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Monthly report · September 2026

Note-taking, September 2026: 0 open gaps across 7 read companies.

As the catalog read it in September 2026 · written Oct 1, 2026. This report does not change after it is written.

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Forge’s own counts and the quoted claims with their sources are CC BY 4.0 — cite as Ambera Forge, Note-taking, September 2026. Carried market-size figures are their publishers’ and are not in the file.

What was read

7 companies placed; 6 read during September 2026.

Gaps closed and opened

No complaint theme was raised about two or more read companies this month. There is no previous month on record to compare against.

Who entered

7 companies placed (Obsidian, Notion, Bear, Evernote, Craft, Lock-in and sync, Students and knowledge workers); 0 products sighted by a search and not yet read.

Pricing moves

6 of 7 read companies have a pricing entry on record; 8 pricing changes recorded across 6 companies this month.

  • Obsidian [COMPANY CLAIM] Sep 30, 2026 · 2 changes this monthObsidian's pricing consists of the free core app plus four paid add-ons: Sync at $5/month ($4/month billed annually), Publish at $10/month ($8/month billed annually), Catalyst as a one-time $25+ donation tier, and an optional Commercial license at $50/user/year. Students, faculty, and nonprofit employees get 40% off Sync and Publish. source
  • Bear [FACT] Sep 30, 2026 · 1 change this monthBear offers a free plan (local notes, basic editing, limited export, single device) and a Bear Pro plan priced at $2.99/month or $29.99/year, with a 14-day free trial. source
  • Notion [COMPANY CLAIM] Sep 30, 2026 · 2 changes this monthNotion's current pricing baseline (per third-party pricing trackers referencing Notion's own page) is Free ($0), Plus ($10/member/month annual, $12 monthly), Business ($20/member/month annual, $24 monthly), and Enterprise (custom). Full Notion AI capability (AI Agents, Ask Notion) is gated to the Business plan and above; Free and Plus receive only a limited AI trial allocation. source
  • Evernote [COMPANY CLAIM] Sep 30, 2026 · 1 change this monthEvernote's 2026 lineup is reported as Free, Starter, Advanced, and Enterprise (custom), replacing the older Personal/Professional naming; one tracker cites Starter at $8.25/mo ($99/yr) and Advanced at $20.83/mo ($249.99/yr), with the free tier cut to 50 notes and 1 notebook. source
  • Craft [FACT] Sep 30, 2026 · 1 change this monthCraft's current plan structure is Starter (Free) with up to 1,500 content blocks, 1GB storage, 25MB media uploads, 7-day version history, and 15 AI credits/month; Plus at roughly $8/month (with discounted rates shown, e.g. $6.4/month) offering unlimited documents/storage/media, 30-day version history, and 50 AI credits/month; Family as a fixed-price bundle of 2-6 Plus accounts; and Team as a fixed-price bundle of up to 10 Plus accounts (~$50/month). source
  • Lock-in and sync [FACT] Sep 30, 2026 · 1 change this monthEvernote replaced its Personal/Professional plans with new Starter and Advanced tiers, with price increases reported to $8.25/month for Starter and $20.83/month for Advanced; US renewals reportedly jumped from $129 to $249 and EU from €99 to €199. source

What users raised

24 themes raised by users; the most raised: Apple-ecosystem lock-in (1 of 6), automatic charges (1 of 6), capture without retrieval ('save everything and find nothing') (1 of 6).

  • Apple-ecosystem lock-in 1/6
  • automatic charges 1/6
  • capture without retrieval ('save everything and find nothing') 1/6
  • Commercial license confusion/compliance overhead 1/6
  • Cost for plain-text notes 1/6
  • iPad multi-block text selection limitations 1/6
  • Large pricing increases at renewal 1/6
  • Limited customization/advanced feature depth (G2 reviews) 1/6
  • Long migration effort for large note collections 1/6
  • manual organization burden in Obsidian/Notion despite good linking 1/6
  • Mobile sync reliability issues 1/6
  • No API or CLI for bulk export 1/6
  • No built-in real-time collaboration 1/6
  • No warranted new features for price paid 1/6
  • output quality depends on recording clarity for audio-to-note tools 1/6
  • Paid sync required for multi-device use 1/6
  • price hikes 1/6
  • pricier than alternatives like Notion/Obsidian 1/6
  • Privacy concerns 1/6
  • setup/time investment required for customization (Notion over-customizing) 1/6
  • Shared-vault limitations 1/6
  • Sync reliability issues 1/6
  • Vendor lock-in with proprietary formats 1/6
  • weakened/shrunk free plan 1/6

Funding by quarter

Withheld: something was read in 1 of the last 8 quarters. A series needs at least 2 to say anything a single reading does not.

The ledger this month

27 observed claims recorded this month, 1 inference counted apart, 4 sources that did not answer.

  • PRODUCT · 9
  • PRICING · 8
  • COMPLAINT · 4
  • FUNDING · 2
  • POSITIONING · 2
  • DISCOURSE · 1
  • PEOPLE · 1

How big this market is, as its publishers state it

No market-size figure has been recorded for this level yet. Not read is not zero.

Research-house estimates for this sector, carried side by side under each house’s own name. Estimates of one market can differ several-fold; none is averaged, and none is Forge’s.

No publisher is named for this level yet, so there is nothing to read from. Publishers are authored in the taxonomy and arrive with a deploy.

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