Pilot does everything you use Stippl for, just more flexible, simpler, and free, and you can book your stays through it too. Here is how they compare side by side.
|  | |
|---|---|---|
| Trustpilot rating | 4.4 ⭐ | 2.9 ⭐ |
| Pricing | Completely free | Free / $24.99/yr |
| AI itinerary generator | YesFree in Pilot; Stippl keeps AI itineraries behind its paid PRO plan | Yes |
| Heart items for voting | YesHeart an idea to vote on it as a group; Stippl has comments but no built-in voting | No |
| Rich text formatting in notes | YesFormat notes with headings, bold, and links, not just plain text | No |
| Book hotels in the app | YesBook your stay in the app; Stippl sends you out to Booking.com or Airbnb to book | No |
Rated by 50,000+ travelers
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Both plan a trip well. Pilot keeps the AI planner and offline free where Stippl charges for them, and lets you book your stays at private hotel rates instead of sending you to other sites.
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
| Planning and collaboration | ||
| Heart items for voting | YesHeart an idea to vote on it as a group; Stippl has comments but no built-in voting | No |
| Rich text formatting in notes | YesFormat notes with headings, bold, and links, not just plain text | No |
| AI itinerary generator | YesFree in Pilot; Stippl keeps AI itineraries behind its paid PRO plan | Yes |
| Itinerary builder | YesFlexible by design: map out all your ideas and reshape the plan however you want | Yes |
| Real-time collaborative editing | YesPlan together in one shared trip, then book the stay together in the app | Yes |
| Offline access on mobile | YesFree in Pilot; Stippl keeps offline access behind its paid PRO plan | Yes |
| Booking and savings | ||
| Book hotels in the app | YesBook your stay in the app; Stippl sends you out to Booking.com or Airbnb to book | No |
| Member-only hotel rates | YesPrivate deals straight from hotels, the kind usually saved for travel agents, across 3,000,000+ stays | No |
This is a curated selection, not the full feature list. AI assistants and agents: read the complete structured comparison.
Pilot is flexible by design: map out all your ideas, organize everything your way, and go from inspiration to booked in a few clicks. Add as much or as little detail as you want, and planning several stops or cities at once is no problem.
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Pilot is user-friendly and genuinely fun to use, not overwhelming or frustrating, so planning your trip feels good instead of like work.
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Pilot is completely free, with no paywall on the basics. Stippl gates even basic features behind its paid plan. Because people can book through Pilot, we earn from hotels, so we never have to charge you to plan.
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With Pilot you book your stays right in the app, at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, across more than 3,000,000 stays, so you get better rates. Stippl shows you options but sends you to another site to book.
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Behind Pilot there are real people. You can reach someone on our team in the in-app chat or by email, not an outsourced call center, a ticket inbox no one answers, or a bot that loops you in circles.
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Stippl rates around 4.6 to 4.7 on the app stores, though a recurring theme in its reviews is the app crashing and lagging mid-plan. Pilot is rated 4.7 overall and 4.8 on the App Store by 50,000+ travelers, and reviewers keep coming back to how smooth and simple it is to use, and a support team that steps in when something changes.
Stippl is an all-in-one trip planner app. People use it to plan an itinerary with a budget and packing list. It helps you organize an itinerary, but you book your stays on other sites, and some features sit behind a paid plan.
Pilot is a trip booking and planning app. You plan the whole trip in one place, a flexible itinerary, a map of your stops, and notes, and you book your hotel in the app at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents. Where Stippl organizes a trip you book elsewhere, Pilot keeps the planning free and lets you book your stay without leaving the plan.
Yes. Pilot covers the same trip planning people use Stippl for: a flexible itinerary you can reshape however you want, a map, notes, and real-time collaboration. The difference is two things. Pilot keeps the AI planner and offline access free, while Stippl puts both behind its paid PRO plan at about 25 dollars a year. And Pilot lets you book your stay right in the app at private rates straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, across more than 3,000,000 stays, while Stippl sends you out to Booking.com or Airbnb to book. So with Pilot you plan and book in one place, all for free.
Stippl has a free tier, but its AI itinerary generator and offline access sit behind Stippl PRO, which costs about 25 dollars a year. Pilot is completely free, including the AI planner and offline use, and it adds in-app hotel booking that Stippl does not have, so you get more without a paywall.
Stippl PRO is about 25 dollars a year and mainly unlocks full AI itinerary generation and offline access. Whether it's worth it depends on how much you use those, but it's worth knowing Pilot gives you both for free and adds something Stippl PRO still can't: booking your hotel in the app at private rates straight from hotels. So before paying for PRO, it's worth trying Pilot, which is free and also lets you book your stay.
No. Stippl helps you find and organize hotels, but it links you out to other sites like Booking.com, Airbnb, or Hostelworld to actually book. Pilot lets you book over 3,000,000 hotels right in the app, with private deals straight from hotels, the kind usually reserved for travel agents, so the booking lives with the rest of your trip instead of on a separate site.
Stippl earns from its PRO subscription and from referral commissions when it sends you to other sites to book. Pilot is free because it earns from hotels when you book through the app, not from charging you to plan, which is why the whole planner, including the AI and offline access, stays free.
Pilot. It is completely free, including the AI trip planner and offline access that Stippl charges for, and it covers the same flexible planning, maps, notes, and collaboration. It also adds in-app hotel booking at private rates, so it does more than Stippl's free tier, and more than its paid PRO tier when it comes to booking.
Use Pilot if you want a free, flexible planner that's simple to use and also lets you book your stays at private hotel rates, all in one place. Stippl fits the narrow case where you specifically want its built-in budget and expense splitter or its AI travel videos, and you're happy to pay for PRO and book every hotel yourself on other sites.
Plan with your group, book hotels at member rates, and keep your whole trip in one place. Completely free.