Evernote

Evernote is a note store built around finding things again rather than around writing them. Web clips, scanned pages and photographs are searchable including the text inside images, which is why it has outlasted several tidier competitors. For a creator it is where the research, the receipts and the half-formed ideas go before any of them turn into work. The free plan is deliberately narrow now and the paid tiers carry upload allowances rather than feature gates. Sync across devices is the thing people pay for.

There is a free plan. Starter is $8.25 a month billed as $99.00 a year, and Advanced is $20.83 a month billed as $249.99. A saving of up to 40 percent is advertised for paying yearly and the monthly rates are not printed on the comparison page. Trials run 7 days unless stated otherwise, and students are offered 40 percent off a year of Starter.

People whose research, receipts and half-formed ideas arrive from everywhere, and who need to find one of them again in two years.