Cosgear Shut Down: 5 Alternatives (2026)

Cosgear is gone, and this time it's official

If you opened Cosplay Planner recently and got nothing, that isn't your phone. I checked every entry point in August 2026. The Google Play listing for com.cosgear.app returns a 404, Apple's lookup API returns zero results for the iOS build, and the web app at app.cosgear.co answers with an HTTP 402 "Payment required" page, which is what hosting looks like after the invoices stop getting paid. The shop at cosgear.co serves a Shopify placeholder reading "This store is unavailable."

The paper trail is public and blunt. Cosgear AS was registered in Norway on 31 May 2018 as Costail AS and renamed Cosgear on 7 September 2020. A bankruptcy estate, Cosgear AS Konkursbo, was registered on 5 July 2024. Cosgear AS was deleted from the Norwegian business register on 6 October 2025, and the estate itself was wound up on 4 April 2026. The company behind your planner has not existed for nearly a year.

The app outlived the company for a while, which is why people are only noticing now. The Internet Archive's last good capture of cosgear.co is 1 November 2025. It stings more than most shutdowns because Cosgear was actually free. The Play listing showed 50,000+ downloads and 231 reviews at 3.4 stars, unlimited storage, no premium tier, and free patterns and 3D print files bundled in. I leaned on its shopping list for a Kaine build in 2023 because it was the only planner that didn't want $60 a year before letting me add a fourth project.

Here's what you can salvage, and five apps worth moving to.

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Quick verdict

• Closest to the old Cosgear workflow? Cosplai. Task statuses, budget rollups, iOS and Android.
• Want free with no paid tier at all? Cosplan. It's the only one that says outright there's no premium version.
• Plan at a desk? Cosflowy or Costumary. Both are web-first, so there's no app store to get delisted from.
• Need reference organization most? Costumary or Milanote. Cosgear never had a real board.
• Take commissions? Costumary Studio. Intake form, quote builder, client portal, payment tracking.

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What you can still salvage

Nothing automated. Cosgear never shipped a data export, and there's no server left to export from. If the app still opens from cache on an old phone, do this first:

1. Screenshot every project's task list, including collapsed sub-tasks. Those breakdowns are what you actually spent time on.
2. Screenshot every shopping list with prices visible. That's your material cost history, and it's worth real money when you quote a similar build later.
3. Save reference images from the image tab to your camera roll, one project at a time so you don't lose which shot belonged to which costume.
4. Write your per-project spend totals down somewhere plain.

Do not log out and try a fresh login. Login hits a dead server and you'll lose whatever cached state you had.

You're migrating a structure, not a database. I rebuilt three years of Cosgear projects elsewhere over two evenings, and the slow part was deciding which builds I still cared about.

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1. Cosplai

Platforms: iOS, Android (no web app) Price: Free (5 active projects, 3 active events) / Pro $9.99 per month or $59.99 per year Best for: Cosgear users who want to stay on their phone

Cosplai is the most direct swap for what Cosgear did. The domain moved: cosplai.app no longer resolves, and the site lives at cosplai.me. The iOS build was last updated 31 July 2026.

What it does well:

Multi-status tracking is the closest thing to Cosgear's sections and sub-tasks. Items get marked To Buy, To Make, Ordered, or Finished, and the budget rolls up from line items to a project total automatically. Convention discovery and offline mode are both built in, which matters in a dealer hall with two bars of signal.

Where it falls short:

Mobile only. No web version means you can't put reference photos on one screen and your material list on the other, and I do that constantly during patterning.

The free tier is tighter than Cosgear's: 5 active projects, 25 completed cosplays, 25 images per project, 3 active events. Twenty-five images is thin for armor. My Kaine chest piece alone had about forty reference shots. Past that it's $59.99 a year, the highest price here. Longer breakdown in my Cosplai alternatives post.

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2. Cosplan

Platforms: iOS, Android, web Price: Free, with no paid tier Best for: Cosplayers who miss the Hype Feed more than the task lists

Cosplan calls itself the first social network for cosplayers, and its FAQ states plainly that it's completely free with no premium tier and no paid features. In a category where everything else has a $60 annual plan waiting, that counts. The iOS app was updated 31 August 2026, the most recent ship date here.

What it does well:

Cross-platform including a real web app, which is rare here. Project checklists, closet and inventory, notes, photo and video references, purchases and budget, time logged, and convention reminders all live in one project journal. Photoshoot documentation is the standout: create a shoot, credit the photographer, tag the location, set visibility per shoot. If you can never remember who shot your Katsucon set, this fixes it.

Where it falls short:

Community-first means the build tooling is shallower than it looks. Budget exists but isn't the point, and there's no materials list with per-item status, no cost alternatives, no store links. If Cosgear's shopping list was the screen you opened daily, you'll feel that gap fast. The iOS listing also has only 4 ratings, so there's little public signal on stability.

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3. Cosflowy

Platforms: Web (desktop-optimized), mobile PWA, Windows and macOS downloads Price: Free tier plus a Pro tier, price not published publicly Best for: Builders who think in components rather than projects

Cosflowy organizes by element instead of by project. Each costume piece gets its own workflow with materials, expenses, tasks, and progress. For armor that maps beautifully: pauldron, vambrace, greave and gorget, each with its own material list and its own spend.

What it does well:

Reference image collections in a gallery, a calendar view for cons and deadlines, budget planning with a visual spending overview, and milestone records you can turn into a progress timeline. It's built by one developer, Leo, who runs a public board where you vote on features. That's the opposite of Cosgear, where a hardware startup funded a free app until it couldn't.

Where it falls short:

No App Store or Google Play listing, so mobile is PWA only. I checked both stores in August 2026 and found nothing. Pricing isn't published anywhere public either, which is the one thing I'd push Leo on. You have to sign up to learn what Pro costs, and after Cosgear that's a hard ask. The element-first structure also fights you when a build isn't linear. My Cosflowy alternatives post goes deeper on that.

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4. Costumary

Platforms: Web Price: Free (2 active projects) / Base $9 per month / Studio $19 per month, 20% off yearly Best for: Builders who want references, materials, budget, timeline, and build log connected

Full disclosure: this is us, and I write here. So here's the honest version.

What it does well:

One project holds an annotated reference board (images, video, links, notes, checklists, color swatches), a materials list with per-item status (need, ordered, arrived, owned, tested, used), a budget that calculates itself from those materials, a timeline with cosplay phases like patterning, fitting, wear test and packing, and a structured build log.

The board is the piece Cosgear never had. Images there lived in a flat tab, not somewhere you could arrange and annotate them with "this seam is a cheat, the panel is one piece" right next to the photo. Boards share by link and the recipient needs no account.

Starter gives you 100 reference uploads per project and 30 build log entries at $0. To test the material planning without signing up, the material wizard needs no account, and the cosplay workspace overview walks through a full build.

Where it falls short:

No native mobile app. The site is responsive in a phone browser, but if your whole Cosgear habit was checking a list in the fabric aisle, that's a real adjustment. No social feed and no offline mode either. The free tier is 2 active projects, tighter than Cosplai's 5, so three concurrent builds means $9 a month.

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5. Milanote

Platforms: Web, iOS, Android Price: Free (100 notes, images or links, plus 10 file uploads) / Individual $9.99 per month billed annually or $12.50 monthly / Team $49 per month billed annually Best for: Pure visual reference work when budget lives elsewhere

Milanote isn't a cosplay tool, but the mood board experience is the best on this list.

What it does well:

Free-form boards, so you can lay out a character turnaround exactly how your brain wants it. Drag and drop images, a web clipper extension, color swatches, and unlimited shared boards even on the free plan.

Where it falls short:

The free plan counts 100 notes, images and links combined, plus 10 file uploads. One armor build burns 50 without trying. I hit the cap in a weekend on a single Nier board and had to delete reference shots to add new ones. There's also no materials list, no budget, no timeline, and no progress tracking, so pair it with something that handles the build side.

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How they compare

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What about Notion or Trello?

Notion is free for individuals and $10 per member per month on Plus. You can build a cosplay planner in it, but you'll spend an evening on databases and relations instead of cutting foam, and the free plan caps file uploads at 5 MB each. If you already have a Notion system you like, keep it and add a materials database with a status property.

Trello is free for up to 10 boards per Workspace, with Standard at $5 per user per month billed annually and Premium at $10. It's right for group cosplay coordination and wrong for cost tracking, since there's no budget math without a Power-Up. I use it for group builds and nothing else. More on where generic boards break down in my Cosplanner alternatives post.

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