Plum Paper is one of my favorite planner companies but their colors and style hasn’t changed for years. If you’re in need of a refresh and are looking for something similar to Plum Paper, the SHP Planner comes close.

SHP Planners versus Plum Paper

Information current as of the time of writing this in June 2020.

Both Planners Have

• Personalise the cover with your choice of text
• Multiple cover options to choose from
• Cardstock/thin paper cover with clear plastic cover to protect it
• Both companies do personalised notebooks as well as planners
• Same page size at 7″ wide x 9″ high (note that the Plum Paper cover is 0.5″ wide than this – i.e. 7.5″ wide – to protect the tabs)
• Silver coil binding
• Colorful inside pages
• Horizontal weekly spread (this is the layout I’ve purchased for both, but both companies have other page layouts too)
• Dated for 12 months (you choose the start date)
• 2 page monthly calendar with a similar layout (and both have split boxes)
• Affordable price tag – planners in the 7″ wide x 9″ page size (the size I purchased) start at $32 USD plus shipping for both companies

Unique to Plum Paper

• Tabs included in the cost of the planner (SHP Planners charge $10 extra for this)
• Ships from USA
• Monthly planning pages

Unique to SHP Planners

• Ships from Canada

As you can see from the very short lists, there aren’t too many things that one planner has that the other planner doesn’t.

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The Cover

I like both covers but Plum Paper has more to choose from. The designs on Plum Paper’s covers are some of my favorites of any planner company – plenty of colors and styles to choose from and the color printing is always very bright and high quality. Despite not introducing different inside page color options they do regularly put out different cover designs.

Plum Paper’s cover material is tear resistant and supposedly waterproof (haven’t tested the waterproof part but it definitely doesn’t tear).

You can get interchangeable covers for the Plum Paper but all of the planners I’ve bought from them over the years have come with permanent covers so I’m not sure if you’re supposed to request your cover be interchangeable when purchasing, or you just add the interchangeable cover over the top of the existing cover and have 2 covers…

Plum Paper on the left, SHP Planners on the right

Plum Paper is slightly thicker as it includes monthly planing pages and tabs / dividers for each month.

• Plum Paper 0.75″ thick (this is with no add on pages – just the pages that come as standard in the planner.
• SHP Planners 0.5″ thick

Weekly Spreads

Plum Paper have plenty of weekly spreads to choose from. I’ve done reviews of most of them here.

SHP have less weekly spreads to choose from. Their planners come in vertical weekly, horizontal weekly, month only and teacher planners.

Holidays are not pre-printed on the weekly spread in Plum Paper however they are in the SHP Planner.

When the month ends mid-week, Plum Paper duplicates the days in the previous month and the current month. So you can choose to either plan half the week with the previous month, or move the last couple of days of the previous month onto the next month’s spread.

As you can see, some of the colors are very similar:

Monthly Planning

SHP Planners includes 1 lined notes page at the start of a month (before the calendar) and another lined notes page at the end of the month.

Plum Paper includes a goals and important dates page for the month, as well as 1 lined notes page before the calendar. There is another lined notes page at the end of the month.

Monthly Spreads

The monthly calendars are very similar – both have the traditional box format with the week starting on Monday.

Plum Paper has a lined sidebar and 1 monthly snapshot calendar, while SHP has 2 snapshot calendars and an unlined sidebar.

I prefer the placement of the holidays in the Plum Paper planner (at the bottom), SHP Planner put these in the middle of the box which wastes space.

The Colors

The colors are similar in both planners – shades of peach, teal and green.

Plum Paper adds shades of purple while SHP has shades of light blue.

Line Spacing

The line spacing is slightly different. Plum Paper is 7mm high, SHP Planners is 6mm high.

Extra Pages

Plum Paper have far too many extra pages to list them all out here – I’ve done a detailed comparison in this post.

Plum Paper include these pages as standard: passwords, holidays list, 3 dot grid notes pages.

SHP Planners include these pages as standard: contacts page, lined notes page.

Both of them even include similar icons on the contacts pages

Both have a pocket folder at the back. Plum Paper’s is double sided while SHP’s is single sided.

Pen Testing

Both planners have smooth paper that feels really nice to write on.

Plum Paper is less prone to ghosting and bleed through:

Which planner do I like better?

As you could probably tell in the video – I had a hard time choosing! Both have similar colors, weekly spreads, monthly calendars – even the extras pages are similar.

If I had to choose one I’d say Plum Paper. If you want tabs, it has a more affordable price tag (both companies have the same starting price but tabs are included in Plum Paper, they cost $10 extra for SHP). Plum Paper also has more cover designs and weekly spread layouts to choose from, and the paper is less prone to ghosting and bleed through. I do hope Plum Paper update their colors / style of the inside pages sometime in the near future as they’ve been using the same colors for probably 5 years now – time for a refresh!

I do still like the SHP Planner – I think the weekly spread is slightly more functional and I like the smaller line spacing so you can fit more into each day.

Still can’t decide on a planner? Browse 200+ planner reviews here.

Planning Tips

• 50 Themes for your planner or bullet journal spreads
• Why horizontal is my favorite weekly planner layout 
• Using a planner key and symbols to code your planner (efficient planning methods)

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