Short answer: Obsidian itself is free, for personal use and, since February 2025, for work too. The costs are optional add-ons. Obsidian Sync is $4 per user per month billed yearly ($5 monthly) on Standard, or $8 billed yearly ($10 monthly) on Sync Plus. Publish is $8 per site per month billed yearly. Catalyst is a one-time $25 and the commercial license is an optional $50 per user per year.
So the honest answer to "how much does Obsidian cost" is anything from $0 to about $190 a year for one person on yearly billing, depending on which of those add-ons you actually need. Most people need one at most. The rest of this page shows which one, what each tier includes, and when paying for Sync is the wrong fix for the problem you have.
Obsidian pricing: every plan and add-on
These are the US list prices on Obsidian's own pricing and Sync pages. Students, faculty and nonprofit employees get 40% off Sync and Publish, and both come with a full refund within 7 days of purchase.
| Product | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obsidian app | $0 | $0 | The full app on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android, personal and work use, no account needed |
| Sync Standard | $4 per user per month | $5 per user per month | 1 synced vault, 1 GB storage, files up to 5 MB, 1 month of version history |
| Sync Plus | $8 per user per month | $10 per user per month | 10 synced vaults, 10 GB storage (upgradable to 100 GB), files up to 200 MB, 12 months of version history |
| Publish | $8 per site per month | $10 per site per month | Notes published as a website with themes, graph and search |
| Catalyst | $25 one time | Early access to beta versions and community badges | |
| Commercial license | $50 per user per year | not offered | Optional since February 2025, a way for companies to fund development |
Obsidian Sync pricing: Standard vs Plus
Sync Standard costs $48 a year and Sync Plus costs $96 a year on annual billing. Both use end-to-end encryption, sync to unlimited devices and allow shared vaults. The difference is capacity, and three numbers decide which one you need: how many vaults you sync, how big your largest file is, and how far back you want to recover a deleted note.
| Limit | Sync Standard | Sync Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Price, billed yearly | $48 a year | $96 a year |
| Synced vaults | 1 | 10 |
| Storage | 1 GB | 10 GB, upgradable to 100 GB |
| Largest file | 5 MB | 200 MB |
| Version history | 1 month | 12 months |
| Devices | Unlimited | Unlimited |
The 5 MB file cap is the line most people trip over on Standard. Plain markdown notes are tiny, so a vault of a few thousand notes fits in 1 GB with room to spare. A vault that also holds PDFs, scanned contracts or slide exports does not: a single scanned 30-page document often exceeds 5 MB on its own. If your vault is mostly attachments, you are really choosing between Plus and a different place for the attachments.
Is Obsidian Sync worth it?
Obsidian Sync is worth it if you edit the same notes on a phone and a computer every day and want it to just work, including on iPhone, where third-party sync is fiddly. It is less worth it if you only read notes on a second device, or if most of the vault is PDFs you rarely edit. In that case you are paying for storage, not sync.
The free routes are real and a lot of people use them: iCloud on Apple devices, OneDrive or Dropbox on a desktop, Syncthing or Git for technical users. They cost nothing extra, and they also bring the problems Sync exists to solve, mainly conflicted copies when two devices edit at once and unreliable background sync on mobile. If you have lost an afternoon untangling duplicate notes, $48 a year is cheap.
Does Obsidian cost money for work?
No. Since February 20, 2025, Obsidian is free for commercial use and the commercial license is optional. Before that, people at companies with two or more employees were required to buy one. Companies can still pay $50 per user per year to support development, but nothing is locked behind it. Sync and Publish are priced the same for work and personal use.
Obsidian Publish pricing
Publish costs $8 per site per month billed yearly, or $10 monthly, which works out to $96 a year for one site. It turns a set of notes into a public website with Obsidian's graph and search, and it suits digital gardens, documentation and public notebooks. If what you actually need is a marketing site for a business rather than published notes, an AI website builder is usually the better tool, since Publish is designed for notes rather than landing pages and contact forms.
What Obsidian really costs in a year
Three common setups, at yearly billing:
- Notes on one computer: $0. The app is free and your vault is a folder on your disk.
- Notes on a laptop and a phone: $48 a year with Sync Standard, or $0 with a cloud drive you already pay for.
- A research vault full of PDFs, synced everywhere, plus a public site: $96 for Sync Plus and $96 for Publish, so $192 a year before any AI.
None of these includes AI. Obsidian ships no built-in assistant for asking your vault questions. Community plugins such as Copilot and Smart Connections add it, and they typically connect to a model through your own API key, which is a separate bill from a separate company that you configure and maintain yourself.
When paying for Sync Plus is the wrong fix
A common path to Sync Plus goes like this: the vault started as notes, then collected every PDF, report and transcript relevant to the work, and then hit the 5 MB file limit. Upgrading solves the sync. It does not solve the reason the files are there, which is that you want to find what is inside them later. In Obsidian, a PDF is an attachment you open and read. Search finds the file name and your notes about it, not the answer to your question.
If that describes your vault, split it. Keep the notes you write in Obsidian, where they belong and where the free tier or Sync Standard covers them. Put the documents somewhere built to answer questions from them. MentalClone takes PDF, Word, Excel, text and photographed pages up to 100 MB each, reads text PDFs up to 120 pages and scanned ones up to 40 pages with OCR, and answers questions only from what you uploaded, naming the document each answer came from. It runs in any browser, so there is nothing to sync. Starter is 474 PLN a year (about $11 a month), or 79 PLN month to month (about $21).
| Need | Obsidian setup | Yearly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Notes synced to a phone | Sync Standard | $48 |
| Large PDFs synced to every device | Sync Plus | $96 |
| Questions answered from your PDFs | Sync Plus plus an AI plugin and your own API key | $96 plus model usage |
| Questions answered from your PDFs, any device | MentalClone Starter, notes stay in free Obsidian | About $132 |
To be fair about the trade: Obsidian keeps everything as plain files on your own disk and works offline, and nothing we offer changes that. MentalClone holds uploaded copies you can delete at any time, answers from your 50 most recent documents and quotes up to four of them per answer. It suits a working set of files you question often, not a lifetime vault.
Obsidian pricing compared with the alternatives
If the bill is what has you looking around, here is how the add-on model compares with tools that charge a single subscription. Prices are from each vendor's own page.
| Tool | Entry paid price | AI over your own material |
|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | $0 app, Sync from $4 a month billed yearly | Plugins with your own API key |
| Capacities | Pro $9.99 a month billed yearly | Add-on at about $8.33 a month billed yearly |
| Tana | Pro $30 a month, $20 on the early bird yearly rate | Built in, metered by query |
| DEVONthink (Mac only) | $99 once, then $49 a year for updates | Built in, with a model you connect |
| MentalClone | About $11 a month billed yearly | Built in, answers only from your files |
We compare these in more depth on the Obsidian alternative comparison. If you are moving from a Mac document manager, the DEVONthink alternative page covers the Windows angle, and the personal knowledge management app page lays out the whole category by how you work.
Obsidian pricing FAQ
Is Obsidian free?
Yes. The Obsidian app is free on every platform, with no account and no feature limits, for both personal and work use. You only pay if you add Sync ($4 to $10 a month per user), Publish ($8 to $10 a month per site), Catalyst ($25 once) or the optional $50 a year commercial license.
How much is Obsidian Sync a year?
Obsidian Sync Standard is $48 a year ($4 a month billed yearly) and Sync Plus is $96 a year ($8 a month billed yearly). Paying month to month costs $5 or $10 a month instead, so $60 or $120 a year. Students, faculty and nonprofit staff get 40% off.
What is the difference between Obsidian Sync Standard and Plus?
Capacity. Standard syncs 1 vault with 1 GB of storage, files up to 5 MB and 1 month of version history. Plus syncs 10 vaults with 10 GB (upgradable to 100 GB), files up to 200 MB and 12 months of history. Both have end-to-end encryption, unlimited devices and shared vaults.
Is Obsidian a one-time purchase?
No purchase is needed at all for the app. Catalyst is the only one-time payment, $25 for early access to beta builds. Sync and Publish are subscriptions billed monthly or yearly, and the commercial license is an optional yearly payment.
Does Obsidian have built-in AI?
No. Obsidian's desktop app has no built-in assistant for chatting with or summarizing your vault. AI comes through community plugins that usually need your own API key and a paid account with a model provider, which is a cost on top of any Obsidian subscription.
Can I get a refund on Obsidian Sync?
Yes. Obsidian offers a full refund within 7 days of purchase on Sync and Publish, with no questions asked. Catalyst and commercial licenses are not refundable.