Milanote
Milanote is a visual project planning and mood board tool designed for creative professionals. Users can organize ideas, images, links, notes, and files on infinite drag-and-drop canvases, collaborate in real time, and share boards with teams. Founded in 2016 in Melbourne, Australia by Ollie Campbell and Brett Warren as a spin-off from UX agency Navy Design, the company has grown to $2.8M revenue and 35,000 customers by 2024.
Score generated by AI agents based on publicly cited evidence and reviewed by the project maintainer. Not independently validated.
Score History
Timeline events are AI-curated from public reporting. Score trajectory is derived from documented events.
Milanote was conceived at Navy Design, a Melbourne UX agency focused on healthcare. Four co-founders began building a visual collaboration tool to solve their own workflow needs. In this pre-launch phase, the product had minimal enshittification concerns — a small team building a genuine tool. The inherent lock-in of a proprietary visual canvas format was the only structural concern, as boards had no export path from inception.
Milanote launched publicly in February 2017 to strong reception, hitting #1 on Product Hunt and the front page of Hacker News. A $780K seed round followed in April, led by former MYOB CFO Simon Martin, with Canva and Xero co-founders as advisors. The free tier launched with a 100-card limit that users would later criticize as restrictive. Export was limited to PDFs and images from the start, and no API was planned. Lock-in began accumulating as early adopters built board collections.
Between 2018 and 2020, Milanote expanded across platforms: templates (2018), iOS (2019), Milanote 2.0 and Android (2020). The product matured significantly for desktop users. However, mobile apps disappointed — they displayed cards without maintaining the visual canvas layout, and the iPhone app was described as 'close to unusable.' The 100-card free tier limit drew increasing criticism as the user base grew. Lock-in deepened as users accumulated years of board content with no export or API pathway.
Milanote reached $2.8M revenue and 35,000 customers by 2024, maintaining founder control and organic growth. However, the product's most serious concern crystallized: with 5 million creative professionals on the platform and still no API (437 votes) or proprietary export format (376 votes), switching costs intensified structurally. A search functionality regression broke core workflows for power users. Billing-after-cancellation complaints emerged on Trustpilot. The mobile app remained subpar despite improvements. Desktop experience stayed strong at 4.7/5 ratings.
Alternatives
All-in-one workspace combining notes, databases, project management, and wikis. More structured than Milanote's visual canvas but far more powerful for organizing information long-term. Generous free tier for individuals. Moderate switch — boards must be manually recreated, but Notion's flexibility makes it worthwhile for most users.
The leading visual collaboration platform with 130+ integrations, real-time collaboration, and enterprise security features. Better for team whiteboarding and workshops than Milanote. Free tier available. Moderate switch — no direct import from Milanote, but Miro's broader feature set means most workflows transfer well.
Dimensional Breakdown
Summaries below were written by AI agents based on the cited evidence. They are editorial interpretations, not independent research findings.
Dimension History
Timeline (20 events)
Milanote Founded as Navy Design Spin-off
Ollie Campbell, Brett Warren, Marc Clancy, and Michael Trounce founded Milanote Pty Ltd in Melbourne, Australia. The product was conceived in 2014 as an internal tool at their UX agency Navy Design, which focused on healthcare digital design. The four co-founders spent three years developing the visual collaboration tool before its public launch.
Milanote Launches Publicly, Hits #1 on Product Hunt
Milanote launched publicly on February 7, 2017, reaching #1 on Product Hunt, the front page of Hacker News, and #1 for the week on Designer News. Coverage followed from Lifehacker and The Next Web. The launch established Milanote as a visual-first note-taking tool for creative professionals, positioning it as an 'Evernote for creatives.'
Free Tier Launches with 100-Card Limit
Milanote's freemium model launched with a free tier limited to 100 notes, images, or links, plus 10 file uploads. Users who hit the limit had to upgrade to a paid plan with no intermediate tier. A referral program offered 20 bonus cards per sign-up (up to 100 extra cards), partially mitigating the restriction.
Milanote Raises $780K Seed Round
Milanote closed a $780,000 seed round led by Simon Martin, former CFO of MYOB. The company's advisory board included Cameron Adams (Canva co-founder) and Philip Feirlinger (Xero co-founder). Funds were earmarked for expanding the feature set, including web clipping, video embedding, and collaboration features. This remained the company's only external funding round.
Milanote for Mac Desktop App Released
Milanote released a native Mac desktop application, expanding beyond the web interface. The desktop app provided a dedicated workspace for creative professionals who preferred a standalone application over browser-based access.
Web Clipper Browser Extension Launched
Milanote launched the Web Clipper extension for Chrome, enabling users to save images, text, links, and videos directly to their boards from any website. The extension automatically saved source URLs, supporting creative research workflows. It later expanded to Safari, Firefox, and Edge.
Milanote Templates Feature Launched
Milanote introduced over 100 free templates for creative workflows including mood boards, project plans, Kanban boards, and Eisenhower matrices. The templates lowered the barrier to entry for new users and expanded Milanote's appeal beyond purely visual note-taking into structured project management.
Milanote for iOS App Launched
Milanote released its first mobile app for iOS, allowing users to capture ideas and access boards on the go. However, the mobile experience was significantly limited compared to desktop — it displayed cards without maintaining the visual spatial layout that was Milanote's core value proposition, disappointing users who expected canvas parity.
Milanote 2.0 Released with Visual Board Improvements
Milanote 2.0 launched with enhanced visual board organization capabilities, improving the drag-and-drop experience and adding task management features. The update reinforced Milanote's positioning as a visual-first creative workspace and coincided with increased demand for remote collaboration tools during the early COVID-19 pandemic.
Milanote for Android Launched
Milanote expanded to Android, making the platform accessible across all major operating systems. Like the iOS app, the Android version provided limited board viewing capabilities compared to desktop, showing cards without the visual canvas layout that defined the desktop experience.
Dark Mode and Offline Support Added to iOS
Milanote updated its iOS app with a redesigned interface, dark mode toggle, offline work capability, and faster editing and saving. The update addressed some longstanding mobile complaints, though the fundamental limitation of not rendering the visual canvas layout on mobile persisted.
Milanote Platform Exploited for Phishing Campaigns
Security researchers at Avanan (Check Point) discovered that cybercriminals were exploiting Milanote to host phishing content, bypassing secure email gateways. Analysis of 1,430 emails containing Milanote links found 1,367 (95.5%) were phishing attempts. Attackers sent fake invoice PDFs linking to Milanote pages, which in turn linked to credential-harvesting sites. The attack leveraged Milanote's trusted domain reputation with major enterprise customers including Uber, Chanel, Google, and Nike.
Milanote 3.0 Adds Drawing and Sketching Tools
Milanote 3.0 launched with native drawing capabilities, allowing users to sketch directly on boards with mouse, stylus, or Apple Pencil. Sketch cards enabled resizable drawing areas for storyboarding and visual feedback. The update expanded Milanote from a static-content organizer toward a more interactive creative tool.
Milanote iPad App Launched with Apple Pencil Support
Milanote launched a dedicated iPad app, addressing years of user requests. The iPad version supported Apple Pencil for direct board sketching, image markup, and storyboarding. It brought the desktop-like visual canvas experience to tablets for the first time, though the iPhone app remained limited in its canvas rendering.
Tables Feature Added to Milanote
Milanote introduced a tables feature incorporating basic spreadsheet functionality including formulas, cell types, and formatting. Tables could be used for project timelines, budget calculations, and tracking details. The feature represented Milanote's expansion beyond pure visual boards into more structured data organization, though it remained far simpler than dedicated spreadsheet or database tools.
Revenue Reaches $2.8M with 35,000 Customers
Milanote's revenue grew 67% year-over-year from $1.7M in 2023 to $2.8M in 2024, with 35,000 paying customers and over 5 million registered creative professionals. The growth was organic, driven by subscription adoption and expanded team plans, without additional venture funding beyond the original $780K seed round.
Neo4j Integration Slashes Load Times by 10x
Milanote deployed Neo4j AuraDB as a graph database microservice alongside its existing MongoDB content store to address performance issues. The relational document database had struggled to navigate folder hierarchies and permissions at scale, causing load times exceeding 20 seconds for some users. The Neo4j integration eliminated system instability and reduced load times by 10x, while also lowering MongoDB infrastructure costs.
Search Update Breaks Core Board Discovery Workflow
A Milanote search update changed the global search behavior, restricting results to recently viewed or edited content instead of the previous instant board name lookup. Users managing large board collections reported the change rendered search 'practically useless,' as it returned disorganized lists of notes, links, and documents instead of prioritizing matching board names. The change was implemented without explanation or user consultation.
Billing-After-Cancellation Complaints Emerge on Trustpilot
A Trustpilot reviewer reported that after cancelling their Milanote plan, the company attempted to withdraw money for several months, alerting their card 'almost every other day.' Milanote's terms of service state no pro rata refunds on unused time for monthly plans, with annual plan refunds decided case-by-case. The cancellation flow required navigating through Settings, then 'View billing details,' then selecting 'Downgrade to free plan.'
Inline Comments Feature Launched
Milanote introduced inline comments, allowing users to select text and add contextual feedback directly within notes and documents. The feature improved collaboration workflows by enabling in-context discussion without separate comment cards, addressing a longstanding request from team users.
Evidence (34 citations)
D1: User Value Erosion
D2: Business Customer Exploitation
D3: Shareholder Extraction
D4: Lock-in & Switching Costs
D5: Twiddling & Algorithmic Opacity
D6: Dark Patterns
D7: Advertising & Monetization Pressure
D8: Competitive Conduct
D9: Labor & Governance
D10: Regulatory & Legal Posture
Scoring Log (4 entries)
Stripped for Phase 2 re-enrichment