PaperBrain
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OCR + AI for the notebooks you already own

Ask your
notebooks
anything.

Snap a page. Ask anything about your library. PaperBrain cites the source every time.

$9.99/mo after the trial. Cancel in week one and you're never charged. Card required.

See how it works
Reads real handwriting cursive, scratch-outs, marginalia — it figures it out
Your pages stay yours private notebook, not a public model dataset
Search like Notion but the source is the page on your desk

Encrypted at rest. Never sold. Never trained on.

How it works

Three steps from messy page to useful memory.

  1. 01

    Snap a page

    Drag in a photo, upload a scan, or use your phone camera. Lined paper, graph, sticky notes, the back of a receipt — it all goes in the same notebook.

  2. 02

    We read it

    A vision model trained on real handwriting transcribes the page, keeps the structure (lists, headers, scratched-out lines), and tags it for later.

  3. 03

    Ask it anything

    Search by text, jump straight to the page, or open the workspace and ask whole-notebook questions. PaperBrain answers and cites the exact note.

What you get

A real notebook, with a memory that doesn't fade.

Search every page

Full-text search across your library. Find the meeting, the recipe, the lecture — even if your handwriting is, well, yours.

AI workspace

Open a chat that knows everything in your library. Summaries, connections, action items, all cited back to the original page.

Collections

Group pages into projects, courses, or research threads. Scatter them on the desk, pin the important ones, archive the rest.

Tagging that learns

Auto-tags by topic and project. You can correct it; it remembers. Rename a tag once and the rest of your library catches up.

Time-aware

Every page is timestamped. Ask about "last quarter's sketches" or "what I wrote the week of the launch" and get the right pile.

Share a page

Send a clean link to a single note — original photo plus extracted text, side by side. Great for reading groups and handing off context.

Who it's for

People who think with a pen — and need it later.

Students

Lecture notes you can grep before the exam. Diagrams, marginalia, and the question you scribbled at 2am — all searchable.

Researchers

Field notebooks turn into structured records. Quote a page in your paper without re-typing anything.

Knowledge workers

Stop losing whiteboard photos in your camera roll. Give your meeting notes a permanent address.

From the founder

I built PaperBrain because I'd been carrying the same notebooks around for years and could never find anything in them. Most OCR tools choke on real handwriting. This one doesn't. If yours is the messy kind, I'd love for you to put it through its paces — that's the only kind of test I trust.

David Founder, PaperBrain
Common questions

Answers, in the margin.

How accurate is it on bad handwriting?

Honestly, surprisingly good — cursive, mixed-case, and even "doctor handwriting" come through cleaner than you'd expect. And if something slips through, you can correct any extracted page in seconds; corrections sharpen the result over time.

What happens to my pages?

They stay in your private library. We don't train models on your notes, and you can delete a page (and its extracted text) at any time.

Do I need a special notebook or pen?

No. Whatever you already use. A photo from your phone is enough — we straighten and clean the page on our side.

Is there an iOS or Android app?

Native iOS and Android apps are on the way. Today, PaperBrain runs in your browser — including on mobile — so you can snap a page from your phone whenever you need to.

How much does it cost?

New accounts get a 7-day free trial — then $9.99 a month, flat. Every feature is included, up to 500 pages per month — more than enough for everyday note-takers. Cancel anytime during or after the trial; your notes are yours to keep and export.

Can I export my notes?

Yes. Markdown export per page or per collection. The whole point is that your knowledge is portable — locking it in would defeat it.

Bring your notebook in — free for 7 days.

One flat price. Every feature. Every page. No add-ons, no upsells.

  • Up to 500 pages/month. Phone, scan, or drag & drop — no per-page fees.
  • AI workspace. Ask whole-notebook questions; every answer cites the page.
  • Full-text search across handwriting, headings, tags & collections.
  • Smart auto-tagging. Correct it once; the rest of your library catches up.
  • Original + extracted stored side-by-side, so the source is always one tap away.
  • Markdown export per page or per collection, anytime.
I already have an account

$9.99/mo after the trial. Cancel in week one and you're never charged. Card required. Your notes stay yours — export them on the way out.