Unicode Pad vs Character Pad
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Unicode Pad
Access and copy thousands of Unicode characters to use in any app. Create custom keyboards for frequently used symbols and share them with friends. Search characters by name, codepoint, or glyph, and view detailed descriptions.
- Copy characters to clipboard
- Customizable keyboards
- Share custom keyboards
- Search characters by name/codepoint/glyph
- View extended character descriptions
- Thousands of symbols available
Read full descriptionHide full description
Note: This app supports only in-app custom keyboards! For a fancier version which also supports iOS 8 and later custom keyboards, check out the Unicode Pad Pro app! • Tested on latest iOS 11 • Support for Unicode 11 standard • Copy characters to clipboard for use in other apps, like web, mail, chat, notes… practically any iOS app! • Notepad with customizable keyboards, for your often-used characters and for copying several characters at once. Great for casual writing, too! • Share your custom keyboards with your friends! • Send mail and tweets right from within the app! • Huge selection of symbols (thousands), in fact all that are available on your device. Database itself actually contains data for all Unicode characters (over 100,000), but only glyphs available in iOS system font are actually visible. • Quick acces to many groups of commonly used symbols! • Search for characters by name, hexadecimal codepoint or glyph! Find similar and related characters instantly! • Streamlined design, specifically optimized for each device. Support for all device orientations and Retina display. • Support for Backspace, New line, Shift and Alternate special keys on custom keyboards. • Custom keyboard sizes up to 6x16=96 keys. • View extended character descriptions on Wikipedia, right inside the app! This works particularly great for emoticons! • One universal application works on iPhone, iPod and iPad! • Reference booklet of characters available on modern computers! Paper Unicode maps are over 1000 pages long! • Developers: see which characters are available on your iOS device! • Great for scientific, mathematical and physics notation, handles many superscripts, subscripts and other symbols! • Excellent for phonetic notation! • Perfect for writing Unicode poetry! • Awesome for making interesting app names! • HTML entity names for relevant characters • UNIHAN english definitions for CJK ideograms for many characters • Flick left and right for next and previous characters in detail view • Affordable price!
Character Pad
Easily copy and paste hundreds of special characters and symbols to enhance your messages, emails, and documents. Customize your text with a wide selection including Greek letters, math symbols, and more.
- Hundreds of special characters
- Copy to clipboard
- Paste into any app
- Greek alphabet
- Math symbols
- Customizable text
Read full descriptionHide full description
Character Pad gives you quick access to hundreds of beautiful and useful special characters, which you can use in any application. Simply tap on a character to copy it to your device's clipboard, open any other app, and paste it anywhere you like. Done. Easy! Customise your IMs, emails, documents and other texts with this great selection of special characters & symbols. Characters include: - Greek alphabet - Numbers - Math symbols - Bullets - Letterlike symbols - Many more! What two App Store reviewers had to say about Character Pad: "Dead easy to use and works a treat! Update with more characters some time........" - Soxcat "Fast, simple, does one thing and does it seemlessly. No more having to write ½ as 1/2. Thank you, well worth the dollar!" - Auntmarge64 Please Note: Characters will be readable from any iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac and most PCs. Some special characters may appear as question marks (?) or squares for some recipients of text messages whom use non-iPhone mobiles.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Character Pad at Free against Unicode Pad's $2.99. Character Pad also leads on rating (4.5 vs 3.5) and ratings volume (606 vs 8). Unicode Pad's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and review sentiment (74% vs 47%). On update cadence, ads 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
Character Pad is free to download; Unicode Pad costs $2.99 up front. Character Pad sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Unicode Pad asks for nothing beyond the download.
Character Pad holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Character Pad has 606 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 74% of Unicode Pad's written reviews are positive against 47% of Character Pad's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Unicode Pad ships an update every 3 months, Character Pad every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on November 13, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Unicode Pad | Character Pad |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.5 (8 ratings) | 4.5 (606 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 73.7% of reviews — better | 46.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 8 | 606 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 140 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ziga Kranjec | Armchair Engineering |
Customer experience
Unicode Pad
Character Pad
User reviews
Unicode Pad
From 8 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Comprehensive symbol catalog
- 💡 Customizable keyboards
- 🚀 Easy to use interface
- 🔍 Powerful search functionality
- 🌟 Useful for nicknames and special characters
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional crashes
- 📦 Some characters display as boxes
- 🐌 Laggy scrolling and slow loading
- 🖱️ Manual copy-pasting required
- ⌨️ Limited keyboard space for custom keyboards
Character Pad
From 606 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ⭐ Great
- 🙌 Useful
- 👍 Easy to use
- 🔍 Essential
- 🤩 Fun
Room to improve
- 💰 Paid features
- 🔒 Limited access
- 🐛 Crashes
- 📍 Outdated
- 🚫 Removed features
Bugs and requests
Unicode Pad
Reported bugs
17 issues- App crashes when selecting notepad
- App crashes on startup
- Scrolling is laggy
- Custom keyboards take time to load
- Characters not appearing on keyboard after adding
Show 12 moreShow fewer
- Some symbols don't copy properly (show as boxes)
- App won't update
- App becomes very slow after updates
- Custom keyboards are hard to see after update
- Buttons disappear
- Detail window cannot be closed
- Glyph description length exceeds screen
- App freezes and requires device reset
- Favorites/copy buttons sometimes go invisible
- Cannot get to clipboard to post to other apps
- App doesn't work with Facebook
- Characters not displayed (show as squares)
Requested features
15 requests- Ability to add keyboards to other apps
- More space for custom keyboards
- Integration with iOS keyboard
- Add backspace/delete/return keys to custom keyboards
- Ability to rearrange keys on custom keyboards
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- Ability to remove custom keys while on the keyboard
- Sort Unicode blocks numerically
- Save/swap out keyboards from within the app
- Option to hide iOS incompatible characters
- Add space bar to custom keyboard layouts
- Copy as HTML option
- Precise selection and editing features
- Macros for multiple keystrokes
- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
Character Pad
Reported bugs
2 issues- Restore purchases not working
- Compatibility issues with new iOS versions
Requested features
4 requests- More characters and symbols
- Search functionality
- Improved clipboard management
- Compatibility updates
In-app purchases
Unicode Pad
No in-app purchases
Character Pad
- Full Upgrade - Reduced Price$1.99
- More Characters$2.99
- Full Upgrade - Hero Price$4.99
Questions
Is Unicode Pad free?
Is Character Pad free?
Which has better reviews, Unicode Pad or Character Pad?
Do Unicode Pad or Character Pad have ads?
Which is updated more often, Unicode Pad or Character Pad?
Other comparisons















