I’ve been using Drafts for most of my adult life (closing in on The Big 30, soon.) I bought Drafts 3 for iPhone when I was making $7.50 an hour at a tool store and genuinely doubt I paid enough for it. I’ve pushed it further than most users ever will (not bragging - “pushed” is meant in the ADHD sense.) I’ve even broken it a few times in ridiculous ways. Up until 2019–2020, though, I didn’t really bother to truly configure Drafts. Now, I’m sitting on a configuration (on my 12 Pro Max) which feels almost too powerful. Now, I’m working on getting my 71-year-old mother to start morning text messages in Drafts for her private practice, in Plain Text syntax, with absolutely zero additional or third-party actions installed.
One redundant point I’m going to echo: perhaps the most incredible thing about Drafts is that you can absolutely leave it the heck alone in terms of configuration, never change a single default setting, never perform a single pro-maintenance action or consideration, and yet trust it without tens of thousands of notes over the course of years and years. Anyone feeling overwhelmed by the information you see available: please be dissuaded. I promise, you don’t have to do a thing or become a Pro subscriber to get a ridiculous amount of value from this application across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
In contrast, if you’d like, you can configure Drafts to become the most beautifully powerful native text living space you can possibly imagine. Indeed, these two poles can exist side-by-side on a single macOS machine with separate user accounts. (Anecdotal, I know, but it still astounds me as someone who shares an older Mac.)
The priceless bit for someone like me - who now lives again in Drafts, personally and professionally - is the quality of support offered by developer Greg Pierce and a few extremely active community members. Greg has responded to some particularly ridiculous support and feature requests from myself over the years - regarding keyboard shortcuts support on iPhone, mostly - always extremely promptly and remarkably patiently. Recently, I posted on the forums inquiring about the possibility of native Mastodon support and within a few hours (on a Sunday morning!), Greg responded with an actual, working Action for posting to Mastodon. (And that wasn’t the only such feature request he responded to that weekend from me.)
Given how I use Drafts, today, it would be ridiculous of me to say “I’d never pay $100 a month for this” and yet I’m paying $1.99.