Notion Honest Review | Is This Note-Taking App Worth It?

May 19, 2022

Santiago Mallea

Content Writer At Gradehacker

Note-taking apps can be one of the best and easiest ways to improve one’s organizational skills. You want to save all your ideas and documents in one place but still haven’t found the one for you. You are looking for a more modern app with all the best features and for a lower price. There is an option that might suit you, but first, you need an honest Notion review.

Maybe you are tired of leaving all your handwritten notes scattered on your desk, or perhaps creating a Google Docs file for every idea or reminder you have is not as efficient as you thought it would be. You want a productivity app like Notion that schedules all your tasks while keeping your most important notes.

But before you get to try it for yourself, you need a Notion review that explains what experience you can expect from it.

After all, you don’t know how its note tools work, what advanced features you can find, how can you use it, how much it costs, and most importantly, if Notion is worth it.

You are looking for a review, and you’ve found it.

Here at Gradehacker, we are the non-traditional student‘s most trusted resource. We’ve reviewed other helpful apps in the past, such as Grammarly and Speechify, and want to help you improve your college experience with the best and most helpful tools.

That’s why we are sharing our honest Notion review, so you understand how all of their key features work and what you can do with them. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know if Notion is the right choice for you.

But in case you’ve never heard of Notion or other productivity apps, there is a question we need to address before we start.

What is Notion?

Notion is a project management tool for creating and organizing your work schedule. It is a productivity app that lets you save all your ideas, projects, and tasks in one place.

You can write thousands of notes for whatever you need, create to-do lists to track your daily progress, use their reminder tools to set due dates and reminders, synchronize your content calendar with Google, and use their built-in collaboration tools to work with your team.

Even though everyone can use it as a note-taking tool, Notion’s success is due to its development as a task management software. Only with a few years on the market, they have grown to be one of the most used organizational tools, trusted by big companies like Curlogoy, Pixar, and Loom.

There are three ways you can use Notion:

As Notion is a cross-based platform, what you do on one device syncs with all other devices in real-time. So you can use it from your desktop while you are at work and from your phone when you are commuting to college or work.

But which are the key features that make Notion a must for anyone who wishes to improve their organizational skills? Find out in our review:

Notion's Design And User Experience

Notion’s design is both modern and straightforward.

Both their desktop and web version are the same. Its layout consists only of a sidebar on the left. An easy-to-follow interface that makes the user experience simple and intuitive.

You only have to set a main project, and then you can create as many notes as you want, each of them with a different purpose and unique features. This way, you have all your documents organized and in one place.

When you add a new page, Notion automatically lets you choose one of their templates or just pick which database features, such as calendars, tables, and lists, you need to use and start from scratch.

There is not much customization you can do on their layout, except for choosing between light and dark mode, closing the sidebar, and setting icons for your projects.

Still, their interface is as simple as it gets. No additional widgets or home menus, only a side menu on the left with all the shortcuts you’ll ever need.

Regarding their mobile version, the only difference is that the menu is always hidden. Asides from that, the interface and experience remain the same.

Notion's Features

Now, we are taking a closer look at all the key features that make Notion such an outstanding note-taking app.

Task Manager Tools

First, we have all of their note tools. As we explained above, Notion’s workflow is structured into different projects that you have to create. There are dozens of tools within each project note that you can use.

Some of these are:

Project notes are unlimited and endless. You can write and add as many note tools as you wish. Plus, you can also use its reminders tool to keep track of due dates.

The best about these features is that all are included in Notion’s free version. And every time you are about to design tasks, you can also pick if you want to use a custom template.

Speaking of which.

Custom Templates

Another of Notion’s big pros is its ready-made templates. They have a truly extensive catalog with over 250 custom templates to choose from, and each fits perfectly for a broad range of aspects of your life.

Their templates categories include:

Design
Student
Engineering
Human Resources
Marketing
Personal
Product Management
Sales
Support

All of these categories include many custom templates, which are available even for free users!

Each template is unique and has the necessary features to use, depending on which purpose you want to give it. For example, if you go into Student templates and pick “Class Notes”, you’ll have a table that will redirect you to notes you took for other courses, and classify them by class and type, and with the option to include links to the reading material.

You can see all of their templates here.

Web Clipper

They also have a useful browser extension: Notion’s Web Clipper.

With it, you can save any webpage to your Notion workspace. You can keep a database of the important information you find online for future reference and send it to the projects you want. You can even add notes, make it a task, and share it with other team members.

The web clipper appears in the top right corner, and just by clicking on Notion’s logo, you can save the entire website.

Project Management Software

So, we’ve talked about Notion as a note-taking app, but there is an excellent aspect of them we haven’t gotten into much detail yet: their project management software.

Because Notion can be an excellent choice for working teams, they have many built-in collaboration tools, such as live chat, file sharing, task tracking, and project planning features. Project managers can create tasks and assign them to members of the team. They can keep track of tasks, set due dates, add information and links, and change the project progress status.

Integrations

Notion lets you connect with other tools to improve organizing and collaborating with your team.

Some of the integrated apps and websites are:

You can bring data -like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides- into your workspace and make a more developed and structured database with Notion.

API

As Notion is prepared to be a collaborative workspace for people involved in programming, they have launched a beneficial API feature, which allows for programmatic interaction with databases, pages, and content.

With their API, users can customize how they use the app by connecting other software to their workflows within Notion through integrations.

It is still a feature in development but is still available for all users.

So, if you know how to program or would like to build blocks or aggregate data into your workspace, then Notion is an excellent choice for you.

Prices

That’s all with their features. But what about their prices? How much does Notion cost?

Well, there are three plans you can choose from:

The Personal Plan is free. It is made for individuals and includes unlimited pages and blocks with all of the basic features, lets you share it with up to five guests, sync across unlimited devices, and use their API feature.

If you want to step it up, you can use the Personal Pro Plan. It costs $5 per month or $48 per year, and besides everything included in the Personal Plan, you also get unlimited file uploads, unlimited guests, and 30-day version history.

However, if you are working with a team, you have the Team Plan, which charges $10 per month per user or $96 per year. This plan includes unlimited team members, admin tools, sharing permissions, and collaborative workspaces.

If you are part of a big company and would like to use Notion as your main workspace, they have the Enterprise Plan, which offers unlimited version history, a dedicated success manager, advanced security and controls, user provisioning (SCIM), and SAML SSO.

Because this plan is made for large-scale companies, the contract depends on its size, and to find out how much it would cost; you need to contact Notion’s Sales department.

Our Verdict

So, what do we think about Notion?

In our opinion, Notion is the ultimate productivity tool. It has a simple design that makes its experience easy and intuitive. You can use it on any device and organize all your personal and professional tasks in one place.

Their features are everything that you are looking for. Tables, calendars, task lists, and more! You also have the Web Clipper, hundreds of templates that fit into a wide range of specific needs, and really important integrations like Google Calendar, Slack, and GitHub, if you want to sync the information you have in other platforms altogether.

And if you are a programming expert, you have access to Notion’s API and add all the data and software you want.

The best is that all of these tools are available for users with the Personal Plan. While other note-taking apps like Evernote only limit their free versions and enable these features in their paid plans, Notion lets you use them even for free!

In addition, if you wanted to pay for one of their premium plans, you wouldn’t have to pay that much. We consider their prices low and accessible, making it possible to upgrade one’s experience to the Personal Pro Plan (even though if you are a student, it isn’t that necessary).

Perhaps they don’t have the advanced features that other organizational apps have. Still, because of all of their key features, great prices, and many integrations, we believe that Notion is an app that every student or professional should use.

Pros	Cons
Low prices	Isn't as advanced as other note-taking apps
Really complete free version	Limited customization on its interface
Has the most important note-taking features
Over 250 custom templates
Includes important integrations
Has an API
Useful Web Clipper extension
Lets you create tasks and assign them
Great option for teams

Is Notion For You?

Well, do you think Notion is the right choice for you?

It will suit you if you:

We recommend Notion’s free Personal Plan to any student or professional. We think it is incredible that they include all of their best note-taking features and databases, making it a perfect choice for anyone looking to improve how they organize their ideas, tasks, and documents.

Even though paying for the Personal Pro Plan might be necessary if you like uploading media files, the best of their premium subscriptions is their Team Plan. Whether it is a study group or your working team, you can organize all your tasks in one place by assigning them to each other and adding due dates, reminders, and additional information.

We hope that this review helped you see how Notion works and decide if it’s a note-taking app that will make a difference in your life.

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