Comparison

Inspire vs Sketch Pro

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Inspire

This powerful and intuitive illustration app offers a realistic painting and drawing experience on iPhone. It features a proprietary rendering engine for brilliant color and blending, along with a vast library of customizable brushes and advanced canvas controls.

Highlights
  • Proprietary Sorcery™ painting engine
  • 150 high-quality, customizable brushes
  • Wet Brush, Dry Brush (Blending), and Eraser modes
  • Up to 16K canvas size
  • Automatic canvas playback video recording
  • Full-featured color picker with saved palettes
  • Touch and slide hotspots for quick adjustments
Features
Read full description

Available exclusively on the App Store, meticulously designed to be beautifully powerful, and painstakingly engineered for iPhone — Inspire delivers an incredibly fast and realistic painting, drawing, and sketching experience that you can take with you wherever you go and use whenever inspiration strikes. Our proprietary painting engine Sorcery™ takes full advantage of the GPU to render brush strokes with brilliant 64-bit color, laser-sharp sub-pixel precision, and insanely fast speed. While the strokes of a wet oil paint brush look beautiful on their own, the breathtaking blending effects of a dry brush will absolutely stun you. Graze the canvas with just a bit of pressure to add a subtle blur to your artwork or use stronger pressure to actually mix existing colors on the canvas together to create new ones. Whether you are a budding artist, seasoned professional, or somewhere in-between, you will enjoy the simplicity and power of the most intuitive and compelling illustration app for iPhone, Inspire. Amazing Brushes • 150 high-quality brushes to choose from, divided into 15 sets: Oil Paint, Airbrushes, Spray Paint, Paint Splatter, Graphite Pencils, Wax Crayons, Markers, Chalk, Charcoal, Pastels & Conté, Basic Shapes, Complex Shapes, Shape Outlines, Patterns, and Textures • All brushes can be used as a Wet Brush, Dry Brush (Blending), or Eraser • Over 20 different settings are available to customize brush strokes with powerful versatility and variation The Best Painting App for iPhone • Sorcery™, the fastest 64-bit painting engine on the App Store • Create a canvas of any size up to 16K (64MP) • Dual-texture brushes • 64-bit color • All device orientations are supported all the time — switch from portrait to landscape painting with ease • 1000 levels of undo and redo are available • Touch and slide hotspots can be used to quickly change brush size, opacity, and pressure without opening a menu • The eyedropper tool can be used with a touch and hold gesture to select paint colors from the canvas • The canvas can be moved around, rotated, and zoomed in and out up to 6400% Canvas Playback Video Recording • Brush strokes are automatically recorded as you paint without any delay • You can play the video of your artwork being created stroke-by-stroke directly in the gallery • Export high-quality videos of your artwork to your Photos Full-Featured Color Picker • Choose any paint color you can dream of with the intuitive color picker • HSB and RGB sliders accompany a large color circle, color square, and opacity slider • Your latest colors are saved to a palette automatically while you paint • You can also save your favorite colors to a palette with drag and drop Visit snowCanoe.com to check out more screenshots, videos, and artwork. With no subscription fees or in-app purchases, you own Inspire and all future updates forever, with just one purchase!

About

Sketch Pro

This professional art app offers advanced AI tools for digital painting, illustration, and animation. Create stunning artwork with custom brushes, text-to-image generation, and intelligent editing features. It's designed to streamline your creative workflow on iPads and iPhones.

Highlights
  • Customizable brushes
  • Text to Image AI
  • Sketch to Image AI
  • Magic Edit AI
  • Auto-Coloring AI
  • Animation Assist
  • Advanced Layer System
Features
Read full description

SketchPro, a professional art app available for iPads and iPhones, crafted with love by the Drawing Desk Team SketchPro is perfect for creative professional digital artists, including graphic designers, illustrators, comic, anime & manga book artists with a range of Drawing & painting tools to upgrade their creative workflow SketchPro tools and features: Powerful Custom Brushes -A range of free specialized brush sets for sketching, painting, doodling, drawing and more. -Customisable brushes with adjustable radius, opacity, texture and more -Create brush sets -Maintain a list of your favorite brushes -Free Roller Brush with 100+ patterns Animation Assist -Powerful interface and essential tools for creating impressive animations (Only for iPads). -Wide range of tools, including onion-skinning, instant playback, a visual timeline, and more. Essentials to accelerate the Creative Process -Smart Shapes feature for instant shape drawing -Free Symmetry Tool for easier drawing -Powerful Gradient tool with Linear and Radial options -Layer Transform Tool with Freeform, Uniform, Distort and Warp options -Magic Eraser -Assisted Drawing -Synchronization between iPad and iPhone Advanced Layer System -Free unlimited layers -Rasterize, Duplicate and Merge layers -Fill, Color Invert, Lock Alpha and Lock Layer options Advance Text Tool -Select from a full list of fonts or import your own -Customize fonts -Apply solid and gradient colors to text -A range colored font patterns, textures and designs Complete Color Palette -Full Color Wheel with adjustable color values and shades -Create unique themed color palettes for your drawing -Import colors from photos and images Extensive Shapes Library -15+ categories of free shapes, signs, and symbols -Favorites section for keeping track of frequently used shapes Other Essential Tools -Smudge Tool -Fill Bucket with solid colors -Filter options including Gaussian Blur, Motion Blur, Perspective Blur and more. -Convenient Cutter Tool -Import and Export functions -Custom Canvas option -AR Facepaint Organize and Save Your Work -Save every drawing automatically -Rename each saved artwork -Create folders for storing drawings methodically -Cloud syncing to secure and access artworks anywhere -Duplicate and Delete projects at any time -Time Lapse Playback -Dark Mode Unlimited access to all premium features & daily content updates during the subscription period Premium subscriptions with 1 week trial -Annual for 39.99/year You may cancel a subscription or free-trial anytime via the subscription setting through your iTunes account. This must be done 24 hours before the end of the free trial or subscription period to avoid being charged. The subscription will automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during the active subscription period. Any unused portion of a free trial period will be forfeited when the user purchases a SketchPro Unlimited subscription. Terms & Conditions : https://4axis.com/terms-of-use Privacy Policy : https://4axis.com/privacy-policy Reach us: hello@4axis

Screenshots

Inspire4 screens
Sketch Pro4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Sketch Pro at Free against Inspire's $9.99. Sketch Pro also leads on ratings volume (12K vs 58) and rating (4.7 vs 4.5). Inspire's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 16) and ads (none vs shown). On review sentiment and update cadence 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Sketch Pro is free to download; Inspire costs $9.99 up front. Sketch Pro sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per 7 days. Inspire asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Sketch Pro holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sketch Pro has 12K ratings behind it against 58, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 86% of Inspire's written reviews are positive against 81% of Sketch Pro's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Inspire ships an update every 6 weeks, Sketch Pro every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 20, 2026.

Scorecard9 real differences · 2 level
Inspire versus Sketch Pro: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterInspireSketch Pro
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating4.5 (58 ratings)4.7 (12K ratings) — better
Positive reviews86.4% of reviews — better80.5% of reviews
Number of ratings5812K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
Best chart rank#70 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Vision Pro — better
Requires iOS13.6 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size317 MB338 MB
Age rating4+4+
DevelopersnowCanoe4Axis Technologies Pte Ltd

Customer experience

Inspire

All ratings58 ratings
Positive87.9%
Neutral3.4%
Negative8.6%
Written reviews323 reviews
Positive86.4%
Neutral3.4%
Negative10.2%

Sketch Pro

All ratings11,568 ratings
Positive92.9%
Neutral3.4%
Negative3.6%
Written reviews694 reviews
Positive80.5%
Neutral5.8%
Negative13.7%

User reviews

Inspire

From 58 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🎨 Excellent painting and blending capabilities
  • 👍 Intuitive and easy-to-use interface
  • 🎨 Realistic oil painting simulation
  • 🎨 Diverse brush options and customization
  • 🎨 Impressive color mixing and blending

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes and stability issues
  • 🔍 Lack of layers and advanced editing tools
  • 📱 Limited functionality on smaller screens
  • 🔍 Difficulty with precision and detail work
  • 🔍 Frustrating menu/UI interactions

Sketch Pro

From 12K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Powerful drawing tools
  • 👍 Intuitive interface
  • 🎨 Extensive brush and material options
  • 💡 Customizable brushes
  • 🎨 Versatile for various art styles

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and freezing issues
  • 🔒 Concerns about subscription model and lifetime access
  • 🔍 Difficulty finding and adjusting certain features
  • 🔍 Steep learning curve for some advanced tools
  • 💰 Subscription fees for full functionality

Bugs and requests

Inspire

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes when changing colors or brush types
  • Compatibility issues with older iOS devices
  • Occasional loss of progress due to autosave bugs

Requested features

8 requests
  • Add layers and advanced compositing tools
  • Implement a smudge/blur tool for better blending
  • Improve canvas size and resolution options
  • Introduce a pencil/marker tool for sketching
  • Add support for pressure-sensitive styluses
Show 3 more
  • Implement an undo/redo history with more steps
  • Provide better color management and palettes
  • Allow for custom brush creation and saving

Sketch Pro

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Drawings randomly deleted or lost
  • Inability to load or access previous artwork
  • Crashes when trying to import photos

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add liquify tool
  • Improve layer management and manipulation
  • Provide more default brushes
  • Implement undo/redo functionality
  • Add shape tools for perfect geometric shapes
Show 1 more
  • Improve performance and stability

In-app purchases

None

Inspire

No in-app purchases

16 purchases

Sketch Pro

Subscriptions13
  • SketchPro Premium Weekly$0.997 Days
  • SketchPro Premium Monthly3 Months trial$1.991 Month
  • SketchPro Monthly Premium7 Days trial$4.991 Month
Show 10 more
  • SketchPro Premium Monthly7 Days trial$7.991 Month
  • SketchPro Premium Yearly7 Days trial$9.991 Year
  • SketchPro Yearly Premium$9.991 Year
  • SketchPro Premium1 Year trial$14.991 Year
  • SketchPro Yearly Premium7 Days trial$14.991 Year
  • SketchPro Yearly Premium$14.991 Year
  • SketchPro Premium Yearly7 Days trial$39.991 Year
  • SketchPro Premium Yearly1 Year trial$39.991 Year
  • SketchPro Yearly Premium7 Days trial$39.991 Year
  • SketchPro Premium Yearly7 Days trial$49.991 Year
One-time3
  • 100 Tokens$3.99
  • 200 Tokens$4.99
  • 500 Tokens$7.99

Questions

Is Inspire free?
Inspire costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Sketch Pro free?
Sketch Pro is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Inspire or Sketch Pro?
Sketch Pro is rated higher. Inspire averages 4.5 out of 5 from 58 ratings, while Sketch Pro averages 4.7 from 12K ratings.
Do Inspire or Sketch Pro have ads?
Sketch Pro shows ads; Inspire does not.
Which is updated more often, Inspire or Sketch Pro?
Inspire ships an update every 6 weeks, and Sketch Pro every 3 weeks. Most recently, Inspire was updated on October 20, 2026 and Sketch Pro on October 20, 2026.

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