Ulysses Paid

Ulysses is a Markdown writing app for Mac, iPad and iPhone, built around long-form text: novels, essays, documentation. It costs $5.99/month or $49.99/year with a cross-device license, and AI features run on separate credits rather than bundled.

What is Ulysses?

A writing environment that hides formatting until you need it. You type, it stores plain Markdown, and it exports cleanly to DOCX, PDF, EPUB and HTML. The library holds everything in one searchable place, with sheets (documents), groups (folders) and keywords — no file system, no “.md” files scattered across Dropbox.

The AI part is modest by 2026 standards: text rewriting, proofreading and translation, bought in credit packs (around 100 actions per pack) or as a subscription add-on. Ulysses has always been conservative about automation, and that shows.

Product Features

• Goal tracking — daily word or character targets per sheet or across a project. The feature most users name as the reason they stay.
• Markdown engine — Markdown XL with footnotes, annotations and blocked text. Exports to DOCX with styles mapped, not dumped.
• Direct publishing — send to WordPress, Medium, Ghost or Micro.blog from inside the editor, with images uploaded.
• Library-wide search — full-text search across every sheet, plus filters by keyword, group and date.
• Sync — iCloud sync across Mac, iPad and iPhone. No Windows or Android version exists.
• AI rewriting — polish, shorten and translate selections. Credit-based pricing makes heavy AI use costly.

Product Highlights

• Best-in-class focus mode and typography for long sessions.
• Publishing to WordPress preserves formatting better than most Markdown editors.
• The subscription covers all Apple devices under one license.

Is Ulysses still worth it in 2026?

It depends on one question: do you write on a Mac and an iPhone, and nowhere else? If yes, $49.99 a year for a well-finished, distraction-free editor with working publishing is reasonable. If you touch a Windows machine or an Android phone, stop here — there’s no version for you, and that gap has cost Ulysses users for years.

Compared with Obsidian or iA Writer, Ulysses gives you less flexibility and less local file control, in exchange for a cleaner interface and better exports. The AI is the least interesting part of the product; a Claude or ChatGPT subscription does more for the same money. Serious limitation: no plugin ecosystem, so anything resembling automation requires Shortcuts or manual export.

Use Cases

1. Writing a novel with a daily 1,000-word target tracked across chapters.
2. Drafting blog posts and publishing to WordPress with one command.
3. Keeping a searchable research library of interviews and notes.
4. Exporting a manuscript to DOCX with mapped heading styles for an editor.
5. Translating and polishing passages with AI credits on an iPad.

Quick Summary

• Ulysses is a Markdown writing app for Mac, iPad and iPhone.
• Pricing: $5.99/month or $49.99/year for all Apple devices; AI credits sold separately.
• Best for long-form writers who publish to WordPress, Ghost or Medium.
• No Windows or Android version — a hard blocker for many.
• The AI features are basic; the editor and exports are the real value.