After trying many many different pen brands, these are my current top 5 favorite pens!

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1. Paper Mate Inkjoy Gel 0.7mm

These pens write so smoothly. They’re quite pricey but worth it – the colors are really vibrant and ideal for color coding.

2. Frixion Erasable (0.7mm)

These pens erase with heat, write smoothly and come in a variety of colors (including decent colors for color coding).

Related: My all time favorite planner pens: Pilot Frixion Erasable Pens Review

A similar erasable pen is the Creative Devotion although they don’t come in as many colors as the Frixion and are harder to find.

3. Schneider Topliner

A recent find in Switzerland these pens comes in all the colors you need for color coding, you can actually read the yellow and the ink doesn’t skip at all.

4. Staedtler Triplus Fineliner

I saw these pens but didn’t buy them for ages as I was put off by the 0.3mm pen tip – I normally don’t use a pen tip below 0.7mm. However, the colors were so nice and there was such a large range (with multiple shades of each color to choose from!) that I caved and got them. I was pleasantly surprised! They write smoothly and the 0.3mm tip feels (and looks) like it’s a larger tip size.

5. Ooly Ballpoint Pens

The ink of some ballpoint pens can be prone to ‘skipping’ (white gap between the letters) such as the Staedtler Ball 432 M. These Ooly ballpoint pens write smoothly and come in a range of rainbow colors including multiple shades of purple, green and blue – which doesn’t happen very often.

Related: Ooly pen & highlighters haul (cute rainbow planner supplies) 

Other pens I’ve tried (and recommend)

Dual Tip Pens

The thin tip is ideal for everyday use and the fatter end is ideal for headings.

Some of my favorite brands are the Tombow, Pure Color F and Smiggle, although I haven’t had any issues with any dual tip pen brands I’ve tried so far so any dual tip pen brand should work fine.

Related: Smiggle Stationery Haul (worth the cost?) 

Caliart Fineliner

Write smoothly, come in lots of colors (and different shades of each color).

Marvy Japan Le Pen

I never used to like these pens as there’s some resistance when writing. However, I’ve since changed my mind and decided that’s a good thing as it forces me to write slower which keeper my planner looking neat.

I used these with the Ashley Shelly Planner for weekly planning 

Pilot Juice

I recommend no smaller than the 0.5mm pen tip as anything thinner can be hard to write with. These come in lots of nice, bright rainbow colors.

Monte Marte Fineliner (from Stacks discount store here in Australia – similar to the Triplus color but a fraction of the price)

Paper Mate flair (come in lots of colors and multiple pen tip sizes)

More pen reviews:

• Highlighters vs. Highlighter Pencils: Are they worth the cost? 
• Cheap versus expensive pens: is there actually a difference in quality? 
• Planner pens I don’t recommend (prone to smearing, bleed through etc.) 
• 5 expensive pen brands that are worth the money (I have no regrets for splurging on them!)
• How to store planner pens (5 ways – and my favorite method!)

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