Notion vs Obsidian — what each actually costs you

Two different bargains

Notion is a hosted service. Your pages, databases and relations live on their infrastructure, and collaboration, permissions and cross-referencing follow naturally from that. It is a genuinely different capability, not a nicer text editor.

Obsidian is a local application over a folder of markdown files. Sync is an optional paid add-on; the notes themselves are files you already own. It gives up most of what makes Notion good at teams and gains something Notion structurally cannot offer.

The cost question people actually mean

When someone asks which is cheaper, they usually mean one of two things, and the answers differ.

"Which costs less per month?" Obsidian has a free tier for personal use with paid sync as an add-on; Notion has a free tier that is generous for individuals and gets priced by seat for teams. For one person, both can be free or close to it.

"What does this cost me over years?" This is the better question. With Notion you are renting access to your own structure — the pages export, but a database with relations and views does not export into anything that reproduces it. With Obsidian your notes are markdown files on your disk; stopping payment removes sync, not the notes.

Where each is clearly the right answer

Notion, if more than one person touches it. Shared databases, permissions and cross-references are the point, and Obsidian reaches them only through workarounds that a team will not maintain.

Obsidian, if it is only you and you intend to keep the notes for a long time. A folder of markdown files will still open in twenty years. That is a real property and worth something to anyone building a body of notes rather than managing a project.

Either, for a short project. For something with an end date, this whole consideration is theoretical and you should use whichever you already know.

What to do before you commit either way

Export once, early, and look at what comes out. Not when you are leaving — now, while you still have full access and no time pressure.

The export tells you what you would actually keep, and that is the only reliable way to know how locked in you are. Most people discover this at the worst possible moment, which is the moment they have decided to leave.

On Prices

This page does not quote figures for either service, and that is deliberate rather than lazy.

Subscription prices change several times a year, differ between countries, and several of these providers bill in US dollars regardless of where you live — which adds an exchange rate and, depending on your card, a foreign transaction fee on top of the advertised number. A figure written into this page would be wrong for most readers within a year, and wrong for some of them on the day it was published.

Open both tariff pages. It takes a minute, and the number you find there is the one you will actually be charged. What this page gives you instead is the part that does not change that fast: what the two services are structurally for.

Where SubTracker Is the Wrong Tool for This

You want the cheaper one found for you. SubTracker does not compare tariffs or watch prices at providers it has no connection to. It records what you told it you pay and tells you before it renews.

You want somebody to cancel the loser. Rocket Money in the US, Volders or Aboalarm in German-speaking markets will do that. SubTracker shows you what to cancel and when; the cancelling is yours.

You have not decided yet and want a recommendation. This page gives you the structural difference so you can decide. It will not decide for you, because the right answer depends on how you use the thing, and that is information only you have.

Keeping Track of Whichever You Pick

The free plan records unlimited subscriptions with no card and no expiry, and tells you before a renewal lands. That is the part that makes rotating between services practical instead of theoretical: the reason people hold both is almost never preference, it is that the renewal date lives nowhere they look.

Renewal reminders and price-change alerts are Plus features. There is no trial — the free plan is not one, and it keeps working indefinitely.