Editor’s note: I haven’t written this article as a paid endorsement of Evernote. But I’m a longtime user who continues to find value in an app that has been dismissed by tech media as irrelevant in recent years. I’ve written this to highlight why I remain a subscriber, despite annual price increases and the negative sentiment from tech media.
For probably the last 15 years, virtually every article or blog post I’ve written was created on the notes app Evernote. Including this one.
If you’re not familiar with Evernote, it’s a software note-taking application that is so much more. Founded in 2002 by Russian-American computer Scientist Stepan Pachikov, Evernote has evolved over time into a sort of all-encompassing platform that offers everything from writing tools to information storage to meeting notes to scanning, to audio transcriptions, to AI assistance to daily agenda and calendar, and much more.
In fact, Evernote has updated and added so many capabilities in recent months that I can’t keep up or use all the features.
At one time Evernote’s tag line was ‘Remember Everything,’ which I’m sure also is the concept behind its corporate logo, a green elephant. Today, if you click on the Evernote website, you are greeted by a big headline that says “Your second brain” and an underline that reads “Remember everything and tackle any project with your notes, tasks, and schedule all in one place.”
Read more about Evernote’s founding in this 2018 Fast Company article written by longtime technology writer Harry McCracken.
Since that article was published, Evernote has been purchased by the Italy-based Bending Spoons, a company that has a history of buying technology companies that are considered past their prime.
So, how has Evernote fared in the almost four years since the Bending Spoons acquisition?
Evernote claimed 200 million registered users and $100 million in annual revenue when Bending Spoons closed its acquisition in January 2023. But the new owner quickly began a major restructuring, laying off 82 percent of its employees, limiting free subscription options and increasing paid subscription costs while constantly expanding the software capabilities.
So, while specifics aren’t available, it is assumed the paid and total subscribers declined as subscription costs increased.
This recent article by Ars Technia explores the ride Bending Spoons has taken my favorite notes-taking application on and how it is testing limits of customer loyalty by jacking up subscription prices. I checked, and my annual subscription fee currently is $169, or $14 per month. I think it’s going up to $20 a month.
But enough about the financial and subscriber ups-and-downs of Evernote. How is it actually serving a user like me?
Besides being my main writing platform, Evernote is where I stash important info like receipts, warranties, links to articles I want to remember, tax documents and more. In fact, I have the Evernote Webclipper extension added to Safari to expedite saving pages I want to keep for reference or further reading.
So, it’s a catch-all software for me. I looked at my Evernote stats and see that I’ve accumulated 5,533 notes across 134 notebooks. That’s a lot of daily use.
I like it because it’s easily accessible across all the devices I use — Macbook, iPhone and iPad. Information entered on one device quickly updates across all devices because it’s cloud based.
I also have the free Apple Notes app and use it on occasion. However, I find Apple Notes more difficult to organize and find info quickly. And I don’t really know anything about Notion, a third option that is frequently mentioned as a viable note-taking app.
Bottom line, I’m staying as a paid Evernote subscriber. In fact, I recently cancelled my Microsoft 365 subscription, which has cost me $129 annually for a family plan.
My AI chatbot friend told me after I laid out how I use Evernote, “you’re not trying to manage a large corporate team or coordinate complicated projects. You’re essentially using Evernote as a combination of personal library, writing desk and digital filing cabinet.
“That’s a pretty good use case.”
Case closed.
