming and time-series visualization assist in overcoming writer's block.
- Idea Note
- Plot Note
- Plot creation function
- AI Brainstorming
- Character Correlation & Family Tree
- Time series with World Setting
- Theme Setting
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This is strong plot creation app that support - Novel - Manga - Movie - Drama - Secondary creation - TRPG Scenario - Script If you are worried about the following, we will suggest to use this App. - I don't know what the plot looks like - I can't organize the flow of the story and get confused - I want to create attractive characters, want to organize relationships - Lots of incidents, but unmanageable. This app is fully packed with the essences of more than 15 script reference books, including "Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting" and “save the cat”, called the scripture Bible. This app will lead you to an interesting screenplay !!! ** Features ** This app have - Idea Note - Plot Note and - Plot creation function So, You can easily create plot using stored idea!! In addition, functions also available to support you. - Brainstorming with AI - Correlation & Family Tree with Character setting - Time series with World Setting - Theme Setting By deepening these, you can escape from stack writing plot ** Postscript ** Unless you have permission, this App does not send any creative data to the internet, so you can use it safe. ** SubScribe ** For $4/month, we offer automatic data synchronization across multiple devices. All features other than automatic data synchronization will continue to be available free of charge. ** Terms and Conditions ** Please see this link for the Terms and Conditions By installing the application, you agree to the Terms and Conditions. Terms and Conditions : https://storyplotter.net/term/pc/en.html Privacy Policy : https://storyplotter.net/privacypolicy/pc/en.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Story Plotter at 4.4 against CardBeat's 3.5. Story Plotter also leads on review sentiment (79% vs 46%) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. CardBeat sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Story Plotter sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Story Plotter holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Story Plotter has 195 ratings behind it against 33, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 46% of CardBeat's written reviews are positive against 79% of Story Plotter's.
CardBeat ships an update every 2 months, Story Plotter every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CardBeat | Story Plotter |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (33 ratings) | 4.4 (195 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 45.8% of reviews | 78.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 33 | 195 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 193 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Stefan Stuckmann | Hajime Hata |
Customer experience
CardBeat
Story Plotter
Bugs and requests
CardBeat
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Story Plotter
Reported bugs
4 issues- Deleting previous work without warning
- Crashing when trying to edit thumbnails or move characters
- Syncing and data transfer issues between devices
- Bluetooth keyboard compatibility problems
Requested features
5 requests- Add ability to pull photos from external sources
- Implement a collaborative feature for co-writing
- Add more customization options for character profiles
- Improve the character relationship diagram functionality
- Expand timeline options beyond just years/months/days
In-app purchases
CardBeat
- Unlimited Story Boards$19.99
Story Plotter
- Data Sync(half price)7 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Device Synchronize7 Days trial$3.491 Month
- Number of Image Generations$0.49
- Releasing AI Limitations$2.99








