Procreate
PaidBeloved one-time-purchase iPad drawing app with hundreds of brushes, a responsive engine, and animation support for artists anywhere.
✨ Key Features
Hundreds of fully customizable brushes
Silk-smooth 120Hz canvas engine
QuickShape, drawing guides, and perspective
Animation with Animation Assist timelines
No subscription, ever
Pros
- Unbeatable value at one low price
- Best-in-class pencil feel on iPad
- Huge community of brushes and tutorials
Cons
- iPad only, no desktop version
- No vector or text-heavy layout tools
- No cloud collaboration features
📝 About Procreate
Procreate is the drawing app that made the iPad a serious art tool, and its philosophy has not changed: pay once, own it forever, no subscriptions. The painting engine feels impossibly responsive with Apple Pencil, with hundreds of customizable brushes, smooth pressure and tilt handling, and features like QuickShape and perspective guides.
Artists use it for illustration, concept art, lettering, and sketching, supported by an enormous community that shares brushes, palettes, and tutorials. Animation Assist adds frame-by-frame motion, and the companion app Procreate Dreams, now at version 2, extends into full 2D animation.
In 2026, with rival apps adding AI generation, Procreate’s insistence on human-made art has become a feature rather than a limitation for many illustrators. It is iPad-only with no desktop version or collaboration, but at $12.99 once, nothing else comes close for mobile drawing.
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