Ban.do 17-Month Planner for $35: If you’re looking for another affordable option but want something with more personality than the Roterunner above, Ban.do’s planners are fun and colorful and even come with a page of stickers. It’s only a horizontal weekly format, though, which I don’t love (but maybe you do!) This 17-month version is made to start for the school year and go through the end of 2027, but you can also find 12-month planners if you prefer.
Happy Planner 12-Month Planner for $24: Happy Planner uses disc-bound planners to make it easy to remove and add pages or covers, which is nice for customizability. But they’re a very specific aesthetic, and personally, I didn’t love turning pages on the discs. Still, it’s a good planner if you like the style, and they come in a ton of different layouts. Right now, you can get a Happy Planner that starts in July 2026 and will run you until June 2027, perfect for tracking the academic year.
Laurel Denise Academic Planner for $59: These planners are cool because you’ll look at the month and your weekly at the same time, because the slim weekly pages lay on top of the monthly spread. However, I write way, way too much for the space in these planners. It’s great if you just want to write a couple to-dos and meetings per day, but if you want space for detailed lists, you might feel the way I did.
Leuchtturm1917 18-Month Planner for $33: This is a solid, minimalist planner that as a popular following. It’s a simple horizontal weekly layout with the week on one side and a lined page on the other. It’s not enough space for everything I write down, but if you’re looking for something simple and space for a couple lists or notes for each week that fit onto a page, it’s a good option for you. Leuchtturm1917 also has a nice line of notebooks that look the same from the outside cover, so make sure you actually get the planner.
Muji Undated Weekly Planner for $9: If you want a super simple, super affordable planner, the Muji Undated Weekly is for you. It’s just undated weekly horizontal spreads from front to back, even on the paper cover. It’s slim, but still more than a year’s worth of weeks in it. It’s the most minimalist planner I’ve tried, and though I’m not a fan of horizontal weekly spreads for my planner needs, it’s a great cheap option for a lot of people.
Papier Hardcover Academic Year Planner for $29: My favorite thing about Papier’s planners is how gorgeous the covers are. Papier has a range of beautiful designs you can choose that feel like they belong on a bookshelf rather than just my planner. I tested one of the annual planners, which has the horizontal weekly layout I don’t love on any planner (and you can still get that by choosing the mid year layout for any cover Papier has if you love that style) but the academic one has a vertical layout that’s much more up my alley. Whichever style you like, you can pick. Papier also has softcover planners ($32) that use a ring binding, which is easier to lay open than the hard cover binding, and still has both mid year and academic layout options.
Passion Planner Mid-Year Planner for $45: This planner was really popular when I was in college, and maybe it still is with the college kids. I liked it, but I feel like the Purpose Planner does a similar thing but better, at least for my needs. It’s got vertical spread, but every slot is timed, so I can’t use it as a to-do list. It’s great for anyone needing to plan out a super detailed schedule and has some to-do list spaces on the bottom, but they’re pretty small in my opinion to work for an entire week. It’s good for students who only want to track their busy schedules and a couple assignments and tasks for each week.
