Short answer: Capacities costs nothing on the Basic plan, $11.99 a month for Pro billed monthly, or $9.99 a month ($119.88 a year) billed yearly. The AI assistant only comes with Pro, and heavier AI use needs the Pro+ add-on at $8.33 a month billed yearly. If you are weighing it against other tools, Obsidian is the pick for plain files you own, Tana for heavier structure, Heptabase for visual thinking, and Mem for voice and meeting capture. If the knowledge you want to ask about sits in PDFs and reports rather than notes, a document-first tool will serve you better than any note app.
Capacities pricing, plan by plan
Capacities sells three things: a free Basic plan, a paid Pro plan, and a Believer plan that is Pro plus early access for people who want to fund the team. AI is a Pro feature with a monthly budget, and the Pro+ add-on raises that budget for intensive use. These are the US list prices on the Capacities pricing page.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed yearly | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $0 | $0 | Unlimited spaces and objects, sync, offline, full-text search, 5 GB of media then 100 MB a month |
| Pro | $11.99/mo | $9.99/mo ($119.88/yr) | AI assistant, tasks, calendar integration, smart queries, version history, unlimited media, API access |
| Believer | from $12.49/mo | $149.88/yr | Everything in Pro plus beta access to new features |
| Pro+ / Believer+ add-on | n/a | $8.33/mo, billed yearly | A much larger monthly AI budget, one-time top-ups and auto top-up |
So the real price of Capacities with AI you can lean on is about $18.32 a month on yearly billing: $9.99 for Pro plus $8.33 for Pro+. Without the add-on, Capacities describes the Pro AI budget as enough for "light daily use and occasional media". Pro has a free trial inside the app that does not ask for a card.
Is Capacities worth paying for?
Capacities is worth paying for if you like its core idea: every note is an object with a type (a person, a book, a meeting, a project) and properties, so your notes form a database without you building one. Basic already gives you that. You pay for Pro when you want tasks, calendar links, smart queries and AI chat over your notes.
It is harder to justify when the thing you need to search is not in Capacities at all. Most professionals do not keep their best material as notes. They keep it as finished work: a 40-page report, a signed statement of work, a research PDF, a spreadsheet of pricing. Capacities can hold files as media, but its AI is built to work with objects you create, and the Pro budget is small. If you catch yourself copying paragraphs from documents into objects just so the AI can see them, you are paying for the wrong kind of tool.
Capacities alternatives compared on price and AI
US list prices from each vendor's own pricing page. Yearly rates are marked because the discount in this category runs from about 16 to 33%.
| Tool | Price (US) | How notes are organized | AI over your material | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacities | Basic free. Pro $11.99/mo or $9.99/mo yearly. AI add-on $8.33/mo yearly. | Typed objects with properties | Pro only, monthly budget | Structured personal notes without setup |
| Obsidian | Free for personal use. Sync $4/mo yearly or $5 monthly. Commercial license $50/yr. | Markdown files in folders, with links | Only through community plugins you set up | People who want files they own forever |
| Tana | Free, 50 AI queries. Pro $30/mo ($20 annual early bird). Max $120/mo ($80). | Outline nodes with supertags and fields | Credit-based, plus a meeting agent | Heavy structured thinkers |
| Heptabase | Pro $8.99/mo and Premium $17.99/mo, billed yearly. 7-day trial. | Cards on visual whiteboards | Credit-based, more on Premium | Visual learners and researchers |
| Mem | Free. Plus $9/mo. Pro $29/mo. | AI files notes for you | 50 messages a month on Plus, 100 on Pro | Voice and meeting capture |
| Notion | Free plan. Full Notion AI on Business and Enterprise plans. | Pages and databases | Full AI only on the top plans | Teams sharing docs and projects |
| MentalClone | Starter 79 PLN/mo (about $21), or about $11/mo yearly. Professional 199 PLN/mo (about $54). Billed in PLN. | None to maintain: you upload files | Unlimited questions, answers only from your uploads | Professionals whose knowledge sits in documents |
The six Capacities alternatives worth a look
Obsidian: when you want the files on your own disk
Obsidian stores every note as a markdown file in a folder you choose. Nothing depends on a company staying in business, which is the main reason people move from Capacities to Obsidian. The trade is structure: there are no object types out of the box, so you rebuild them with properties, templates and plugins such as Dataview. Personal use is free, Sync is $4 a month on yearly billing, and a commercial license is $50 a year. We compare it in more depth on our Obsidian alternatives page.
Tana: when Capacities' structure feels too light
Tana's supertags go further than Capacities object types: fields, live searches and AI that fills fields for you. It is also much more expensive, $30 a month for Pro at the regular rate, and the product increasingly leans toward meetings. Our Tana alternatives comparison covers the full price list and who leaves it.
Heptabase: when you think in maps
Heptabase puts notes on whiteboards so you can lay out an argument before writing it. Researchers and students who read a lot of papers like it. Pro is $8.99 a month and Premium $17.99 a month on yearly billing, with a seven-day trial and no free plan.
Mem: when capture is the bottleneck
Mem records voice notes with a keyboard shortcut, takes meeting notes and lets an AI agent file everything. Plus is $9 a month for 50 messages to the agent, and Pro is $29 for 100. It suits people who talk more than they type. The meter is the catch for anyone who asks questions all day.
Notion: when a team needs the same notes
If Capacities felt too personal because colleagues need to see and edit the same pages, Notion is the default. Pages, databases, permissions and sharing all work for teams. Full Notion AI sits on the Business and Enterprise plans, so budget for that tier if AI is the reason you are moving.
MentalClone: when the answers are already in your documents
MentalClone is not a note app. You upload the PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets, text files and photographed pages you already have, up to 100 MB each, and ask questions in plain English. The answers come only from your files, in your own wording, and the app says so when your documents do not cover a question instead of filling the gap. There are no object types, tags or folders to maintain. Starter is about $11 a month on yearly billing with unlimited documents and questions. For a wider view of this category, see our personal knowledge management app comparison.
Which Capacities alternative fits your reason for leaving
- "I want to own my files." Obsidian.
- "I want more structure and automation." Tana.
- "I think visually." Heptabase.
- "I capture by voice and in meetings." Mem.
- "My team needs the same workspace." Notion.
- "My knowledge is in reports and PDFs, and I want to ask them questions." MentalClone.
A practical test before you switch: open Capacities and list the last ten things you went looking for. If most of them were objects you wrote there, stay, or move to the tool that improves on the part that annoys you. If most of them were in documents outside Capacities, a note app of any brand will keep failing you in the same way.
Who ends up with a document-first tool instead
The people who make this switch tend to be consultants, analysts, researchers and founders. A consultant has seven years of statements of work and final reports; the question is "what did I recommend to the last two manufacturing clients on inventory?" An analyst has a folder of industry PDFs and interview transcripts; the question is "which sources gave a number for the Texas market?" Writers are a similar case: their notes and research feed articles, and some pair a private archive like this with an AI blog writer that handles keyword research and drafting for the publishing side. None of these people want another place to type notes. They want to ask the documents they already have.
Frequently asked questions
Is Capacities free?
Yes, Capacities has a free Basic plan with unlimited spaces, objects and blocks, sync across devices, offline support, full-text search and 5 GB of media uploads. The AI assistant, tasks, calendar integration, smart queries and version history need Pro, which costs $11.99 a month or $9.99 a month billed yearly.
How much is Capacities Pro?
Capacities Pro costs $11.99 a month on monthly billing or $119.88 a year, which works out to $9.99 a month, on yearly billing. The Believer plan costs $149.88 a year and adds beta access. The Pro+ AI add-on costs $8.33 a month billed yearly, so Pro with heavy AI is about $18.32 a month.
Is Capacities better than Obsidian?
Capacities is better if you want structured notes with object types and properties working on day one, with no plugins to configure. Obsidian is better if you want plain markdown files on your own disk, offline forever, with a huge plugin ecosystem. Capacities keeps your data in its cloud; Obsidian keeps it in a folder you control.
Is Capacities open source?
No, Capacities is not open source. It is a commercial app from a German team, with data synced through its own servers. If open source matters to you, Logseq and Anytype are the usual choices, and Obsidian, while not open source, stores everything as open markdown files you can take anywhere.
Is Capacities good for work?
Capacities works well for one person organizing research, reading notes, people and projects. It is weaker for teams, because sharing is view-only on the free plan and it is not built as a shared wiki. For work that mostly lives in client documents, a tool that answers from those files directly saves more time than organizing notes about them.
What is the cheapest Capacities alternative with AI?
Mem Plus is $9 a month for 50 AI messages, Heptabase Pro is $8.99 a month billed yearly, and Saner.AI Starter is $8 a month. MentalClone Starter is about $11 a month billed yearly and has no monthly cap on questions, which matters more than the list price if you ask your material a lot. Details are on the plans page.
The short version
Capacities is fair value at $9.99 a month on yearly billing if you love typed objects and use the AI lightly. Want your files on disk, pick Obsidian. Want more structure, Tana. Think visually, Heptabase. Capture by voice, Mem. Work in a team, Notion. And if the answers you need are sitting in documents rather than notes, paste a page from one into the box at the top of this article and ask it something you would otherwise dig for.