Procreate
The drawing and painting app built for iPad and Apple Pencil, bought once and free of generative AI.
- Starting price
- $12.99, one-time
- Output
- Sketches, paintings, illustrations, comics, frame-by-frame animations and painted 3D models
- Languages
- English and 17 further languages
Overview
Procreate is a drawing and painting app made for iPad and Apple Pencil, used by professional illustrators, studios and beginners alike. It is developed by Savage Interactive in Australia and sold only through the App Store as a one-time purchase, with no subscription. The company states that it has no access to the artwork made in the app and does not track activity in its apps.
Our take
Procreate is the pick for an illustrator whose main surface is an iPad with a pencil and who wants a painting tool that will never put generated imagery into the workflow. Anyone who has to work on a Windows or Mac desktop, set type and brand assets into layouts, or hand screens to developers should choose a desktop or browser design tool in this category instead, and treat Procreate as the sketchbook that feeds it.
Key Facts
| Category | |
|---|---|
| Starting price | $12.99, one-time Procreate for iPad in the US App Store, with no subscription. Procreate Dreams and Procreate Pocket for iPhone are separate apps. |
| Output | Sketches, paintings, illustrations, comics, frame-by-frame animations and painted 3D models |
| Languages | English and 17 further languages |
| Hosting | Native iPad app, sold exclusively through the App Store |
| Made in | Australia (Savage Interactive Pty Ltd) |
Screenshots
Placeholders. They are replaced as soon as the vendor sends material, and both open the same short form.
Features
- What it makes
- Sketches, paintings and illustrations on canvases up to 16k by 8k on compatible iPad Pro models, comics and page-by-page concepts with Page Assist, frame-by-frame animations and storyboards, and texture painting on 3D models
- Raster, vector or both
- Raster. Canvases are set in pixels with their own DPI, and vectors and text in an imported PDF are rasterized on the way in
- File formats and exchange
- Imports .procreate, PSD, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, GIF, PDF, MP4, HEVC and HEIC, plus OBJ and USDZ for 3D painting, and shares in all of them except HEIC. PSD export keeps layers, layer names, opacity, visibility and blend modes; a multi-page PDF imports one page per layer
- Colour management and print
- Each canvas uses an RGB profile, Display P3 on compatible iPads or one of four sRGB profiles, or one of several industry-standard CMYK profiles for print, and custom profiles can be imported. A canvas cannot switch between RGB and CMYK after it is created
- Brand, styles and templates
- More than 300 handcrafted brushes adjustable in Brush Studio, imported Photoshop brushes and fonts, and Adobe ASE and ACO colour palettes
- Platforms
- iPad only: Procreate 5.4.14 requires iPadOS 16.3 or newer, and the maximum canvas size depends on the iPad model. Procreate Pocket for iPhone and Procreate Dreams for animation are separate apps
- Licence and pricing model
- One-time purchase from the App Store, with no subscription
- Export and handoff
- Layered .procreate or PSD working files; shares as TIFF, transparent PNG, multi-page PDF, JPEG, OBJ, USDZ and animated GIF, PNG or MP4, plus time-lapse recordings in 4K
- AI features
- No. Savage Interactive has publicly committed to keeping generative AI out of its apps
- API
- No. Savage Interactive documents no developer API, SDK or plugin system; work leaves the app as exported files
Integrations
Integrations coming soon.
Deployment and Support
- Deployment
-
- On-premise
- Support
-
- Email helpdesk
- Community forum
- Onboarding
-
- Documentation and knowledge base
- Video tutorials
- Company size
-
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
Suitability
| Industry | Freelancers | Small and mid-sized | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agencies | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Architecture & Engineering | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Consulting | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Media & Creative | Stated as a fit | Stated as a fit | Not stated |
| Technology | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
The table combines the industries the vendor addresses with the company sizes the tool is aimed at. An empty cell means the combination is not stated, not that it is ruled out.
Pros and Cons
Strengths
- Bought once, with no subscription
- Large brush library that also takes Photoshop brushes
- Layered PSD import and export for moving work to a desktop editor
- Paints directly onto 3D models in OBJ and USDZ
- Records every artwork as a replayable time-lapse
Limitations
- Runs only on iPad; the iPhone version, Procreate Pocket, is a separate app
- Sold only through Apple's App Store
- No account system, so backups depend on iCloud or manual export
Pricing
-
Procreate for iPad
$12.99
One-time purchase in the US App Store. No subscription.
Best For
Alternatives and Comparisons
What users say
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