Penly: Digital Planner & Notes

Review by eFreeware

Penly is an Android app from the developer of the same name, listed under Productivity, for planning, journaling, note-taking and annotating PDFs. It arrived in August 2021 and has since passed 100,000 installs, with a 4.0 average across 3,784 ratings.

What makes it worth a closer look is the pricing model. Penly is a one-time purchase of $4.79, with no ads and no in-app purchases, which puts it in a different bracket from the subscription planners that dominate this category. The developer also offers refunds within seven days for any reason, which softens the risk of paying up front.

The core pitch is that you get a working planner the moment you install it. Four digital planners are bundled in, with hyperlinked monthly, weekly and daily pages, and they are undated, so you fill in the dates yourself and reuse them year after year.

Who tends to get the most from it

The people I would point to Penly first are those who already keep a paper planner and want the same routine without carrying a notebook. The bundled planners cover the usual monthly, weekly and daily views, and the undated design means you are not buying a new set every January. If you like writing by hand but want searchable text, the automatic handwriting-to-text conversion is the feature that bridges the two habits.

A second group is anyone who works with PDFs that need marking up. Because any PDF can be imported and its existing hyperlinks still work, documents that already have internal navigation stay usable inside the app. Students working through lecture slides, or anyone reading long reports and highlighting passages, fit that description well.

It is also a reasonable fit for someone who wants one app for planning, journaling and annotation instead of three. The trade-off is that the app is built around these tasks rather than around general document editing, so it rewards people whose work already looks like pages, notes and marked-up files.

The language point matters here. English is the only supported language, so if you plan to write or organize primarily in another language, that is a real constraint rather than a minor one.

Planning pages you fill in yourself

The four included planners are the backbone of the app. Each one has hyperlinked monthly, weekly and daily pages, so tapping through from a month view to a specific day does not mean scrolling. They come in both landscape and portrait, and in two visual styles, a rainbow version and a black minimal one, which covers the two most common preferences without turning the choice into a project.

Because the planners are undated, the dates are yours to write in. That is the detail that makes the bundle last: you are not tied to a calendar year, and a planner you set up in one year can be reused in the next. To-do list and note templates are included alongside the main planner pages, which saves some of the setup work if you want a consistent format for tasks.

The developer describes the interface as simple and intuitive. I would treat that as a design intention rather than a guarantee, since handwriting apps live or die on how naturally the pen behaves, and that is something you judge with a stylus in hand rather than from a feature list.

Writing, drawing and the tools around them

The writing layer includes smooth handwriting and a smart eraser, plus text, image and shape tools for the parts of a page that are not handwritten. Highlighting and underlining are there for marking up what you have written or imported, and undo and redo cover the usual mistakes. Objects can be transformed, grouped and locked, which matters more than it sounds: locking a background or a template stops you from nudging it out of place while writing on top of it.

Automatic handwriting-to-text conversion is the standout item in this list. Handwritten notes that become typed text are far easier to reuse later, whether you are pulling tasks out of a daily page or searching back through a journal. Custom fonts can be imported as well, so the typed side of a document does not have to look like a default.

Stickers get their own set of tools. You can build collections, import them in bulk rather than one at a time, save notes and drawings into a collection for reuse, and mark favorites for quick access. Items can be edited and rearranged, and images can be mirrored, flipped, cropped or given a different opacity. For anyone who decorates planner pages, that is a fuller toolkit than the four undated planners alone would suggest.

Hyperlinks are not limited to the bundled planners. You can create your own inside any document and turn any object into a link, pointing either to another page or to a website. That turns a planner into something closer to a small personal wiki, with an index page that jumps to the sections you actually use.

PDFs in, Penly files or PDFs out

Importing is deliberately unrestricted: any PDF can be brought into the app, and any hyperlinks already inside it keep working for navigation. That covers imported planners bought elsewhere as well as ordinary documents. When you are finished, a file can be exported either as an editable Penly file or as a PDF, so you can keep working on it later or hand it to someone who does not have the app.

Organization is handled with folders and sub-folders, and pages within a document can be copied, pasted, deleted or rearranged. Documents reopen where you left off, which removes the small friction of finding your place again every time you switch away. For a planner with hundreds of pages, that detail does more for daily use than any single drawing tool.

Syncing works through Google Drive. Linking a Drive account enables syncing between Android devices, and it can run manually or automatically whenever the app is opened or closed. The automatic option is the one that keeps two devices consistent without you having to remember anything, though it does mean your notes travel through Drive rather than staying on one handset.

What it costs and what that buys

Penly is a one-time payment of $4.79 for full access. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, so nothing inside the app is gated behind a further payment. That is a straightforward arrangement, and it is the main reason the app stands out in a category where recurring fees are common.

The refund policy is unusually generous for a paid app: the developer offers refunds for any reason within seven days, requested by email with the address used for the purchase, with a target response time of two working days. That effectively gives you a week to decide whether the handwriting feel and the bundled planners suit you.

The app was last updated in May 2026, and the most recent changes cover data migration for future versions and a minor fix to PDF export. Both are maintenance items rather than new features, which suggests the focus at that point was on keeping existing files and exports working properly.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is with a subscription-based planning app. Those typically spread the cost across months and often bundle cloud services and cross-platform access. Penly asks for $4.79 once and syncs through your own Google Drive account, so the money question is settled at the start rather than renewed.

A second comparison is with a general-purpose note-taking app. Those tend to be stronger on text organization and weaker on the page-based, handwriting-first workflow that planners depend on. Penly's bundled planners, hyperlinked navigation and sticker tools are aimed at people who think in pages and spreads rather than in lists and databases.

The third is a dedicated PDF annotation tool. Penly imports any PDF and lets you write, highlight and link within it, but it also expects you to want the planning side. If your work is entirely PDF markup, a tool built only for that job will feel more focused; if you want your planner and your marked-up documents in one place, the combination is the point.

Worth setting against all three: English is the only supported language. Neither is unusual for a small independent app, but both shape who will find it comfortable.

A one-time purchase for page-based planners

Penly is a well-defined app rather than a broad one. It gives you four undated planners with hyperlinked pages, handwriting that converts to text, a solid set of annotation and sticker tools, PDF import and export, folder organization and Google Drive syncing between Android devices.

I would suggest it to people who plan by hand, keep journals, or annotate PDFs regularly, and who would rather pay once than subscribe. The bundled planners being undated and reusable makes the value easier to justify over several years.

The caveats are the ones the developer sets out: English only, and syncing tied to Google Drive on Android. If those fit how you work, Penly looks like a considered purchase rather than an impulse one, and the seven-day refund window gives you room to confirm that for yourself.

What's new in version 1.23.19

Allow data migration for future versions Minor fix to PDF export