- users of Meister tools, according to Meister
- 40M+
- mind maps on the free plan
- 3
- discount for students and educators
- 50%
- raised from Verdane in 2021
- $52M
About MindMeister
MindMeister is an online mind mapping tool from Meister, the company Till Vollmer and Michael Hollauf founded in 2006. People build maps in a browser or in the iOS and Android apps, edit them together in real time and present them as slides. The free Basic plan allows 3 mind maps, and paid plans start at €6 per user a month, billed yearly. Students, teachers and schools get 50% off paid plans after they prove eligibility. The legal entity, MeisterLabs GmbH, is registered in Vaterstetten near Munich, and Meister names Vienna as its headquarters.
MindMeister puts the main idea in the centre of a map and lets users add branches around it. Maps live in the cloud and save automatically. Several people can edit one map at the same time, leave comments and present it branch by branch.
Till Vollmer and Michael Hollauf founded Meister in 2006. They released MindMeister as a private beta on 7 February 2007. In 2008 the company took a €600,000 angel investment and won the Red Herring 100 Europe Award. In 2015 it launched a second product, the task manager MeisterTask.
Meister grew mostly on its own revenue until 2021, when the Norwegian investor Verdane led a $52 million round. Vollmer is CEO and Hollauf is CPO. The company runs its servers in an ISO 27001 certified data centre in Germany. MindMeister sells plans to individuals, teams, schools and universities.
History
- 2006 Till Vollmer and Michael Hollauf found Meister and build the first MindMeister prototypes.
- 2007 MindMeister opens as a private beta on 7 February.
- 2008 Wins the Red Herring 100 Europe Award and takes a €600,000 angel investment.
- 2009 Releases its first iPhone app.
- 2011 Releases the Android app and adds presentation mode to the web version.
- 2012 Adds Google Drive integration.
- 2015 Meister launches MeisterTask, a task manager that connects to MindMeister maps.
- 2021 Raises $52 million in a round led by Verdane.
- 2026 Opens AI map generation as a free beta on all plans in March.
- 2026 Adds Markdown and Mermaid export in October and offers an MCP server for Claude in public beta.
MindMeister funding and investors
- 2008
- July 2021
Meister names two rounds on its about page. Trending Topics put the 2021 round at €44 million and called Verdane the first large investor. Meister did not publish a valuation or the size of the Verdane stake. Two Verdane partners sit on the advisory board.
Leadership
- TV Till Vollmer Co-founder and CEO, managing director of MeisterLabs GmbH
- MH Michael Hollauf Co-founder and CPO
- AB Andreas Baumühlner CFO
- TB Tom Buehlmann Non-executive chairman of the advisory board
The advisory board also includes both founders and two people from Verdane: director Maximilian Kempken and partner Dominik Schwarz.
Careers
meister.jobs.personio.de
- Customer Success1
Perks
- Virtual share incentive plan
- Birthday, Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve off
- Office, Remote or Flex contracts
- Month-long unpaid sabbatical after three years
How MindMeister works
- mind maps on the free plan
- 3
- languages in the app
- 12
- off for students and educators
- 50%
- Real-time collaboration
- Unlimited collaborators on every plan
- Comments and mentions
- Outline mode
- Presentation mode
- AI map generation (beta)
- Themes and mapping styles
- PDF, image, Markdown and Mermaid export
- Word and PowerPoint export on Pro
- MeisterTask integration
- Microsoft Teams integration
- Offline editing in the apps
MindMeister in education
Students5
- Essay planning
- Note taking
- Exam revision
- Group projects
- Maps from lecture notes with AI
Teachers5
- Lesson planning
- Study aids
- Curriculum planning
- Group projects
- Teaching from a map in presentation mode
Subjects named by MindMeister4
- History
- Biology
- Languages
- Physics
From the MindMeister pages for students and educators. Both groups get 50% off paid plans.
Video, blogs and resources
Products
- Mind map editor Maps with branches, notes, links, images and icons in the browser. Outline mode turns a map into a bullet list. Several people edit one map in real time. Start on mindmeister.com
- AI map generation Builds a map from a prompt, a file or both, then edits and expands it. Free on all plans during the beta. How AI generation works
- Mobile apps Apps for iPhone, iPad and Android that sync with the web account. Maps can be edited offline and sync on reconnect. About the apps
- Presentation mode Turns topics into slides by click and drag. Teachers can walk a class through a map one branch at a time. Product updates
- Business plan Group sharing, SAML SSO, IP restriction, compliance exports and a dedicated Customer Success Manager. Compare plans
How much is MindMeister?
- Basic €0/mo €0, free, 3 mind maps
- Unlimited maps Personal €6/mo €7 a month on 6-month billing, per user, billed yearly
- Pro €10/mo €12 a month on 6-month billing, per user, billed yearly
- Business €15/mo €18 a month on 6-month billing, per user, billed yearly
Is MindMeister free?
Basic is free with no time limit: 3 mind maps, unlimited collaborators, templates, presentations, the apps and AI map generation in beta. Students, educators, schools and nonprofits get 50% off paid plans after approval.
Prices on mindmeister.com/pricing on 15 October 2026, shown in euros for a visitor in the Netherlands, per user a month, without VAT. The default view is yearly billing. The 6-month view shows €7 for Personal, €12 for Pro and €18 for Business. There is no monthly billing. The machine-readable price list at mindmeister.com/pricing.md gives €6.50, €10.50 and €15.50 yearly for Germany, Austria and most of Europe, and MindMeister says prices depend on the billing address.
How to cancel MindMeister and get a refund
Refund policy- mindmeister.com ↗
- Click your profile avatar in the upper-right corner
- Click Plans in the left sidebar
- Click cancel subscription and tick the box
- Click Continue to Cancel, fill out the form and confirm
- App Store or Google Play ↗
- Cancel in the store where you bought the plan
- Ask Apple or Google for any refund
- Paid features stay until the end of the billing period, then the account drops to the free Basic plan.
- Plans shows the end date of the paid plan once the cancellation goes through.
- If the cancel button does not work, MindMeister support cancels the plan and confirms it in writing.
- A paid account can be deleted only after the subscription ends, or earlier by support.
Refund rules
- Consumers, first purchase
- Full refund if the request arrives within 14 days of the purchase or of an upgrade.
- Consumers, renewals
- After the first term, cancellation takes one month’s notice. A yearly plan cancelled right after renewal gets 11 of 12 months back.
- Business customers
- No right of revocation, no refund for renewals, 30 days’ notice before the end of the term.
- Mobile subscriptions
- MeisterLabs cannot manage them. Refunds go through Apple or Google.
From the MindMeister help center, refund policy updated 19 July 2026, checked on 15 October 2026.
MindMeister for schools and companies
Contact sales- 01Schools and universities that need several discounted licences buy through the sales team.
- 02Business adds group sharing, SAML SSO, IP restriction and automated access approval.
- 03Admins can restrict sharing, publishing to the web and collaboration outside the organisation.
- 04Compliance exports and backups go to the customer’s own servers via SSH or FTPS.
- 05Data sits in an ISO 27001 certified data centre in Germany.
Business from €15 per user a month, billed yearly.
Ratings and apps
- WebRuns in any standard browser, maps save automatically
- iPhone and iPadFree app with up to 3 maps, offline editing
- AndroidFree app, 5M+ downloads on Google Play
- Microsoft TeamsIntegration on all plans
- Google WorkspaceCreate and open maps from Google Drive, Pro and above
- MeisterTaskTurn topics into tasks, all plans
- ClaudeMindMeister app and MCP server, public beta
App details, App Store US
- Developer
- MeisterLabs
- First release on iOS
- 22 July 2010
- Version
- 10.2.0, 21 September 2026
- Requires
- iOS 18.0 or later
- Languages
- 12
- Age rating
- 4+
- Google Play downloads
- 5M+
Is MindMeister worth it?
What users like
- Easy to use: G2’s summary of reviews names the interface and ease of use first.G2, 34 reviews
- Rated 4.7 on Capterra across 565 reviews.Capterra
- Recent five-star reviews praise fast replies from support.Trustpilot reviews, 2026
- Every plan, the free one included, allows unlimited collaborators.MindMeister pricing
What users criticise
- The free plan stops at 3 mind maps, the most common complaint in G2’s summary.G2, 34 reviews
- 48% of Trustpilot reviews give one star. Automatic renewals and refused refunds come up in many of them.Trustpilot, 158 reviews
- There is no monthly billing. Plans run for 6 or 12 months.MindMeister pricing
- The Android app has a 3.4 rating from 22.4K reviews.Google Play
What users write in reviews, not our rating. The free plan has 3 mind maps, and paid plans start at €6 per user a month, billed yearly.
MindMeister reviews
- Great tool for brainstorming
“I have found the tool very useful, especially when designing sitemaps and mapping workflows.”
Suzi · 29 July 2026 · App Store - Excellent experience
“I received a quick answer to my request of educational Plan.”
MMeneguello · 22 June 2026 · App Store - Customer service is terrible
“Never used the app, when it came for annual renewal they took funds off my credit card.”
Myrthe Nitzsche · 23 February 2026 · App Store
Latest news
Contacts and company data
- Billing and technical supportsupport@meisterlabs.com
- Corporate salessales@meisterlabs.com
- Presspress@mindmeister.com
- Help centersupport.mindmeister.com
- Education discountEligibility rules
- Legal entity
- MeisterLabs GmbH, Zugspitzstrasse 2, 85591 Vaterstetten, Germany
- Commercial register
- Amtsgericht München, HRB 161267
- VAT ID
- DE247139684
- Austrian subsidiary
- MeisterLabs Software GmbH, FN 230652w, Vienna, wholly owned by MeisterLabs GmbH
- Security
- ISO 27001:2022
- Hosting
- ISO 27001 certified data centre in Germany
Alternatives to MindMeister
-
GoConqr🇮🇪 Ireland Students and teachers create and share study resources, from Dublin, in the same catalogue category. → - X XmindUnited States Mind mapping app with AI features, rated 4.8 from 6,977 ratings in the US App Store. ↗
- S SimpleMindUnited States Mind mapping app from the Dutch company xpt Software & Consulting, rated 4.5 in the US App Store. ↗
- M MiroUnited States Online whiteboard for teams with mind map templates, rated 4.6 on G2 from 13,616 reviews. ↗
How we built this profile
- Sources. Facts come from the company’s own website, press room, imprint and careers page, from Wikipedia, the App Store, Google Play and Trustpilot. Every source is listed on the page.
- Checks. Kinescope checked every number on 15 October 2026. Prices, ratings and job counts change, and we refresh them with each update.
- Our words. Descriptions are written by the Kinescope team. Quotes from reviews are marked with the author and source, and we do not rate the company ourselves.
- Corrections. The company can send new facts or corrections, and we update the profile.
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