Heptabase review covering visual whiteboards, AI chat, PDF and note linking, pricing tiers and how it compares to Obsidian and Notion in 2026.
Heptabase grew out of founder Alan Chan's own frustration trying to use existing note-taking tools to make sense of complex academic material, leading him and co-founders Yeefun Lin and Ethan Wu to build a product where the whiteboard, not the document, is the primary unit of organization. Notes live as cards that can be dropped onto multiple boards and linked freely, letting users see relationships between ideas visually rather than through folders or backlink lists alone.
Since launching out of Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch, the Taipei-based team has grown a loyal following among PhD students, researchers and strategists, reaching seven-figure annual recurring revenue within about two years while keeping the team small and largely self-funded from subscriptions.
The core experience revolves around unlimited notes, whiteboards and tags, with cards that can be linked, tagged and arranged spatially across as many boards as a user needs. PDF import with highlighting and, on higher tiers, OCR-based parsing lets users pull research papers directly into their whiteboards, while YouTube transcript import turns videos into searchable, linkable notes.
AI chat is built directly into the note-taking workflow, letting users ask questions that draw on their own notes as context, with Premium and Premium+ tiers unlocking more advanced models from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic plus an AI tutor mode aimed at helping students work through difficult material.
Heptabase sells three individual subscription tiers, Pro at 8.99 dollars a month, Premium at 17.99 dollars a month and Premium+ at 53.99 dollars a month, with no permanent free plan and only a 7-day free trial to evaluate the product.
The main differences between tiers are AI capability and PDF handling: Pro covers the core note-taking and whiteboard experience with a modest AI credit allowance, while Premium and Premium+ add unlimited OCR-based PDF parsing, access to more advanced AI models and progressively larger monthly AI credit allotments, with annual billing cutting the effective price by roughly a quarter.
Heptabase organizes notes around infinite visual whiteboards rather than folders or linear documents, letting users spatially connect cards, PDFs and video notes to map relationships between ideas.
No, Heptabase does not offer a permanent free plan; it provides a 7-day free trial before requiring a Pro, Premium or Premium+ subscription.
Heptabase was founded in 2021 in Taipei, Taiwan by Yu-An (Alan) Chan, Yeefun Lin and Ethan Wu, and launched publicly through Y Combinator's Winter 2022 batch.
Yes, Heptabase has native apps for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android that all sync to the same account.
Heptabase is designed primarily as a single-player tool for individual researchers and does not currently offer dedicated team or workspace plans.
Obsidian is a free, plugin-driven, file-based note app, while Heptabase is a paid subscription product built around a visual whiteboard interface with built-in PDF import, video import and AI chat.