Grid vs Paintwell
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Grid
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Grid View is a simple yet powerful grid planner that helps you organize and preview your images in customizable layouts. Upload your photos and arrange them using preset grid sizes like 3×4, 9×16, or 1×1, or define your own custom dimensions. Easily drag and drop images to rearrange them until your layout looks just right. Create and save multiple templates, each with different grid settings, so you can quickly switch between layouts for different projects. Whether you’re planning a photo wall, an Instagram feed, or a visual story, Grid View gives you full control over how your images are presented.
Paintwell
This app helps oil and acrylic painters create a step-by-step plan for their artwork. It analyzes photos to identify colors, provides mixing recipes using your own paint tubes, and offers tools for value studies, line drawings, and progress tracking.
- Photo analysis for color identification
- Customizable paint mixing recipes
- Step-by-step painting plan generation
- Value and line drawing tools
- Progress tracking and AI critique
- Colorblind assist
- Paint index with 700+ colors
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Paintwell turns a photo into a painting plan for real paint. Photograph a reference, or a painting you're partway through, and Paintwell finds the colors in it and works out how to mix each one from actual tubes: which paints, and how much of each. Tell it the paints you own and every recipe uses your shelf. Then it plans the painting itself, step by step. Built for oil and acrylic painters. PLAN - Painting plan: your painting in the order a painter works, from the drawing and the underpainting to the last highlights, each step with its mixes and its time. Watch it as a timelapse, save the video or share it, and keep the plan as a PDF. - Estimate: how much of each paint a canvas of your size needs. Then see the painting on your wall through the camera, at that size. MIX - Color: every important color in the image, each with a recipe from real, buyable paints. - Mix Guide: hold your mix under the camera. It tells you which way you're off and by how much, and lights up when you match. - Mixing sheet: every mix numbered where it appears on the canvas, on one page you can print and keep by the easel. SEE - Lens: point the camera at anything, a leaf, a wall, a photo, and pick out its colors. Lock the exposure and save what you find. - Value: a nine-step value study of your reference, with a loupe that reads the value under your finger. - Line drawing and Trace: turn the photo into clean lines, then trace or grid them onto your canvas. - Progress: photograph the painting as you go and see which passages have drifted from the reference while there's still time to fix them. - Expert review: an AI-written critique of value, temperature, edges and composition, with the reasoning shown. - Colorblind assist: for red-weak, green-weak or blue-weak color vision, colors that are hard to tell apart are pushed apart on screen. Recipes and plans always use the true colors. SHOP - List: every tube your projects need in one place, ready for the store or for ordering online. PALETTES - Your paints, artist palettes and colors you've saved, all in one place. Mix from any of them. - Explore: browse the palettes of working painters, see what a painting you admire is made of, and save its palette in one tap. - Publish your own work with its palette, and export a portfolio as a PDF. THE PAINT INDEX Nearly 700 oil and acrylic paints from ten brands, each matched by pigment rather than by a screen color with a name on it. The full index is at paintwell.ai/pigments. PLANS Basic is free and includes Color, the Mix Guide, Lens, Value, Estimate, Progress, Trace and the paint index, with three projects at a time, mixing sheets for five paintings, three expert reviews and one line drawing. Studio and Professional add unlimited projects, expert reviews and line drawings every month, unlimited mixing sheet exports, and exports without the watermark. Professional has more reviews and drawings, and includes one painting plan. Painting plans are bought by the painting, on any plan, one at a time or in packs. They never expire. More line drawings come in packs too. Studio and Professional are monthly or yearly subscriptions, and each starts with a 14-day free trial. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at the end of the trial, or at confirmation of purchase if you've already had one. A subscription renews automatically unless it's turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel it in your Apple ID settings. Terms of Use: https://paintwell.ai/terms Privacy Policy: https://paintwell.ai/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Grid at none against Paintwell's 9. Paintwell's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs fortnightly). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Paintwell sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $3.00 per month. Grid asks for nothing beyond the download.
Grid ships an update fortnightly, Paintwell weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Grid | Paintwell |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 148 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Chris Wang | Paintwell LLC |
In-app purchases
Grid
No in-app purchases
Paintwell
- Studio, monthly14 Days trial$3.001 Month
- Professional, monthly14 Days trial$6.001 Month
- Studio, yearly14 Days trial$20.001 Year
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Professional, yearly14 Days trial$48.001 Year
- 5 Line Drawings$3.00
- 1 Painting Plan$6.00
- 15 Line Drawings$6.00
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- 5 Painting Plans$20.00
- 10 Painting Plans$30.00
Questions
Is Grid free?
Is Paintwell free?
Do Grid or Paintwell have ads?
Which is updated more often, Grid or Paintwell?
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