InkPlanner vs Penciled In.
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
InkPlanner
A digital wall calendar app for iPad and Apple Pencil, offering a clear yearly overview. It allows handwritten entry of appointments and notes with a customizable color-coded legend for enhanced organization and a minimalist planning experience.
- Yearly overview at a glance
- Handwritten notes and appointments
- Customizable color-coded legend
- Minimalist and simple design
- Digital replication of physical wall calendars
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InkPlanner: Your digital wall calendar for iPad & Apple Pencil. Features: + Clear planning: your entire year at a glance. + Developed for Apple Pencil: Simply enter appointments and notes by hand. + Customized legend: Color-coded legend with five categories. Why did we develop InkPlanner? With InkPlanner, we want to transfer the proven clarity of a physical wall calendar to the digital world. With iPad and Apple Pencil, this feeling can be replicated in the best possible way, leading to more clarity, minimalism and simplicity. What does InkPlanner cost? InkPlanner is available for you to test free of charge. After the trial, you can unlock unlimited entries with a one-time payment. We do not use monthly subscription fees.
Penciled In.
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Penciled In is a planner you can write in. Type "dinner with Anna Friday 7pm" and it lands on Friday at 7. Type "mum's birthday on the 14th" and it lands on the 14th, all day. No date pickers, no five-field form, no waiting on a spinner — it reads the sentence as you type and shows you what it understood before anything is saved. And when it guesses wrong, every part of that guess is one tap from right. Quick Add works on every iPhone and iPad, instantly, and it's free. It doesn't need Apple Intelligence and never has. A PLANNER, NOT A TO-DO LIST Month, week, day and agenda views. Events, tasks, reminders, grocery lists and trips, colour-coded and filterable. Repeating entries show on every day they repeat, and you can tick things done right from the calendar. A Notes tab with checklists, #tags and search for the things that don't have a date yet. A Reflect tab for the end of the day. Everything syncs privately through your own iCloud account. No sign-up, no account to create, and no server of ours in the middle. MADE FOR IPAD A sidebar, notes side by side with their list, keyboard shortcuts, and drag an entry to another day to move it. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN An Up Next widget shows your next few entries without opening anything, and a Quick Add widget puts a sentence straight into your planner from the Home Screen. Ask Siri to add an event, a reminder or a note and it goes to the same place. APPLE INTELLIGENCE, WHERE IT ACTUALLY HELPS On supported iPhones, Penciled In can read your week back to you in plain language — which days are heavy, what's clustered too tightly. It runs entirely on your device. FREE, AND WHAT ISN'T Free covers the actual planner: unlimited events, tasks, notes, lists and reflections, Quick Add, the widgets, Siri, and five AI week summaries a month. We don't cap what you write. Premium adds the full meal planner (lunch, dinner and snacks, recipe photos and generated shopping lists), themes and appearance customisation, note locking, and unlimited AI summaries. Premium is $6.99/month or $34.99/year with the first week free, or $69.99 once for Lifetime. Subscriptions can be cancelled any time in Settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://my7h4zntv5-alt.github.io/penciled-in-legal/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Penciled In. at every 4 weeks against InkPlanner's every 4 months. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. InkPlanner sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Penciled In. sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
InkPlanner ships an update every 4 months, Penciled In. every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | InkPlanner | Penciled In. |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (10 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 37.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 4 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Christian Merk | Dylan Dalmeida |
In-app purchases
InkPlanner
- Calendar$6.99
Penciled In.
- Premium Monthly7 Days trial$6.991 Month
- Premium Annual7 Days trial$34.991 Year
- Premium Lifetime$69.99
Questions
Is InkPlanner free?
Is Penciled In. free?
Do InkPlanner or Penciled In. have ads?
Which is updated more often, InkPlanner or Penciled In.?
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