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Productivity · head to head

Beautiful.ai vs Microsoft OneNote

Beautiful.ai logo

Beautiful.ai

Productivity

Create professional presentations in minutes, not hours

From
$14.5/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Microsoft OneNote logo

Microsoft OneNote

Productivity

Microsoft's free-form notebook, free with a Microsoft account and synced through OneDrive

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Microsoft OneNote has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Beautiful.ai enterprise pricing requires contacting sales; Microsoft OneNote notes live in a proprietary notebook format on OneDrive or SharePoint and the only exports are a OneNote file, a PDF or a Word document, produced section by section, so a large notebook is effectively unmovable to any other tool.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Beautiful.ai and Microsoft OneNote actually diverge.

Attributes where Beautiful.ai and Microsoft OneNote differ
AttributeBeautiful.aiMicrosoft OneNote
Starting price$14.5/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionfreemium
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebWeb, IOS, Android, MacOS, Windows
FoundedUnknown1975

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Productivity).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Beautiful.ai

Nothing recorded that Microsoft OneNote does not also cover.

Only in Microsoft OneNote

  • Free-form page canvas
  • Notebook hierarchy
  • Indexed handwriting
  • Audio recording
  • Web clipper and Outlook capture
  • Shared notebooks
  • Cross-platform clients
  • Tags and cross-notebook search

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Beautiful.ai

  • Presentation designnot Microsoft OneNote
  • Content generationnot Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote

  • Handwritten notes on a pen tablet that you still need to find months later by searching for a word you wrote.not Beautiful.ai
  • Lecture or meeting notes where a recording needs to line up with what you were typing at the time.not Beautiful.ai
  • A team already inside Microsoft 365 that needs a shared notebook without buying anything or seeking approval.not Beautiful.ai
  • Collecting mixed material such as screenshots, clippings and sketches on one page, where a document editor would force a linear structure.not Beautiful.ai

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Beautiful.ai

  • Enterprise pricing requires contacting sales
  • Annual commitment for Pro plan; annual subscriptions non-refundable after 24 hours
  • Monthly subscriptions are non-refundable

Microsoft OneNote

  • Notes live in a proprietary notebook format on OneDrive or SharePoint and the only exports are a OneNote file, a PDF or a Word document, produced section by section, so a large notebook is effectively unmovable to any other tool.
  • Personal notebooks consume OneDrive quota, which is 5 GB on a free Microsoft account, so a notebook full of scans, images and recordings quietly exhausts the whole account including the space Outlook needs for mail.
  • Sync happens at section level and conflicts are resolved by placing both versions on the page, so simultaneous edits to a large or media-heavy section produce duplicated content that somebody has to merge by hand.
  • Search behaves differently across clients, so what the Windows desktop app finds inside handwriting, images and attachments is not necessarily what the browser or mobile version finds, and the same query gives different answers on different devices.
  • There is no relational structure, no database and no properties, so anything that needs a table of records with fields has to be maintained by hand or moved elsewhere, and OneNote's own tables cannot be queried or filtered.

Pricing, plan by plan

Beautiful.ai

$14.5/month
  • Pro$14.5/month
    • Single user
    • Unlimited AI content generation
  • Team$40/month per user
    • 2-20 team members
    • Real-time collaborative editing
  • Monthly$45/month
    • Single user access
  • Enterprise$null/custom
    • Unlimited seats
    • Top-tier security

Microsoft OneNote

Free

No published plan breakdown. See the Microsoft OneNote review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Beautiful.ai if

Nothing in the data separates Beautiful.ai from Microsoft OneNote on the points above - pick on price and on how each one feels to use.

Beautiful.ai review

Choose Microsoft OneNote if

  • You need free-form page canvas.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, IOS, Android, MacOS, Windows.
  • You also want notebook hierarchy.
Microsoft OneNote review

Questions people ask

Is Beautiful.ai or Microsoft OneNote better?
Neither clearly leads. Beautiful.ai starts at $14.5/month and Microsoft OneNote at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Beautiful.ai or Microsoft OneNote?
Microsoft OneNote has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $14.5/month for Beautiful.ai and Free for Microsoft OneNote.
Does Beautiful.ai or Microsoft OneNote run on more platforms?
Beautiful.ai runs on Web. Microsoft OneNote runs on Web, IOS, Android, MacOS, Windows.
Can I use Microsoft OneNote for free?
Yes. Microsoft OneNote has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Beautiful.ai starts at $14.5/month.
What is Beautiful.ai best used for?
Beautiful.ai is most often used for presentation design, content generation. Of those, presentation design and content generation are not what Microsoft OneNote is typically brought in for.
What can Beautiful.ai do that Microsoft OneNote cannot?
Microsoft OneNote covers Free-form page canvas, Notebook hierarchy, Indexed handwriting, Audio recording.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Beautiful.ai: How much does Beautiful.ai's Pro plan cost?

Beautiful.ai Pro costs $14.50 per month when billed annually, with a 14-day free trial available. Monthly billing costs $45.

Source
Microsoft OneNote: Is OneNote really free?

Yes. The application is free with a Microsoft account, with no time limit and no feature gate. What you may end up paying for is the OneDrive storage the notebooks consume.

Beautiful.ai: What is the pricing for Beautiful.ai's Team plan?

The Team plan for 2-20 team members costs $50 per month per user with monthly billing or $40 per month per user when billed annually.

Source
Microsoft OneNote: Can I keep notebooks off Microsoft's cloud?

The Windows desktop app can keep local notebooks, but they will not sync to other devices and any shared access requires OneDrive or SharePoint.

Beautiful.ai: Is there a refund policy for Beautiful.ai subscriptions?

Annual Pro subscriptions receive a partial refund if requested within 24 hours. Monthly subscriptions are non-refundable.

Source
Microsoft OneNote: How do I get my notes out?

Section by section as a OneNote file, a PDF or a Word document. A OneNote package preserves a whole notebook but only for another copy of OneNote. Third-party converters exist and the page layout usually does not survive them.

Beautiful.ai: Does Beautiful.ai offer a free tier?

Beautiful.ai does not offer a free plan but provides a 14-day free trial for the Pro plan that requires a credit card.

Source
Microsoft OneNote: Which version should I install?

Microsoft consolidated onto a single OneNote application on Windows after retiring the Store version, so install the one distributed with Microsoft 365 rather than looking for an alternative.

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