Recto Notes vs MaxScan
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Recto Notes
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For years I kept separate apps: one for writing, one for reminders and to-do's. They never talked to each other. The idea lived in the notes app, the deadline in the to-do app, and I lived somewhere in between. So I built Recto. All on the same page. You just write a note and if you give a task a date with '@', that task automatically becomes part of your neatly organised Task Center. You work inside a note, focused on a single project. As ideas turn into things that need doing, you capture them right there and give them a date, without breaking your train of thought. The plan grows out of the writing instead of living apart from it. Recto - Inline tasks with dates, captured without leaving the note - Task Center: overdue, today, tomorrow, this week, next week - Native iOS, fast and quiet Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internetservices/itunes/dev/stdeula/
MaxScan
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MaxScan turns your iPhone into a fast, private document scanner. Point the camera at a page and it is detected, captured and perspective-corrected automatically — a multi-page document is ready to share as PDF in seconds. MaxScan is free to use: scan as much as you like, with no watermark and no page limit. SCAN ANYTHING • Automatic edge detection with perspective correction • Adjust Frame: fine-tune the crop with draggable corners at any time • Import photos — documents are detected and cropped automatically • Color, grayscale and crisp black & white modes • Add, reorder, rotate and delete pages whenever you like SMART, SEARCHABLE LIBRARY • Text recognition (OCR) on every page — search your documents by their content (Pro) • Smart naming: scans title themselves from the recognized text (Pro) • Automatic categories: receipts, invoices, ID cards, letters and notes (Pro) • Smart filing sorts new scans into matching folders for you (Pro) • Folders, merge, and a Recently Deleted bin with 30-day recovery BUILT FOR RECEIPTS & EXPENSES • Totals, currencies and dates are detected on receipts automatically (Pro) • Export any folder as an expense CSV for spreadsheets and reports (Pro) SIGN & ANNOTATE • Draw your signature or highlight text right on the page (Pro) • Markup stays editable — change filters or rotate without losing it (Pro) SHARE IT YOUR WAY • PDF or JPEG, in three quality sizes • Searchable PDFs — the recognized text travels with the file (Pro) • Password-locked PDFs for sensitive documents (Pro) • “Email to myself” with a single tap • Save to Photos, print via AirPrint, AirDrop, Files and iCloud Drive PRIVATE BY DESIGN • Face ID & passcode lock • No accounts, no ads, no analytics — your documents never leave your device unless you share them FREE AND MAXSCAN PRO • Free: unlimited scanning, edge detection, filters, multi-page documents, folders and PDF or JPEG export — no watermark, no page limit • MaxScan Pro unlocks everything marked (Pro): search inside your scans, receipt totals with CSV export, password-locked PDFs, and signatures • A one-time purchase, not a subscription — restore it any time on your other devices Scan it once, find it forever — with MaxScan.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: MaxScan at 17.0 against Recto Notes's 27.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Recto Notes ships an update every 6 days, MaxScan every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Recto Notes | MaxScan |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 9 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 27.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | 4+ |
| Developer | Thijs Kremers | Sensonet |
In-app purchases
Recto Notes
No in-app purchases
MaxScan
No in-app purchases









