If you've decided you want to design digital planners professionally, at some point you're going to have to pick a tool. And the two that come up over and over again in the digital planner design world are Adobe InDesign and Affinity.

I've used both extensively — I teach both inside Digital Planner Design Lab — so I'm going to give you the most honest comparison I can. No fluff, no affiliate motivation. Just what I actually think after years of designing and selling digital planners.

The Quick Summary

Both tools can produce professional, sellable digital planners. The difference comes down to cost, learning curve, and what you're already comfortable with. Let me break each one down.

Adobe InDesign

InDesign is the industry standard for multi-page document design. It's been around for decades, it's incredibly powerful, and if you ever work with a printer, a publisher, or a professional design team, everyone speaks InDesign.

What it does really well for planners:

• Master pages are robust and flexible
• Paragraph and character styles make formatting consistent across hundreds of pages
• Data merge is powerful once you learn it
• Huge community, tons of tutorials, lots of third-party resources
• Hyperlinking and interactive PDF export are well-documented — see how planner hyperlinks work

The downsides:

• It's a subscription — part of Adobe Creative Cloud, which runs around $55/month for the full suite or about $22/month for InDesign alone
• The interface can feel dated and unintuitive if you're coming in fresh
• Some features are buried in menus you'd never find without someone showing you

If you already have Adobe CC for Photoshop or Illustrator, adding InDesign to your workflow makes a lot of sense. You're already paying for it.

Affinity

Affinity is a one-time purchase — usually around $70 — and it punches well above its price point. It was built as a modern alternative to Adobe's suite, and for digital planner design specifically, it covers everything you need.

What it does really well for planners:

• Master pages work intuitively and are easy to manage
• Data merge is straightforward to set up
• The interface feels cleaner and more modern than InDesign
• One-time payment means no ongoing cost
• Regular updates included in the purchase price

The downsides:

• Smaller community than InDesign, so fewer tutorials floating around online
• Some advanced features work slightly differently than InDesign, which can be a learning curve if you're switching over
• Less widely used in traditional print/publishing industries (though for digital products, this doesn't really matter)

So Which One Should You Actually Use?

Here's my honest recommendation:

Start with Affinity if: You're brand new to desktop publishing software, you don't already have Adobe CC, or you want to minimize upfront investment while you're learning. (New to all of this? Start with the best apps for creating digital planners in 2026.)

Choose InDesign if: You already have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, you have some prior InDesign experience, or you plan to work in traditional publishing alongside digital products.

The truth is, the workflow for designing digital planners is very similar in both apps. Once you understand the concepts — master pages, data merge, hyperlinking, interactive PDF export — you can apply them in either tool. That's actually why I teach both inside Digital Planner Design Lab, so you can make the choice that fits your situation and still get the full training you need. Here's exactly what's covered.

Learn more about Digital Planner Design Lab →