An iA Writer alternative you buy once, not twice
iA Writer is excellent and it is priced per platform: $49.99 for the Mac app and $49.99 again for iPhone and iPad. Inkiostro covers all three devices for a single $19.99 purchase, with a free tier that never expires.
iA Writer has earned its reputation — the typography is superb and the focus features are the ones everyone else copied. What surprises people is the bill. The Mac app is $49.99 and the iOS app is a separate $49.99, so covering a MacBook, an iPad and an iPhone costs $99.98. There is no subscription on Apple platforms, which is to iA's credit, but it is still two purchases for one workflow.
Inkiostro is one purchase for all three devices, and the free tier is not a trial: unlimited documents, iCloud sync, the full editor, PDF export and print, LaTeX and Mermaid are free with no time limit. Pro at $19.99 adds version history, EPUB and self-contained HTML export, external folders, Focus and Typewriter mode, the remaining themes and system fonts.
Beyond price, the two aim at different halves of the job. iA Writer is the better pure writing surface — the syntax-highlighting-for-grammar feature is genuinely unique. Inkiostro invests in what happens to the document afterwards: version history, LaTeX and Mermaid rendering, and exports that hold up as finished artefacts.
Inkiostro vs iA Writer, feature by feature
A ✓ means it ships today. Notes mark the differences worth knowing about.
| Feature | Inkiostro | iA Writer |
|---|---|---|
| Price for iPhone + iPad + Mac | Free · Pro $19.99 once, all three | $49.99 Mac + $49.99 iOS = $99.98 |
| Free tier with no time limit | ✓ | — |
| iCloud sync | Free | ✓ |
| Version history with restore | Pro · 40 versions per file, restore a single paragraph | Restores via Versions / Time Machine |
| LaTeX math (KaTeX) | Free | — |
| Mermaid diagrams | Free | — |
| PDF export | Free · formulas, diagrams and code stay selectable text | ✓ |
| EPUB export | Pro | — |
| Self-contained HTML export | Pro · single file, styles and images embedded | HTML export |
| Plain .md files on disk | ✓ | ✓ |
| Focus & Typewriter mode | Pro | ✓ |
| Syntax highlighting for parts of speech | — | ✓ |
| Content blocks / transclusion | — | ✓ |
| Windows / Android | — | ✓ |
iA Writer — pricing and features checked on 13 August 2026 from iA Writer. own site. Both products change — verify before you buy.
Where iA Writer is still the right choice
- Syntax Highlight — colouring adjectives, nouns and conjunctions to expose weak prose — is unique to iA Writer and there is no substitute for it.
- You need Windows or Android as well as Apple devices.
- Content blocks: embedding one document inside another is part of how you assemble long pieces.
- The typography and the writing feel are the product for you. iA Writer's type design is the reason people pay twice, and that is a legitimate reason.
Where Inkiostro pulls ahead
- One purchase, three devices. $19.99 once against $99.98, for the same set of machines.
- A free tier that never expires: unlimited documents, iCloud sync, the full editor and PDF export, with no countdown and no nag.
- Version history built into the app: 40 automatic versions per document, a line-by-line diff, and restoring a single paragraph rather than rolling back the whole file.
- LaTeX math and Mermaid diagrams rendered live and carried into every export — neither is in iA Writer.
- EPUB export to a real ebook with a navigation table of contents, plus a self-contained HTML file with styles and images embedded.
Same files, no conversion
iA Writer and Inkiostro both work on ordinary .md files, so moving is a matter of putting the documents where Inkiostro can see them — its iCloud folder, or any folder you point it at with Pro's external folders. Nothing is converted and nothing is locked in. iA Writer content blocks are the one exception: they are an iA-specific extension and become plain text.