A JotterPad alternative you buy once
JotterPad is a big, capable writing app — screenplays, 100+ templates, cloud sync, publishing. It also watermarks the PDF you export for free, sells its lifetime licence one platform at a time, and its Play listing declares that it may collect your files and share device identifiers. Inkiostro is one purchase for the app, and its data-safety form is empty.
JotterPad and Inkiostro are aimed at different writers, and the tables below try to say so fairly. JotterPad is a writing suite: Markdown and Fountain, screenwriting formats, over a hundred document templates, BibTeX citations, plugins for mind maps and chemistry notation, an AI assistant, and direct publishing to Ghost, WordPress and Tumblr. If you write screenplays, that list is not padding — it is the product.
What is worth knowing before you commit is the shape of the pricing, which JotterPad documents on its own help site. The free tier prints a watermark on your PDF. Creative/Pro is a lifetime payment, but it is one licence per platform — Android, iOS and Mac are bought separately, and the licence is non-transferable. Pro Cloud unlocks every platform and adds cloud sync, and it is a monthly or annual subscription. Cloud storage is Pro Cloud only: on the free and Pro tiers you cannot create or edit documents in Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive at all.
Inkiostro takes the other road, and it costs it something. There is no cloud sync yet, no Fountain, no templates and no publishing. What you get instead is an editor that opens straight into three panes on a tablet, a PDF you can export for free without a watermark — a small credit line at the bottom is the only difference from the Pro one — and a purchase that is a purchase.
Inkiostro vs JotterPad, feature by feature
A ✓ means it ships today. Notes mark the differences worth knowing about.
| Feature | Inkiostro | JotterPad |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free · Pro $34.99 once (US) · 7-day trial | Free tier · Pro is one lifetime licence per platform · Pro Cloud is a subscription |
| Free PDF export | Yes · small credit line at the bottom | Yes · with a watermark |
| One purchase covers | Android | One platform — Android, iOS and Mac bought separately |
| Cloud sync | No — Google Drive planned for a later version | Pro Cloud only · Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive |
| Where documents live | A folder you choose, as plain .md files | In-app file manager, or cloud with Pro Cloud |
| Data collected | None — no analytics, no telemetry | Play listing: may collect personal info and files, may share device IDs |
| Three panes on a tablet | Files, editor and live preview side by side | Editor with preview |
| LaTeX math | Free | Pro |
| Mermaid diagrams | Free | Plugin |
| EPUB export | Pro | ✓ |
| Word (.docx) export | — | Pro Cloud |
| Fountain & screenwriting formats | — | ✓ |
| Document templates | — | 100+ |
| Publish to Ghost, WordPress, Tumblr | — | ✓ |
| Version history | Pro · word-by-word diff, restore one block | Pro · version control |
| Works with no account at all | ✓ | Free tier only, with the watermark |
JotterPad — pricing and features checked on 1 September 2026 from JotterPad. own site. Both products change — verify before you buy.
Inkiostro Pro is $34.99 in the United States. Google Play converts that into each country's own price, with local taxes and rounding, so what you see on the store is the figure that counts.
Where JotterPad is the right choice
- You write screenplays. Fountain, the industry-standard formats — Broadway musical, BBC stage play, Dramatists Guild — and export to Final Draft are things Inkiostro does not do at all and has no plan to.
- You want templates. Over a hundred of them, from APA and MLA papers to novels with drop caps, and a PDF that comes out already formatted.
- You need sync today. Pro Cloud puts your documents in Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive and keeps Android, iOS, Mac and the web in step. Inkiostro has nothing to offer here yet.
- You publish to a blog from the editor, or you manage citations with BibTeX. Both are real features and Inkiostro has neither.
- You want one product across Android, iOS, Mac and the web on a single subscription.
Where Inkiostro pulls ahead
- A free PDF with no watermark. The free export carries a small credit line at the bottom of the page; the theme, the fonts, the images and the formulas are identical to the Pro one. Nothing is stamped across your text.
- One purchase, and it is not per platform. Inkiostro Pro on Android is bought once and stays yours, updates included.
- Nothing is collected. No analytics, no telemetry, not even anonymous — the data-safety form is empty, which is not a claim you can make while shipping an ad ID.
- Files that stay files. Your documents are .md in a folder you chose, readable by any other editor, with no in-app library to export from.
- LaTeX and Mermaid without paying for either, rendered live and exported as selectable text rather than as pictures.
Moving your documents
JotterPad exports Markdown, and if you are on Pro Cloud your documents may already be sitting in a Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive folder. Either way they are .md files: put them in a folder on the device, point Inkiostro at it, and they open as they are. No import, no conversion, and the files stay exactly where you left them if you decide to go back.