Boords vs Milanote Comparison 2026
Boords and Milanote sit at different points in planning a video. Boords picks up once there are shots to plan: frames in order with a timed animatic that catches pacing problems before the shoot, starting at $39 a month with no free plan, only a trial. Milanote is a freeform board for the stage before that, when the shape is still unclear: moodboards, story outlines, notes and links pinned wherever they make sense, free with no time limit up to 100 items. A project can use both without contradiction: Milanote for the outline, Boords for the storyboard once the shots are known.
At a glance
- Milanote starts cheaper, at $9.99.
- Only Milanote has a free tier.
Side by side
Boords | Milanote | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $39 | From $9.99 |
| Pricing model (they differ) | Paid subscription | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier (they differ) | No | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated |
Boords
Storyboards that turn into an animatic
Boords is where a video gets planned before anybody films it: frames in order, notes under each one, and a timed animatic that plays the whole thing back so the pacing problem shows up now rather than in the edit. Clients comment on the board instead of on the finished cut, which is the expensive place to find out. It draws nothing for you beyond AI reference images. A solo creator shooting to a rough outline will not need it.
Our note
Price this against the cost of a reshoot rather than against other software, because that is the expense it exists to prevent. If your videos are planned in your head and come out fine, the honest answer is that you do not need it.
Only on this side
- Covers motion graphics & animation
Milanote
A board for the vague part of a project
Milanote is a freeform board for notes, images, links and files, which is what planning looks like before it is a task list. Moodboards, story outlines and channel plans all sit better here than in a document. The free account has no time limit and stops at a hundred items, which is a real project rather than a demo. Anybody who wants deadlines, assignees and a burndown should buy a project tool instead, because this deliberately has none of that.
Why people weigh these two
- Milanote instead of Boords
- A freeform board for the vague early part of a project, from $9.99 with a free tier; looser and far cheaper than Boords' ordered frames and timed animatic.
- Boords instead of Milanote
- Boords is built specifically for storyboards that turn into an animatic, narrower than Milanote's general moodboard but built for that one video-planning step.
Which one should you pick
Buy Boords once there are actual shots to plan and money riding on getting the pacing right before the shoot: an agency, a production team, anybody past the rough-outline stage. Solo is $39 a month or $26 billed yearly, and there is no free plan, only a trial of unstated length, because the animatic and client commenting are the paid product.
Buy Milanote for the stage before that, when the project is still moodboards, outlines and reference rather than shots. The free plan holds 100 items with no time limit, a real project rather than a demo, and the per-person paid tier at $9.99 a month billed annually is a fraction of Boords' entry price for anybody who outgrows the cap. It has no animatic, no timing and no shot list, by design: that job belongs to something like Boords.
Common questions
- Are Boords and Milanote rivals, or do they solve different problems?
- Different problems. Boords is a shot-by-shot storyboard with a timed animatic, for the stage after the concept is set. Milanote is a freeform board for the moodboard and outline stage before that. A project can reasonably use both.
- Does either one have a free plan?
- Milanote does: 100 notes, images or links with no time limit, plus unlimited shared boards. Boords has no free plan, only a trial of unstated length.
- Which is cheaper?
- Milanote, by a wide margin. Its per-person plan is $9.99 a month billed annually against Boords Solo at $26 billed yearly, and Boords has three higher tiers reaching $250 a month for Agency.
- Does Milanote do storyboards and animatics like Boords?
- No. Milanote is deliberately freeform, with no timing or shot-list structure. The animatic playback that catches pacing problems before a shoot is specific to Boords.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.