Microsoft OneNote review: price, free version and privacy

Our verdict

OneNote is the best free default for students who want organized notebooks on every device, especially with a Windows PC. If you want minimal data collection or run an older device, choose another app.

What Microsoft OneNote is

Microsoft OneNote organizes notes into notebooks, sections and pages. Each page is a free canvas where you can type, write with Apple Pencil, paste images, clip web content and dictate notes. The description also lists a scanner that extracts text from documents, to-do tags, sticky notes, and Copilot Notebooks, which summarize classes and discussions from your notes.

Who it suits

• Free note-taking for most students
• Windows users who also take notes on iPad
• Organizing notes by class and unit

Strengths

• Free to use; a Microsoft 365 subscription is optional.
• Notebooks, sections and pages map well onto classes and units.
• Notes open on Windows, Mac, Android and the web as well as iPhone and iPad.
• Voice dictation in 27 languages, and rated 4.7 from about 1.1 million ratings.

Limits

• You must sign in with a Microsoft account or a work or school account.
• The privacy label links seven data types to you, including location and contacts.
• It requires iOS 26, so older iPhones and iPads cannot install the current version.
• Free-form pages can get messy, and some students find them less tidy for PDF-heavy courses than page-based notebook apps.

What the free version does

The description says OneNote is free on iPhone and other devices. You need a Microsoft account to sign in, but not a subscription to take notes.

Price

On the US App Store in November 2026, Microsoft 365 Personal is listed at $9.99 and $11.99 and Microsoft 365 Family at $12.99. The description says subscriptions bought in the app are monthly.

Privacy

The privacy label declares no tracking, but location, contact info, contacts, user content, identifiers, usage data and diagnostics are linked to your identity.

What the screenshots show

The screenshots show the Home feed, which gathers recent pages from several notebooks (school, recipes, travel) into one list, with Search and Notebooks tabs.