Evernote Announces Price Hikes and Two-Device Limit for Free Users

[MLMcMillion]

Finally jumping ship. I've been using Quiver more and more anyway since it has actual features for devs/engineers. Evernote has been very stale for a very long time. This price hike is the beginning of the end for them if they don't pull it together soon. They've been promising things like Markdown support for a year and still haven't delivered, meanwhile competition is everywhere and passing them quickly.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I've been a very long time heavy Evernote user - up until a few years ago. I went to renew and it charged my credit card twice and gave me 2 years of service. I figured since I used it, whatever. Funny because I went to Google Keep months later and stopped using it completely. Disliked the note limit, upload limits, and general instability of the application (Windows) - I also had so many notes back in the day it really affected performance of the app.

Google Keep is my post-it note app - I moved to that several years ago, but I've been wanting something in between a post-it note app and a full on word processor (Pages, Google Docs, Word) and I haven't quite found it.

Charging this much for Evernote, because I don't use it anymore, doesn't work for me - so I closed my account.

I pay for Office 365 so I may be looking at OneNote again... I've tried Notability and didn't like it all that much but may be looking at that too since I paid for it. Will look into Quiver because of this thread.

 

[satinsilverem2]

Now I don't regret going to Notability.

 

[sinsin07]

Dude, really? One increase is $12/year, the other is $36/year. That amount of money is enough to get you to change to Office, which we've all complained about for years?

You've used it "heavily" and that's not enough to warrant a few weeks worth of coffee every day?

Seriously?
[doublepost=1467211119][/doublepost]

So why in the hell would you think to tell us that?
[doublepost=1467211187][/doublepost]

I've found that paid services are more reliable and get their problems fixed a lot more often than free ones.

You seem awfully fixated on proving why you need to rent a note taking app.
There comes a point when each individual use case has to be assessed: "Do I really need to rent this software?" "Are there alternatives that can get the job done?" "Am I willing to live with the differences?"
The renting of software will continue.
However each individual has their own breaking point when they will say "No more".
I understand the need for vendors to have subscriptions.
However I personally will not support it or will postpone as long as possible.
I have better uses for my funds no matter how small the subscriptions amount is.
iOS Notes and OneNote are sufficient for me.
If was to pay a subscription for a note taking app I'd use Microsoft.
More bang for the buck.
YMMV.

 

[Abazigal]

The raise in pricing isn't that bad if you get new features all the time, I mean people that use Evernote probably will still pay for it because they like the service but the 2 device limit for free users is really troubling.

I mean, almost all Apple fans here probably have an Mac, iPhone and iPad. If not, they probably have and extra MacBook instead of an iPad or maybe both. If you're limited by your content synced to all those devices just because you can work out with the basic Evernote plan that's sad, I think.

If it was 4 or 5 devices you could say OK.

I have 2 Macs, an iPhone and an iPhone. I suppose I could use the web interface for my Macs, but the 2 device limit seems to have been carefully chosen to inflict maximum inconvenience on its users.

To be fair, Evernote has added tons of new features over the years. I just didn't care for most of them.

 

[chiefsilverback]

Lol really? It's just a note taking app, I'm amazed they have a subscription fee in the first place.

The OCR capability is pretty impressive. If you use it to go paperless and allow fully searchable access to docs, receipts etc... across multiple devices then the fee isn't too bad!

 

[ginkobiloba]

I'm not a heavy user of Evernote, mostly for clipping bits from the Web, and don't really need the more advanced options in the paid service, but I do need it on more than 2 devices.

I tried installing OneNote today to see if it can replace it. What a joke !
Terrible ergonomy, the Safari "Share" extension only allows you to clip entire pages and only as an image, not as text. The Safari extension clipper only allows you clip section as images , not searchable text, and on top of that, I just get a constant "Content not available yet, try later" on the OneNote app, despite the webclipper calaiming "Success !" . Even getting help on OneNote is a nightmare, more than half of Microsoft help pages on the matter lead to "error 404" inexistent pages...
I completely deinstalled it. It's almost hard to believe how bad it is, at least on Mac.

I think I'm just going to settle with Apple's Notes for now...

 

[FactVsOpinion]

Oh geez.... I use Evernote heavily as a premium user and was happy to pay the $45 per year for it. This is a significant price increase and I don't want to get rid of Evernote, but as I try to trim my budget, I may have to look at the possibility of an alternative. I have an Office 365 subscription and I'll be having to take a look at OneNote as a possibility.

I fully understand their need to increase prices, but I have to beware of my own budget too. My renewal is in November, so I have time to seek alternatives, or fix my budget to feel more comfortable with the increase.

Exactly my situation. I'm going to give onenote a try for a week or two and see if I can move over.

 

[macgabe]

How do I import notes into OneNote on a Mac?

 

[FactVsOpinion]

I'm not a heavy user of Evernote, mostly for clipping bits from the Web, and don't really need the more advanced options in the paid service, but I do need it on more than 2 devices.

I tried installing OneNote today to see if it can replace it. What a joke !
Terrible ergonomy, the Safari "Share" extension only allows you to clip entire pages and only as an image, not as text. The Safari extension clipper only allows you clip section as images , not searchable text, and on top of that, I just get a constant "Content not available yet, try later" on the OneNote app, despite the webclipper calaiming "Success !" . Even getting help on OneNote is a nightmare, more than half of Microsoft help pages on the matter lead to "error 404" inexistent pages...
I completely deinstalled it. It's almost hard to believe how bad it is, at least on Mac.

I think I'm just going to settle with Apple's Notes for now...

Im surprised onenote is that bad. I guess apple notes it is then. I haven't really tried it properly since all the upgrades; hoping it's good enough.

 

[bushido]

Dude, really? One increase is $12/year, the other is $36/year. That amount of money is enough to get you to change to Office, which we've all complained about for years?

You've used it "heavily" and that's not enough to warrant a few weeks worth of coffee every day?

Seriously?
[doublepost=1467211119][/doublepost]

So why in the hell would you think to tell us that?
[doublepost=1467211187][/doublepost]

I've found that paid services are more reliable and get their problems fixed a lot more often than free ones.

cuz its a forum? last time i checked its sole purpose is to share opinions

 

[BigMcGuire]

Now I don't regret going to Notability.

I've noticed the reviews since I last tried it out (last year) are much higher than they used to be. It's working pretty well for you?

 

[splitpea]

Well, grrr....

I don't use Evernote quite enough (nor like it enough) to pay for it, but when I do use it I need to access notes on 3-4 devices.

Apple Notes are pretty close to what I need, but 1) I've had too many data loss problems with them in the pass to trust them, and 2) they won't work unless all your devices are on the latest version of their respective operating systems, and I'm not ready to upgrade all the Macs to El Cap.

OneNote looks interesting, but I'd sort of prefer something that emphasizes text features more and multimedia less - because all the rich editing features tend to make it more complex to get your text notes formatted the way you want. There are several other notebook apps I've seen that have this same problem.

Quiver, SimpleNote, etc. look interesting, but I need offline editing and proper syncing when going back online regardless of the order in which devices connect - and Dropbox syncing is too naive for that.

What other options are there?

 

[satinsilverem2]

I've noticed the reviews since I last tried it out (last year) are much higher than they used to be. It's working pretty well for you?

Its been flawless in my use. Im a college student and write quite a bit down and the syncing is great and they don't charge for storage and you can use your iCloud storage if needed. Apple Pencil support is outstanding as well.

 

[saudade]

R U a sucker to spend money?

r 2 d 2 ?

 

[acctman]

Time to give OneNotes another try

 

[26139]

You seem awfully fixated on proving why you need to rent a note taking app.
There comes a point when each individual use case has to be assessed: "Do I really need to rent this software?" "Are there alternatives that can get the job done?" "Am I willing to live with the differences?"
The renting of software will continue.
However each individual has their own breaking point when they will say "No more".
I understand the need for vendors to have subscriptions.
However I personally will not support it or will postpone as long as possible.
I have better uses for my funds no matter how small the subscriptions amount is.
iOS Notes and OneNote are sufficient for me.
If was to pay a subscription for a note taking app I'd use Microsoft.
More bang for the buck.
YMMV.

He used price as his main concern.
I was wondering why such a small price difference was so important.
I'm not renting the app, I'm paying for continued development and professional maintenance.

Great that iOS and OneNote work for you, but nothing you said has anything to do with what I was talking about.
[doublepost=1467225846][/doublepost]

cuz its a forum? last time i checked its sole purpose is to share opinions

...and I was questioning his rationale for such a decision.

Thanks so much for pointing out what a forum is like, while adding absolutely nothing to the conversation!

 

[thisisnotmyname]

Goodbye Evernote. I had already mostly eliminated you from my workflow with the new Apple Notes enhancements but I never saw value in your premium tiers to begin with. I'm usually happy to pay for services which benefit me but this one does not. The limit to two devices will likely have a big impact on a lot of their basic user base (laptop, desktop, tablet, phone) and without the pipeline of free users I don't see the subscription service growing, or potentially even surviving in current form. I think they will regret this move.

 

[peglegjack]

When I first got the email last night I was pretty pissed off, especially since I just migrated all of my notes from Apple Notes to Evernote a couple months ago. But then I read where the 2 device limit only applies to the apps and not the web.

See, the main reason why I switched it in the first place was because I still use an old Dell tower with Windows XP at work, and iCloud.com quit working (or quit working well) with it. And the only note taking web app I could find that worked was Evernote. Well, maybe OneNote works but it felt pretty gross from the few minutes I tried to use it.

So basically I was over the 2 device limit since I use the iPad, IPhone, and Mac apps. In that case, I decided to delete my Mac app and pin the web version to Safari so it's always there, which may end up being a net positive anyway since for some ungodly reason there are no Increase/Decrease Indent buttons in the Mac app.

Would I actually pay for it? No way, but I guess some people do.

All's well that ends well I suppose.

 

[Defthand]

There are note apps and then there are note apps on steroids. Evernote is the latter. I’ve compared the UI’s and abilities of popular note apps, and none equal the polish and sophistication of Evernote. Especially Evernote’s clipper extension for the web browser. It saves clutter-free articles for off-line use whereas most note apps only save the URL. Some rely on it for project management since it has reminder alerts and sharing capabilities. Having said that, it’s not an app that One should subscribe to if it isn’t used regularly and exclusively. If you make notes only occasionally and discard them shortly after, use Apple Notes. If you record information or archive articles for long-term reference and projects, Evernote is superior. (I do not work for Evernote and was not compensated for my opinion).

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I dont mind paying for software, but i do mind paying this much for a text sync service. I only ever use Evernote for text, on 5 devices, so for me this new plan is crazy.

Evernotes text editing capabilities are average at best, and its iOS interface awful, but the sync is pretty solid. But these days, that is just not enough, and certainly not at that price.

 

[balticgreen]

Yesterday was my last day using Evernote after I got the email about being limited to 2 devices. I wasn't a heavy enough user of Evernote to justify paying for either of the paid tiers. The free tier was fine until they limited me to 2 devices. I have an iPhone, iPad, iMac, and Macbook.

So I exported my Evernote notes and then imported them into Apple Notes. The whole process took only a few minutes. Goodbye, Evernote.

 

[sinsin07]

He used price as his main concern.
I was wondering why such a small price difference was so important.
I'm not renting the app, I'm paying for continued development and professional maintenance.
Great that iOS and OneNote work for you, but nothing you said has anything to do with what I was talking about.

I have no concern over this "He" you mention above.
You quoted multiple people.
The answer was in response to this:

R U a sucker to spend money?

I've found that paid services are more reliable and get their problems fixed a lot more often than free ones.

You can tap dance around the subscription method with semantics all you want.
You're renting software in the end.

 

[Rendergroup]

At first I used Google Notes, but they dumped, after that moved all my stuff to Evernote. I'm not a heavy user mostly use for web clipping some tourism articles, but now I read some comments that Notes doesn't work well with web clippings.

I've to wait and see which one I'm going to use.

 

[nick42983]

Oh geez.... I use Evernote heavily as a premium user and was happy to pay the $45 per year for it. This is a significant price increase and I don't want to get rid of Evernote, but as I try to trim my budget, I may have to look at the possibility of an alternative. I have an Office 365 subscription and I'll be having to take a look at OneNote as a possibility.

I fully understand their need to increase prices, but I have to beware of my own budget too. My renewal is in November, so I have time to seek alternatives, or fix my budget to feel more comfortable with the increase.

If $25 more per year is a problem for your budget, I recommend making some dramatic changes to how you use your time. It sounds like you like going to the gym, if you can apply the same dedication to making more money, you'll probably find many of your problems melt away. I think this is the best place to start for that mindset shift: http://www.dangerandplay.com