Lilly Pulitzer vs. Kate Spade vs. ban.do: Which Agenda is Best?

Picking an agenda to organize my life might be my most and least favorite thing to do. While I love looking at all the different prints and colors, picking the wrong agenda can completely throw off how I organize! As a matter of fact, I use more than one each year just to keep everything in my life straight {read: two physical planners, my phone calendar synced to my MacBook calendar, reminders, and a hand drawn calendar}. The Lilly Pulitzer agenda, Kate Spade agenda, and ban.dō planner are all popular, but are any of them worth it? After using all of these brands, I’m comparing them for you to help make your agenda-picking process a little more fault-free.

Lilly Pulitzer

Admittedly, I was once I diehard Lilly Pulitzer agenda fan. There was no convincing me to buy a different brand, and I used Lilly Pulitzer agendas for years. Lilly Pulitzer agendas are definitely aesthetically pleasing, but I’ve found that when it comes to actual planning, the Lilly Pulitzer agenda tends to leave something to be desired.

 Month Overview

Lilly’s monthly overview is so cute with their print designer’s work bordering the pages. There’s a decent amount of space to write, but it’s not outstanding. For the size of the agenda, however, I think it’s relatively on par.

Weekly Spreads

This is where Lilly Pulitzer agendas really lose it for me. Compared to agendas of a similar size {Kate Spade, ahem}, Lilly doesn’t really give all that much space to write. It’s just inconsistent. While all the floral is really pretty and SO cute, it cuts into the actual space to plan {even if it’s not super evident here. I promise I do more than this in a day, seriously}.

Stickers

Lilly planners have two sheets of them and they are a-dor-a-ble. I’ve found that in past years, usually the sticker images correspond to the agenda prints for that year.

Notes

A necessity for me is to be able to write notes in my agendas. Whether it’s making notes on an event I have scheduled or jotting down an idea I get quickly, my notes pages contain some relatively important information. Lilly Pulitzer agendas have 10 pages specifically for notes at the front of the planner, as well as 12 pages for “escape plans” {vacation planning}, that I have honestly never once touched. To be honest, I didn’t even remember they were in the agenda until I went to write this post. It’s not a bad idea, it’s just that I forgot it was there, and honestly, it doesn’t seem like a ton of space for planning a trip. It would almost make more sense to divide up these vacation planning guides and put them before or after the weekly spreads for each month instead of all in one spot at the front of the agenda. Nonetheless, I wish they would’ve dedicated more of those “escape plans” to blank notes pages.

Month Title Pages

This is what I really love about Lilly Pulitzer agendas. The title page for each month is two pages of Lilly print, and it’s just so pretty. One of the big pros to this agenda is that Lilly Pulitzer stay true to a really strong brand identity through the whole agenda.

Kate Spade

Kate Spade is my current planner of choice for school. It has a ton of space to write, and overall, I just really like how the pages are arranged, and the simplistic chic style of the agenda.

Month Overview

This is probably just me, but I tend to make a lot more notes by Sunday than I do any other day of the week, which is why I really appreciate that Kate Spade put their space for notes on the left side of the calendar for the month instead of the right, like the Lilly Pulitzer agenda.

Weekly Spreads

More space than Lilly Pulitzer, and that’s really what I was looking for. My Kate Spade agenda and Lilly Pulitzer agenda {in a size large} are similar sizes, but I feel as if Kate Spade is a little more space efficient.

Stickers

Simple, gold, classy. Definitely not as unique and fun as Lilly’s, but still cute.

Notes

Kate Spade agendas have 15 pages for notes. That’s five more than the Lilly Pulitzer agenda, however no vacation planning guides.

Month Title Pages

Sticking to brand, Kate Spade month title pages are minimalist. Even though they may not have any fun prints, I still do like how simple they are.

ban.dō

I honestly planned on never buying an agenda from ban.dō in lieu of my known favorites, HOWEVER, I was in desperate need for a physical blog planner, and this medium ban.dō agenda happened to be on a major sale. I’m still shocked by how much I honestly, truly, like this planner.

Month Overview

Month overview is on par with Lilly Pulitzer and Kate Spade. The one minor, nit-picky, drawback I have to this month overview is simply that ban.dō took the liberty of making holiday days different colors. It would be fine, but ban.dō tosses in some random sort of made up holidays that I just don’t really care to have highlighted in a different color, it makes it difficult to read what I’m writing.

Weekly Spreads

I LOVE ban.dō’s weekly spreads. Unlike Kate Spade and Lilly Pulitzer, ban.dō leaves their weekly spreads blank under each day, so you can write as small or as large as you’d like without the interruption of lines. I. Love. This. It makes it so easy to plan and structure my day exactly how I’d like it without the constraint of space. I also really like how ban.dō has a ribbon in the planner as a bookmark, it makes it so much easier to find exactly which week I’m on.

Stickers

Not a huge fan of the ban.dō stickers. They’re cute, they’re just large and aren’t really as usable as the Lilly Pulitzer and Kate Spade stickers. ban.dō planners have one fold out page of stickers.

Notes

I love how ban.dō breaks down their notes. There’s two pages of notes between the overview for the month and the weekly spreads, then 28 pages for notes at the back of the planner. I use this agenda for blogging, so having pages of notes dedicated to each month is super helpful because I can jot down any post ideas I get that month for the future there when I’m planning content, and look back easily when I need inspiration.

Month Title Pages

Each ban.dō month title page was created by a female artist, which is really cool! The only thing is just that although each page was somewhat similar in style, you could tell that they were all by different artists, and none of the pages really matched the style of the cover. Honestly, I really liked the title page for February, but the rest of them just weren’t really my style, and didn’t really continue the theme of the planner from cover to cover. A month title page is such a minor thing to be bothered by, but Kate Spade and Lilly Pulitzer definitely win in this category.

The Consensus

Month Overview: Kate Spade

Weekly Spread: ban.dō

Stickers: Lilly Pulitzer

Notes: ban.dō

Month Title Pages: Lilly Pulitzer or Kate Spade {tossup}

My Personal Favorite: ban.dō or Kate Spade

ban.dō shocked me. I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as I did, and even though it was significantly smaller than my large Kate Spade and Lilly Pulitzer agendas, I still felt as if I could fit about the same amount of planning in the space it did have. This agenda would be perfect for me if the branding was just a little more my style, but honestly, I’ll probably just get over it. I don’t like that this agenda isn’t spiral bound, however I’ve noticed in the larger size that it is, which is probably the size I’d be likely to purchase next time anyway. My Kate Spade agenda was excellent for school, the one major drawback was that although it was spiral bound, it was a hardcover covered spiral, which made the agenda wider than it needed to be and bulkier than it needed to be, making it difficult to take with me. I did find that the lines were helpful when it came to class assignments. Lilly Pulitzer makes the cutest agenda if that’s what you’re going for. If you’re okay with sacrificing space and functionality for aesthetics, Lilly makes a fantastic agenda that combines having an okay amount of space to write with cute and unique details.

All in all, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of these agendas, each is just better for different purposes. I recommend ban.dō if you like more fluidity and freedom in your scheduling. Kate Spade is the best option if you want to maximize space and practicality in an agenda, but still want something chic. Lilly Pulitzer is a great option if you prefer to schedule the “big” things, and don’t necessarily need every single detail in your agenda. Below I have different variations of the Lilly Pulitzer agenda, Kate Spade agenda, and ban.dō planner linked!

xx,

E

 LILLY PULITZER FAVORITES

AGENDAS

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