Concepts App Review 2026: Free Infinite Canvas, $39.99 Essentials or $29.99/Year - Which to Pick

What Concepts is, and who makes it

Concepts is made by TopHatch, Inc., which describes itself as "a small remote team operating in seven countries, including the US, UK and EU". The app has been on iOS since 2012 and arrived on Windows, Android and ChromeOS in 2018. TopHatch pitches it as "a flexible creative space for thinking, planning, and drawing", and the audience it names runs from architects, illustrators and product designers to students and note-takers.

Three things set it apart from raster painting apps. Every stroke is vector-based and stays editable, so the Nudge, Slice and Select tools reshape a line after you draw it instead of making you redraw it. The brushes are a "vector-raster hybrid", which keeps the hand-drawn texture. And the canvas is infinite, so a project can sprawl from a moodboard into a floor plan without page boundaries.

It holds Editors' Choice badges on the Apple App Store, Google Play and the Microsoft Store. TopHatch says the app "is designed and optimized for touchscreen and stylus-enabled devices" - on iPad that means full Apple Pencil support with pressure and tilt, a separate action for your finger (pan, select, nudge or slice) and customisable double-tap on Apple Pencil 2 and newer.

Pricing at a glance: Free, Essentials, Everything, Teams

These are the US prices on the official pricing page and the US App Store as of 30 October 2026. TopHatch notes that "pricing varies by region", so check your own store before buying.

• Free (Basics): $0 - infinite canvas, unlimited drawings and folders, five layers, grids, snap, scale and measure, basic JPG export.
• Essentials: $39.99 one-time - "key features on a single platform": editable vectors, selection and editing tools, infinite layers, advanced transforms, shape guides, the Basic Shapes object pack, Make Your Own Brushes, PDF import and markup, and exports to PNG, SVG, DXF, PSD and CPT.
• Everything subscription: $4.99/month or $29.99/year with a 7-day free trial - "every feature on every device", all Brush and Object Packs, Make Your Own Objects, perspective grids with the grid editor, and a Pro unlock on iOS, Windows, Android and ChromeOS.
• Teams: $10/month or $100/year per teammate, 30-day free trial, re-assignable cross-platform licenses and priority support.
• Enterprise: "From $200, customized for your team", with a dedicated account manager, manual billing and security audits.
• Education: free for students and faculty at approved institutions.

The App Store's in-app purchase list still shows some older items - PDF Essentials at $4.99, Essentials (iPhone Only) at $4.99, Make Your Own Objects at $3.99, and single packs such as the Shape Library and Pen Brush Pack at $1.99. TopHatch's help center says PDF Essentials is now included with Essentials or the subscription, and Make Your Own Objects is "no longer available as a one-time purchase and is now included in a Subscription". Individual brush and object packs can still be bought one at a time, typically for $1.99 each.

What the free tier actually gives you

TopHatch says "about 93% of our users don't pay anything", and the free plan is generous enough to make that believable: an infinite canvas, unlimited drawings and folders, the Copic Color Wheel and color palettes, five adjustable layers, grids, snap, scale and measurement. No account is required and there is no time limit.

The limits show up as soon as the work gets technical. Export is basic JPG only - no PNG, PDF or SVG. You get five layers. The editing that makes Concepts special - selecting, nudging and slicing strokes you have already drawn - belongs to Essentials, as do shape guides, editable grids and the Basic Shapes library. A Play Store review from March 2024 that 401 people marked helpful put it bluntly: "Free version is not vector... There's no line, circle, rectangle, or other shapes to use."

Treat the free tier as a long trial with no deadline: enough to learn the gestures, the tool wheel and the infinite canvas, and to decide whether the vector workflow suits you before you spend anything.

Essentials vs Everything: the real decision

For anyone who decides to pay, this is the choice that matters. It comes down to two questions: how many platforms you draw on, and whether you need the add-on packs.

Pick Essentials ($39.99 once) if

• You draw on one platform only. One-time purchases are "limited to the platform you purchase on", so an iPad Essentials unlock does nothing on a Windows laptop or Android tablet.
• Your work needs editable vectors, infinite layers, precision tools, PDF markup and pro exports such as SVG, DXF and PSD, but not the extra brush and object libraries.
• You want to own the app. TopHatch's own Pro Store FAQ says plainly: "Subscription is not mandatory."

Pick Everything ($29.99/year) if

• You switch between an iPad and a Windows, Android or ChromeOS device. The subscription unlocks Pro on all of them once you sign into the same Concepts account.
• You want every brush and object pack, or Make Your Own Objects, neither of which comes with Essentials.
• You share assets with a team on iPad - Advanced Team Sharing is subscription-only and, for now, "iOS only, coming to other platforms".

The break-even maths is simple. Essentials costs the same as about 16 months of the annual plan. If you would add more than a handful of $1.99 packs, or might change platforms in the next two years, the subscription comes out ahead. If you are on one iPad and the Basic Shapes pack covers you, Essentials is cheaper from the second year onward.

Precision tools and PDF markup

This is where Concepts earns its following among architects and product designers. The toolset covers dot, graph, lined, isometric and triangle grids, perspective grids, custom grids, snap, scale and measurement, shape guides for arcs, lines, angles, rectangles and ellipses, and shape recognition, which reached iOS in version 6.23 in March 2025.

Once a scale is set you draw in real-world units, and TopHatch's business pitch adds automatic area measurement. Multi-page PDFs can be imported, marked up and exported again, which makes Concepts a practical way to redline a client's floor plan on a tablet. Export covers PDF (vector and raster), JPG, PNG and PSD, plus SVG and DXF for moving work into illustration or CAD software, at 72 to 600 ppi.

What changed in 2026

• iOS 6.37 "iPhone Duo" (late October): the gallery, canvas and tools now adapt as you fold and unfold Apple's foldable, and drawings made on iPad no longer open rotated 90 degrees on iPhone. A 6.37.1 bug-fix release followed.
• iOS 6.36 (30 September): generate images with Apple's Image Playground and drop them onto the canvas from the Import menu on iOS 27 and later, plus new toggles for canvas rotation and zoom snapping.
• iOS 6.35 (August): Objects moved into a new Library with "millions of free stock images powered by Pexels", and objects can be shared across platforms.
• iOS 6.33 and 6.34 (spring and early summer): a Recents section in the Gallery and a direct link to Apple's subscription management.
• Windows 2026.8 and 2026.9 (August and September): Object Pack sharing with colleagues, with updates appearing instantly for everyone with access, and better multi-page PDF import with page selection and auto-layout.
• Android 2026.9: crash fixes around sign-in, purchases, folders and object creation, Object Library polish and per-app language settings.

Image Playground is Apple's generator, not a TopHatch AI feature. On Windows, the roadmap's current work in progress is "Cross Platform Convergence" alongside stability and performance updates, with no dates attached.

Cross-platform fine print: files, sync and collaboration

Concepts runs on iPad, iPhone, Windows, Android and ChromeOS, but the iOS app and the Windows/Android app are still two different products under one name.

• File formats differ. iOS saves .concept files and Windows/Android save .concepts files, and TopHatch says the iOS format "is not yet compatible with the Windows/Android file format". Drawings move freely between Windows, Android and ChromeOS, not between those and an iPad.
• Your account does not sync drawings. In TopHatch's words: "Your drawings are not synced through your Concepts account." On iOS they sync through iCloud Drive (since version 6.12 in April 2024) and appear in the Files app, while drawings saved On This iPad stay local. Windows relies on whatever sync tool you have installed, and Android offers Google Drive backup with cloud syncing marked "Coming Soon".
• No live co-editing. "Concepts does not support real-time collaboration", so two people cannot work on the same drawing at once.
• Fewer features off iOS. The Windows, Android and ChromeOS apps lack custom brushes, brush pack import and export, custom, dynamic and shared color palettes, presentation mode and widgets; shared object packs are listed as "Coming Soon". Windows does add Wacom tablet and Surface Dial support.

Hardware requirements are modest: iOS or iPadOS 15 with Metal, Windows 10 (build 19041) with 4GB of RAM and DirectX 11, or Android 8 with OpenGL ES 3.1.

Privacy, AI and your data

An account is optional - "You do not need to create a Concepts account to use the app." A free account syncs settings, color palettes, brush presets and purchased packs, and TopHatch says that information "is used only for account management and is never sold."

TopHatch's machine-learning features, such as handwriting search in notes and object recognition, run "entirely on your device" and are never sent to an external server. The company states that "Your drawings are never used to train any ML models", and the features can be switched off in Gallery Settings.

The App Store privacy label is less spotless: it lists your email as data linked to you and used for the developer's advertising or marketing, plus analytics such as purchase history, user ID and device ID. The privacy policy, updated 9 July 2026, says TopHatch does "not currently sell your Personal Data", and Google Play's data-safety section reports no data shared with third parties and encryption in transit.

Ratings and what users complain about

Store ratings on 30 October 2026 were strong across the board: 4.7 out of 5 from 27K ratings on the App Store, 4.4 from 24.6K reviews and 5M+ downloads on Google Play, and 4.6 from 9,072 ratings on the Microsoft Store.

The recurring complaints are about money and parity rather than drawing quality: the free version is not truly vector, the subscription feels expensive to casual users ("$29.99 is too much money", as one Play Store reviewer wrote), and Windows and Android trail iOS on features. Earlier reports of lost lifetime purchases drew a reply from TopHatch that the issue "was resolved".

Teams, Enterprise and education

Concepts for Business costs $10 per teammate per month or $100 per year, with a 30-day free trial. Every seat gets every tool on every platform, licenses can be reassigned when people leave, and billing is self-service. TopHatch pitches it at design and architecture firms with real-world scale and measurement, automatic area measurement, multi-page PDF markup, presentation mode, export to CAD and shared object libraries. Enterprise starts "From $200, customized for your team".

Schools get the full app free. A faculty or staff member has to request access for the institution - "Student requests will not be approved" - after which students log in with their school email to unlock everything, including the whole Pro Shop.

Verdict: who should pay, and for which tier

• Stay free if you sketch, plan loosely or take visual notes and JPG export is enough.
• Buy Essentials ($39.99 once) if you live on one platform and need editable vectors, precision tools, PDF markup and SVG or DXF export.
• Subscribe to Everything ($29.99/year) if you move between iPad and Windows or Android, or want every brush and object pack.
• Choose Teams ($10 per user per month) if a studio needs re-assignable licenses and shared object libraries.
• Look elsewhere if you need real-time co-editing or one file that opens natively on both iPad and Windows.

Concepts is still one of the best vector sketching apps for a stylus, and one of the few that lets you pay once. Start on the free plan, and only pay when you hit a specific wall - the five-layer cap, JPG-only export or the lack of stroke editing. Which tier to buy then depends mostly on how many platforms you use.

Frequently asked questions

Is Concepts really free?

Yes, the core app is free with no time limit. You get the infinite canvas, unlimited drawings, five layers, grids, snap and measurement, and JPG export; editable vectors, extra layers and pro export formats need Essentials or the subscription.

Is Essentials a lifetime purchase, and does it work on all my devices?

It is a one-time $39.99 purchase, but it only unlocks the platform you buy it on. It syncs across devices on the same App Store or Google Play account, but an iOS purchase does not unlock Windows or Android - only the subscription is cross-platform.

How does the free trial work, and how do I cancel?

Both the monthly and yearly subscriptions start with a 7-day free trial, and you must cancel before it ends to avoid being charged. Cancel in the store you paid through: App Store profile > Subscriptions, account.microsoft.com/services, Google Play > Payments & subscriptions > Subscriptions, or Samsung Galaxy Store > Menu > Subscriptions.

Can I get a refund?

Refunds go through the store, not TopHatch. On iOS you request one at reportaproblem.apple.com, on Windows through Request a return in your Microsoft account order history, and on Android through Google Play, which TopHatch's help article says applies if you bought less than 48 hours ago. Separately, TopHatch's terms say that if it ends a subscription itself, you get a prorated refund where applicable.

Can I open my iPad drawings on Windows or Android?

Not as native files. The iOS .concept format is not yet compatible with the Windows/Android .concepts format, so moving work between them means exporting a format such as PDF, PNG or PSD and importing it on the other side.

Does my Concepts account back up my drawings?

No. The account syncs settings, palettes, brush presets and purchases, but never drawings. Use iCloud Drive on iOS, your own sync tool on Windows, or Google Drive backup on Android.

Does Concepts use my drawings to train AI?

No. TopHatch says its machine-learning features run on your device and that your drawings are never used to train any ML models. Image Playground import uses Apple's own generator on iOS 27 and later.

Is Concepts free for students?

Yes, if your school joins the education program. A faculty or staff member must request access for the institution; once approved, students sign in with their school email to unlock every feature.

Key takeaways

• The free plan has no time limit: infinite canvas, unlimited drawings and five layers, but JPG-only export and no stroke editing.
• Essentials is $39.99 once and locked to the platform you buy it on; it excludes brush and object packs and Make Your Own Objects.
• Everything costs $4.99/month or $29.99/year with a 7-day trial and is the only individual plan that unlocks iOS, Windows, Android and ChromeOS together.
• iOS and Windows/Android files are not compatible, drawings never sync through the Concepts account, and there is no real-time collaboration.
• Machine learning runs on-device and drawings are never used for training; refunds go through the app store you paid.