My favorite planners are the ones where you can customise everything. I’d been stalking Golden Coil for more than a year waiting for a sale. So when Black Friday finally came around I finally ordered my very own custom planner – including the cover and all of the inside pages (and the page order)!

Quick facts

• Size: Approx 7.5″ wide x 9.75″ high
• Hardcover (you choose the cover)
• Wire binding
• Choose from daily or weekly pages
• Choose your add on pages
• Choose your page order
• You choose what holidays to add, upload your family’s birthdays etc.
• You choose the planner duration
• Ships from the USA

This is not a sponsored post. I purchased the planner myself and all opinions are my own. 

Let’s take a closer look!

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This is a long, detailed blog post. I’ve structured it:

1. Review of the planner I ordered
2. A look at the ordering process and page layout options
3. Price
4. Pros & Cons List
5. If I’d buy this planner again

The Cover

Linen covers costs $2 extra (base cost for the planner $64) so I just opted for pattern cover.

I liked this one but could barely see the brand name / font

So changed my mind for a 3rd time and opted for Sunset. The finished product was true to the website!

Approx 1.5cm thick – a bit less than 0.75″ (I ordered a 6 month duration planner)

Monthly Calendar

Traditional box format with 2 pages per month.

The calendar starts Sunday which is consistent with the weekly spread.

You can enter in birthdays, holidays or any other events you like and they’ll print them on the pages for you. As well as national holidays and random things like national food days which I opted to add. I didn’t realise there were quite so many – they actually take up a fair bit of room (and are printed again on the weekly spread). I probably wouldn’t choose that option again.

Upload birthdays, contacts etc. and they’ll pre-print them in the planner for you

They add a 6th row instead of splitting a box into 2 or restarting the numbering on the top row:

Weekly Spread

There were so many weekly spreads to choose from I had a hard time deciding! I narrowed it down to a few (I’ve included screenshots of them at the end of this post), but ended up choosing this one:

I’m going to use it for blogging on the left page (with blog / shop to do’s in that sidebar column) and then personal to dos, travel planning tasks etc. on the right page

There are different quotes for each week:

Add on Pages

There are plenty of add on pages to choose from! More details on all of the options at the end of this post. You can even choose where to add them. At the front I opted to add a goals page, annual overview planning and the mood tracker (which I think would make a great habit tracker or gantt chart style goals / project planner).

While this is a mood tracker I’d change it to a project planner and use the graph like a gantt chart to map out what projects / shop products I’m working on when

At the back I added:

• Kitchen conversions
• Lined note paper
• Dot grid paper
• Monthly budget
• Weekly meal planning
• Projects
• To do checklists

There is a limit to how many add on pages you can have. If you order a 12 month planner I doubt you’d be able fit many add on pages, or you’ll need to upgrade to a bigger coil.

I think this page would make a great weekly planner instead of meal plan + grocery

I like this page as an overview project planner but I wish I’d added it to the front along with the annual overview and goals pages.

One of the add on page option is dot grid pages with 5mm dot spacing. You could make an entire custom notebook with dot grid pages, lists etc. if you didn’t want a dated weekly planner. However, keep in mind that since it’s completely custom it’ll be expensive.

If you want to make a notebook you can choose from all of the add on pages (I’ve listed the options at the end of this post). The only thing that makes it different to the planner are no weekly or monthly spreads. The cover options are the same.

Related: My Favorite Dot Grid Notebooks for Bullet Journaling

Not sure if I got a dud or if this is how all of the dot grid pages are set up – the dots were very close to the edge of the page on the right side but then had a gap on the left closer to the binding.

Of course I chose some checklist pages as one of the add ons!

Single sided cardstock pocket folder

Pen Testing

The paper is thick and instead of smooth has a textured feel. As such there is some resistance when writing – all pens write ok on the paper but ballpoint pens glide across the paper smoother than fine tip pens.

Only the MAMBI stamps bled through the page (as always). There was no bleed through for any of the pens but there was heavy ghosting which I was surprised by as the paper feels thick.

I forgot to erase the Frixion pen before taking these photos. It does erase but due to the textured paper there’s some smudging – it feels like you’re ripping through the paper a bit when you erase. I don’t recommend using the Frixion pens in this planner.

Pros of Golden Coil

• Step by step look through / preview at the end of making your planner so you can see exactly how your planner will turn out
• Pocket page is included as standard
• Plenty of weekly spreads to choose from (and many unique layouts – not just the basic horizontal, vertical etc.)
• Can choose to include the add on pages at the start of the planner, end of the planner, for each week or month
• Can add birthdays, events (and other important dates)
• Plenty of add on page options

Cons of Golden Coil

• Expensive to begin with + the add ons. My 6 month planner ended up costing $63 USD + shipping (note: this doesn’t include the Black Friday discount which was 15% off)
• Limited cover options
• Hard to see all of the options – should be a page on their website that shows you all the options all at once rather than flicking between the categories of the add on menu and the weekly spreads – if all of the options were in the one place would make it easier to compare layouts and faster to order
• Expensive international shipping
• Whatever events / holidays you pick will be printed on the monthly calendar AND weekly spread. I only added 1 (the food days) but it looks cluttered even without adding birthdays etc. I wish there was an option to pick either on the monthly OR weekly OR both
• Website / planner builder is slow to load
• Comes in a keepsake box – nice to have but not necessary and makes it expensive to ship
• Not enough information on their website about the ordering process – a general overview / info page would be good
• Wire bound is the only option. Some custom companies will allow you to choose unpunch if you want to use it with a discbound system
• If you did a full 12 months you won’t be able to include many add ons before hit the 242 page limit. With a 6 month planner and lots of add ons, I was at 106 / 242 pages
• No notes pages included by default? Could find a standard inclusions list anywhere on their site
• I’m not a fan of the paper (doesn’t work well with Frixion pens, prone to ghosting and the textured feel creates a resistance when writing – especially with fine tip pens)
• Only ship to selected countries (see the list later in this post)

I ordered my planner during Black Friday sales for 15% off. I’ve stalked them for a year and they don’t seem to offer anymore of a discount that that. However it’s a completely custom planner that’d be time intensive to do each order so understandable that you’re paying extra for it.

Weekly spread options

There are so many weekly spread options to choose from including plenty of unique layouts. If you like to use a 1 page weekly spread with checklists (my favorite weekly spread) there are a few to choose from too!

Here are a few (of the many) options you can pick from:

 

Some of the daily spread options

Add on page options:

• Calendar – Annual overview, monthly calendars
• Food – Variety of meal planning layouts, recipe pages, kitchen conversions
• Health – Mood tracker, measurement tracker, baby chart (feeding, diaper etc.)
• Projects – Project planning, storyboard, social media, homework planner, freelance finances (invoicing tracker)
• Lifestyle – goals, budget, home care, travel, event planning, bucket list, reading, online orders, holiday crafting, password tracker
• Standard – To do, spreadsheet (like a workflow chart / student attendance or grades tracker), staff (music lines),  fillable list, dot, graph, lined, blank

You can choose if you want the add on pages at the start or end of the planner

Some of the pages you can choose from:

 

Price

From the Golden Coil website: Our planners and notebooks range in price from $62.00 – $79.60 (shipping/tax not included), depending on the number of pages inserted. Each planner or notebook starts at a base price of $62.00/$64.00 (Patterned cover vs. Linen/Leather/Designer cover) for 86 pages. Each additional page up to 242 pages is an additional $0.10.

I started with a pattern cover $62

6 month planner = 86 planner pages

• Within the page limit = $62

12 month planner = 130 planner pages

• $62 for the first 82 pages
• Add $4.80 for the extra 48 pages to reach 130
• = $66.80

So if you want to keep it ‘cheap’, do a quarterly planner to test it out rather than buying a whole year.

When I was experimenting with the cost of a day to a page planner – the cost went up to $77 for 6 months.

Mine came to $53.55 for a 6 month planner (including a 15% off  for Black Friday plus shopping. $10 shipping to the USA…. and $43 to Australia. All up this planner cost me $96.55! The price isn’t too bad if you’re in the USA but to get it to Australia… it’s far too expensive.

Countries they ship to

At the time of writing this (2020), they ship to:

• United States
• Australia
• Canada
• UK
• Malaysia
• Taiwan
• Israel
• Germany
• France

Is that not the most random assortment of countries? Australia but not New Zealand? What about the rest of Europe… why only Italy and Germany?

I will never understand companies that don’t ship worldwide. If you don’t offer free shipping and the buyer is paying the shipping, then what does it matter where in the world you ship to. Postage companies have charts with weight and shipping rates. Or you could put estimated amounts on the website. You could be losing sales by not shipping worldwide!

Price comparison of custom planners

Golden Coil is one of the most expensive of what I consider truly custom planners.

• My custom Agendio planner cost $59
• Personal Planner cost $31.95 AUD including free worldwide shipping

I think the base price for just the cover and the coil is too much. $62 USD!

Time to make the planner

Including taking screenshots and making notes for this blog post, it took 1 hour. Without doing that would probably take 30 min which is quite quick for a completely custom planner.

Would I Use this planner?

It’s completely custom… so of course! This planner would be better if it had a lower price tag, cheaper international shipping and better paper quality.

If you can’t decide between the Golden Coil and a custom Agendio, see this post for a detailed comparison.

More custom weekly planners

• Agendio Review (custom, personalised weekly planner) 
• Personal Planner Review (affordable, completely customisable weekly planner)

Planning tips

• Quick and easy weekly meal planning using sticky notes 
• Favorite dual tip highlighters for planning (roundup) 
• Project Planning Using the Action Method Book

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