Standard Notes Review 2026: Encrypted Notes Under Proton, Still Worth $90 a Year?
Standard Notes review for 2026: free vs Productivity ($90/yr) vs Professional ($120/yr), encryption and audits, what changed under Proton, and who should pay.
Standard Notes is an end-to-end encrypted, open-source notes app that Proton bought in April 2024. Two and a half years later it still runs as its own product with its own subscription, and the prices have not moved: the free Standard tier, Productivity at $90 a year and Professional at $120 a year.
This review is for people deciding in 2026 whether to pay for it. We cover what the free tier really gives you, what each paid tier adds, how the security claims hold up, what has changed since the Proton deal, and where Obsidian, Notion or Simplenote are the better fit. Prices and plan details were checked on the official plans page on October 2, 2026.
Verdict in brief
Standard Notes is still one of the most trustworthy places to keep private notes. Encryption is on for everyone, including free users. The code is open source and has been audited four times. Your data exports cleanly as plain text files. What it is not is a cheap or feature-rich writing tool. The free tier is plain text only, billing is annual with no trial, and the rich Super editor, folders and the Web Clipper all sit behind a $90 yearly plan.
- Best for: journalists, lawyers, clinicians, activists and anyone whose notes would hurt if they leaked.
- Best tier for most buyers: Productivity ($90/year), unless you need encrypted file storage, which only Professional ($120/year) has.
- Skip it if: you want backlinks, plugins and graph views (Obsidian), team databases (Notion), or a free markdown notebook with no strings (Simplenote).
Pricing and plans in 2026
The official plans page lists three tiers. All paid plans are billed yearly. The Terms of Service also mention 5-year terms, but no 5-year price appears on the plans page, so treat any figure you see elsewhere as unverified.
- Standard (Free): $0 a year.
- Productivity: $90 a year (works out to $7.50 a month, billed annually).
- Professional: $120 a year (works out to $10.00 a month, billed annually).
There is no free trial for paid features: the plans page says "We don't have a trial system at present for our paid features." Lifetime plans are not offered either. Students get a 30% discount, and payment is by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or PayPal. On the US App Store, the in-app Professional Plan is listed at $119.99; the listing does not say what term that covers.
Refunds instead of a trial
The plans page promises a 100% refund within 14 days on Productivity and 90 days on Professional. The Terms of Service say 15 days for Productivity, so the 14-day figure is the safe one to plan around. App Store purchases are refunded through Apple under Apple's rules, not by Standard Notes.
What the free tier includes
Free users get the same encryption as paying users, plus unlimited device sync across web, desktop and mobile, offline access, tags, password protection for individual notes, two-factor authentication, full export (encrypted or plaintext) and daily encrypted email backups. The catch is the editor: free notes are plain text only. Version history is limited to the current session; remote revision history needs a paid plan.
What Productivity adds ($90/year)
- Super notes: markdown and rich text, checklists and code snippets in one editor.
- Spreadsheets with advanced formulas, and Daily Notebooks for journaling.
- Folders, which free users do not get (they only have tags).
- The Web Clipper and a built-in 2FA authenticator for your other accounts.
- One year of note revision history and sign-in email notifications.
What Professional adds ($120/year)
- 100GB of encrypted cloud storage for files, with no file size limit (tested up to 2GB) and offline file access.
Security and privacy
Security is the reason to choose Standard Notes, and the claims are specific. Notes are encrypted with XChaCha20-Poly1305, keys are derived from your password with Argon2, and encrypted data is automatically signed. Encryption happens on your device, so the server only stores ciphertext. The flip side: if you forget your password, nobody can recover your notes.
The client code (the standardnotes/app repository) is licensed AGPL-3.0, and the server code is on GitHub as well. Four independent audits are published: Cure53 in 2022 (server pentest), Trail of Bits in 2020 (client-side protocol and encryption), Cure53 in 2019 (full ecosystem pentest) and Shackle Labs in 2017 (cryptography design review).
The audit gap
The most recent published audit is from 2022. Since then the app has been rebuilt around the Super editor and has changed owners. Nothing suggests a problem, but a buyer who chooses Standard Notes for its security record should know the latest outside check is four years old.
Two-factor authentication (TOTP) is free. Hardware security keys are Professional-only, which is a strange place to draw the line for a privacy-first product.
Apps, editor and daily use
Standard Notes runs on the web at app.standardnotes.com, on Windows, macOS (Apple silicon and Intel) and Linux (deb, snap and AppImage, including arm64), and on iOS and Android. The latest stable desktop release is 3.202.7, published on September 17, 2026; the iOS app reached the same version on September 30, 2026 and holds a 4.67 rating from 3,734 reviews on the US App Store.
On the free tier the app is a fast, clean plain-text notebook. Pay for Productivity and the Super note type turns it into a capable rich-text and markdown editor with checklists and code blocks. It is still deliberately simple: there are no backlinks, no graph view, no plugin store and no AI features. If you want a private notebook that stays out of your way, that is a strength. If you want a second brain, it is a limit.
Search got a real upgrade in 2026
The August 17, 2026 update redesigned the search panel. It added a "Search titles only" option, tag filters inside search, tags in smart views, and in-note find (Cmd/Ctrl+F) for plain notes. For anyone with a few thousand notes this was the most requested fix, and it is the clearest sign that development is moving again.
Life under Proton: what changed and what did not
Proton announced the acquisition on April 10, 2024, when the app had over 300,000 users. Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote that Standard Notes "will remain open source, freely available, and fully supported" and that "Prices are not changing". Standard Notes said existing subscriptions, including 5-year plans, would be honoured and that it would "continue to operate independently as a separate product".
That is broadly what happened. Prices are unchanged, and the product still has its own account system and billing. It is not bundled into Proton plans: Proton Support has said that Standard Notes is not included in Proton Unlimited. So a Proton subscriber who wants it pays twice.
Development slowed at first. The November 2024 update admitted the team "were not able to ship many new features" during a hardening period, while describing the business as healthy with tens of thousands of paying customers. The December 2025 update said Proton had added dedicated engineers and listed a command palette, image alignment in Super and importer fixes. The August 2026 search release followed, and Proton's localization team is working on more languages, which Standard Notes expects to bear results before the end of 2026.
Importing, exporting and self-hosting
Getting in is easy for most sources. Standard Notes imports Evernote ENEX files (notes up to 3MB each), Google Keep Takeout HTML files (not JSON), Simplenote's notes.json and plain text. The maximum import file size is 50MB.
Getting out is even easier, which matters more for a long-term notes app. You can export everything encrypted or decrypted, and the decrypted export is a folder of plain text files. The desktop app also makes automatic daily backups while it runs, and the free tier includes daily encrypted email backups (sent only when your data changed).
Self-hosting is possible in two ways: the built-in Home Server in the desktop app, which serves devices on your local network while the desktop app is open, or a private server deployed with Docker. Self-hosted servers work with the desktop and mobile apps but not with the official web app. Paid features on a self-hosted server need an offline subscription that is activated manually and sold at a discount to the hosted plans.
Standard Notes vs Obsidian, Notion and Simplenote
- Obsidian: free for personal use, local markdown files, huge plugin ecosystem, backlinks and graph view. Choose it for knowledge work; choose Standard Notes if you want encrypted sync without assembling it yourself. See our Obsidian review.
- Notion: a team workspace with databases, wikis and AI. It is not end-to-end encrypted, so it answers a different question. Choose Notion for collaboration, Standard Notes for private notes.
- Simplenote: free, plain text and markdown, and also synced across devices, but not end-to-end encrypted and largely in maintenance mode. Standard Notes' free tier is the more private plain-text option. See our Simplenote review.
- Evernote: more features (web clipping, OCR, AI) and a capped free plan. If you are leaving Evernote for privacy reasons, Standard Notes imports ENEX files directly. See our Evernote review.
Who should pay, and for which tier
- Start on the free tier. It is genuinely usable for plain-text notes, and you can confirm the apps suit you before spending anything.
- Upgrade to Productivity if you want formatting, checklists, folders or the Web Clipper. Do it knowing you have 14 days for a full refund.
- Choose Professional if you need encrypted file storage, attachments, hardware keys or want to share one subscription with up to five people. Its 90-day refund window is also the closest thing to a real trial.
Our view: Standard Notes is worth paying for if privacy is the reason you are shopping. At $90 a year it is expensive for what the editor does, but you are paying for audited end-to-end encryption, open code and clean exports, and the Proton deal has, so far, made the product more stable, not less.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Standard Notes cost in 2026?
The Standard plan is free, Productivity is $90 a year and Professional is $120 a year. Paid plans are billed annually; the plans page shows no monthly option.
Is there a free trial of Standard Notes paid plans?
No. Standard Notes says it has no trial system for paid features. Instead, it offers a full refund within 14 days on Productivity and 90 days on Professional.
Is Standard Notes included in Proton Unlimited?
No. Proton Support has said Standard Notes is not included in Proton Unlimited. It is sold separately with its own account and subscription.
Does the free tier of Standard Notes have end-to-end encryption?
Yes. Every account, free or paid, uses the same end-to-end encryption (XChaCha20-Poly1305 with Argon2). The free tier also includes unlimited device sync, 2FA and daily encrypted email backups; what it lacks is rich formatting and remote revision history.
Can I attach files to notes on the Productivity plan?
No. Encrypted file attachments and the 100GB of file storage are Professional-only. Productivity covers rich notes, spreadsheets, folders and the Web Clipper, but not files.
Does Standard Notes offer a lifetime plan?
No. Standard Notes states that lifetime subscriptions are not offered. Subscriptions are sold on yearly terms, and the Terms of Service also mention 5-year terms.
Can I self-host Standard Notes?
Yes. You can run the built-in Home Server from the desktop app or deploy a private server with Docker. Self-hosted servers work with the desktop and mobile apps but not the official web app, and paid features need a separate, discounted offline subscription.
What happens to my notes if I forget my password?
They cannot be recovered by Standard Notes. Your password derives the encryption keys, so keep it in a password manager and keep a local backup export.
Key takeaways
- Standard Notes costs $0, $90 or $120 a year; paid plans are annual only, with no trial and no lifetime option.
- The free tier is fully encrypted with unlimited sync, but notes are plain text only.
- Productivity unlocks the Super editor, folders and the Web Clipper; file storage and attachments need Professional.
- Four independent audits are published, but the latest is from 2022.
- Proton kept prices unchanged and development has picked up, but Standard Notes is not part of Proton Unlimited.
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