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Mee-Plus ring cover - A6 - Review
YouTube is such a good place to discover new planners, isn`t it? You can see so many unboxings and reviews about paper, pens, notebooks, covers and whatever else of the stationery world.
Throughout the year of 2026 I was seeing more and more unboxings and reviews of the Mee-Plus leather ring covers. At first I thought, oh well, isn`t this a Plotter cover? Or is another company making very similar ones?
And if you compare these two covers they are really very similar, especially the metal backplate, covering the whole spine, makes these two covers very alike.
Normally I do not like it if a company is making dupe items of another company. The Kinbor planner was just a copy of Hobonichi that I was wondering if Hobonichi has ever informed them to stop making these dupes. The similarity, especially of the layout and design, was just too big to just be ignored and blame it on "inspiration".
I mean, a planner is a planner, mostly a bound book, often inserts for ring covers, or wire-bound, a year is broken down to months, weeks, days. The base layout cannot be changed because a year defines a planner layout.
But, if you use the same layout, the same design, the same colors, the same font, the same grid size, then it is a mere copy of a planner and not a new planner of a certain company.
I`m creating printable planner inserts as well, and I know that a layout is somehow fixed, a monthly view in boxes, a weekly vertical or horizontal layout. But the design is different from others, it is my design and not a copy of another one. The font, the font size, the grid size, the cover page, all of these make these inserts a production of my imagination and when you look at them, they can be recognized being from a certain company and not a copy of another one.
Therefore, with all of these thoughts in the background, my inital thought was, oh no, another "dupe company"…..
But, being very curios, I checked out the website of Mee-Plus and I very soon found differences.
Yes, still one leather piece with rings and a metal backplate but:
They are offering more sizes, for example A6 or Franklin Covey Compact (FCC)
They are offering more ring sizes, not just 11mm rings, but 13 and 16 mm rings as well
And they are offering personalizations, like an engraving of the spine or custom colored bands
And yes, they offer various leather options, just like Plotter, but what really convinced me in the end, was their choice of sizes. Not just Mini, Pocket, Personal/Bible or A5, but A6, FCC, Personal Wide and A5 slim.
And an A6 ring cover is not that often offered from companies, this is actually very rare.
Ok, said and done, I decided to order one, an A6 in Margot Fog leather in black.
I have ordered the following:
A6 size with 13mm Krause rings in silver
Silver spine with an engraving
Ring protector
Dashboard with band
With inserts, blank and dot grid
The cover:
It is a medium firm leather and has a smooth feeling. It is not too thin, bends a bit, not too stiff. The edges are smooth, no leather bits and pieces are hanging out, outside with this white wax, inside black.
It opens up flat, total flatability, which I love!
It is a minimalistic cover, no pockets, no pen holder, no nothing, just a very nice piece of leather
I have ordered the 13mm Krause rings, 11mm are just too small for my liking.
If you are afraid of scratching up a brand new leather cover (you know, the shiny ones where every mark can be seen), then you don`t need to worry about this one. It kind of looks scratched up a bit from the start and one or more scratches are not too bad. I would say it will age nicely.
The surface is finished with a light wax-treatment, which gives the leather this white appearance, but the wax has already been scratched away a bit, you can see the black leather beneath. With time the wax will wear away more and more and the black leather will appear more and more. I`m looking forward the see how that leather changes.
Silver spine with engraving:
And I liked the idea of an engraving, it makes such a cover really yours.
My text is: "Alles ist möglich", which translates into english to "all is possible".
I have received a review sketch at time of production, so that I was able to check on the writing and words, very nice touch!
And another good thing of this metal spine: the edges at the top of this metal spine are smoothed down, no rough edges which can scratch your table or keep snagging at the inside of your bag or pocket. I have seen in reviews of the Plotter that this is one thing people were mostly complaining about and Mee-Plus has eliminated that problem by smoothing out the egdes.
If you wan to add such an engraving you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page with the leather binders, under "personalization". Different fonts are offered.
Ring protector:
After some time, depending on how you use your cover, the rings will make indentations in the leather, you will see the mark of the rings on the outside.
In order to prevent this from happening, a ring proctector can be added to the inside of the cover. Which I find is a good idea, but it takes away a bit of space for any inserts and the cover does not close by itself anymore. You would need a closure band to hold it closed. Maybe with time this ring protector will be more flexible and the cover will stay closed, even without a band.
Right now I`m not using it.
Dashboard with band:
I ordered as well the dashboard with a band, this can be used as a closure to hold the cover closed.
If you are using the ring protector then the band becomes necessary to hold the cover closed. And the dashboard can be used as a divider or a page lifter.
They offer dashboards with pen holders as well, depending on the width of the pen holder, suitable for thin or thick pens.
And you can even add a custom charm to the closure band, right now they are offering the letters of the alphabet.
And, always on the hunt for good paper, the paper was ordered as well!
I have added paper from their thick paper series, this is a 120gsm paper in a light cream color (very similar to Leuchtturm paper).
The blank paper was very good to be used in a printer, looks very nice.
And the dots of the 5mm dot grid layout are just the right color, not too dark, but visible.
Just be aware that these paper options, blank and dot grid 5mm of their thick serie, are not really "True A6"-sized. A6 is a normed size of 105x148mm, these inserts are slightly taller, 105x150mm. If you are just using these inserts, it doesn`t really matter, but if you want to mix them up with your own inserts in true A6 size, then these sheets might stick out a bit at the top and bottom.
Other inserts are offered in "True-A6"-size and this time in real A6 size, 105x148mm. I would suggest to always check the measurements which are stated in the images of each insert type. I`m not quite sure why these two different sizes are offered.
The same with inserts in FCC size. FCC is a special size of Franklin Covey, 108x171mm, but the inserts that are offered from Mee-Plus are 105x170mm.
As always, I have tested my fountain pen inks on this paper and yes, that paper is really fountain pen friendly!
No bleeding, no feathering, nearly no ghosting, perfect if you use both sides of a sheet.
The paper is smooth, but not glossy smooth as Midori paper, it gives a bit of a feedback, actually very similar to Leuchtturm paper. The lines stay crisp, even with B nibs which lay down a lot of ink.
Overall, yes, this is a very nice ring cover and I will use it right now as an EDC which I take with me when I leave the house, just the monthly overviews and note pages.
This wife and husband team of Mee-Plus really makes a good job and even if it looks very similar to the Plotter covers, the Mee-Plus covers are different from them!
I cannot say anything from the price perspective. I have heard on YouTube that people in the US are saying that Mee-Plus is cheaper than Plotter. I cannot compare that as Plotter is only shipping to Japan and the USA (I have not found a possibility to order it if you are located in Europe) whereas Mee-Plus is shipping worldwide. I guess for Plotter covers you would need to use a forwarding service from White Rabbit for example, then you could order in Japan and let it be shipped to Europe, but this will raise shipping costs.
Thank you all, stay healthy and (planner) peace to everyone!
Andrea
P.S. I have bought all my planners and notebooks myself. I paid for them, I state my own personal opinions about them. When you click a link which I have added for you to see the original planners or notebooks I do not get paid for it.
And yes, I write my blogposts myself, no AI is used!
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