Story Plotter vs Card Buddy
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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
Card Buddy
This app helps writers and content creators organize their thoughts and ideas on a digital canvas using index cards. It supports spatial organization, image integration, and text formatting to facilitate narrative development and brainstorming.
- Digital index cards
- Spatial organization on canvas
- Image integration
- Markdown text formatting
- Auto-styling for text
- Storyboarding and planning
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Card Buddy turns your screen into an infinite corkboard for index cards. Drag cards anywhere on the canvas and watch neighboring cards glide out of the way — outlining your story should feel as natural as moving notecards on a desk. Perfect for screenwriters, novelists, and anyone who thinks in cards. Lay out your beat sheet, rearrange plot points, and build your story one card at a time. Features: - Drag-and-drop index cards on a free-form canvas, with neighbors that move out of the way automatically - Two-sided cards — type a summary on the front, details on the back - Add images to any card for storyboards and moodboards - Three text styles: Plain, Auto-style (instant headers and subtitles), and Markdown - Kanban layout to organize cards into columns - Built for Mac and iPhone — your boards go where you do Whether you're breaking a screenplay, plotting a novel, or organizing research, Card Buddy keeps your ideas movable. Terms of use: https://www.ussherpress.com/cardbuddy/terms/ Privacy policy: https://www.ussherpress.com/cardbuddy/privacy/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Story Plotter at every 2 weeks against Card Buddy's every 2 months. Story Plotter also leads on ratings volume (193 vs 38). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Story Plotter sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Card Buddy sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for Story Plotter against 4.4 for Card Buddy. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Story Plotter has 193 ratings behind it against 38, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 80% of Story Plotter's written reviews are positive against 85% of Card Buddy's.
Story Plotter ships an update every 2 weeks, Card Buddy every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Story Plotter | Card Buddy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (193 ratings) — better | 4.4 (38 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 80.2% of reviews | 84.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 193 — better | 38 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 193 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Hajime Hata | Allen Ussher |
Customer experience
Story Plotter
Card Buddy
User reviews
Story Plotter
From 193 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Helpful for writing and planning
- 🚀 Great organizational tools
- 💡 Detailed character profiles
- 🔒 Secure and password protected
- 👍 Clean and easy to navigate
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes or performance issues
- 🔍 Confusing or unclear interface in places
- 🔒 Limited free features, need to pay for syncing
- 🐛 Bugs with Bluetooth keyboards
- 🐛 Data loss issues, stories deleted without warning
Card Buddy
From 38 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
- 💡 Perfect for writing and plotting
- ✨ Localized files, not cloud-based
- 🖼️ Ability to add images to cards
- 🚀 Efficient and well-thought-out design
Room to improve
- 🐛 Needs Apple Pencil support
- 🐛 Trial mode doesn't allow saving
- 🐛 Limited text formatting options
- 🐛 Images don't display adequately
- 🐛 Cards are too small
Bugs and 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
Card Buddy
Reported bugs
3 issues- Trial mode does not allow saving
- Images not displaying adequately
- Double-tap zoom out feature interrupts text selection
Requested features
19 requests- Tagging individual cards
- Apple Pencil support
- More keyboard shortcuts
- Support for multiple canvases within a single document
- More customized options for text formatting, fonts, and colors
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- Auto update to cloud option
- Form of auto version number on save
- Dropping small video clips
- Templates
- Fit to window view
- Grab function for moving the board
- Linking notes
- Basic formatting (Bold, Italics, underline, highlight, color)
- Share outline with others for editing
- iPhone version
- Duplicating boards
- Duplicating cards
- Disabling double-tap zoom out feature or making it customizable
- Adding back previous document type options (Storyboard, Kanban, etc.)
In-app purchases
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
Card Buddy
- Non-expiring License$19.99









