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If you want an iPad for Procreate, you don’t need to spend a ton of money. This fantastic digital art app has been designed to run on all iPads, new and old, large and small, so any reasonably recent Apple tablet will do. But which iPad is best for Procreate for you?
As a team, we’ve tested all the best iPads for drawing, and I myself use an M2 iPad Pro 11-inch with Procreate (the larger 13-inch model is No. 3 on my list). A Pro is the way to go if you also want to use the animation app, Procreate Dreams, but it might be more than you need if you only plan to use the iPad for drawing. But Apple has also thrown a curveball with the release of the iPad Air (M4) this year, second on my list, which is powerful enough to run Dreams, though it lacks the Pro’s OLED and 120Hz display.
The best iPad for Procreate available now
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The best iPad for Procreate overall
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30-second review: Released in March this year, the iPad Air M4 (11-inch) feels almost purpose-built for Procreate. While the tablet design doesn’t feel like a leap forward, the M4 chip gives you more power, providing headroom for larger canvases, complex layer stacks, and brush settings, and support for Apple Pencil Pro keeps the drawing experience precise and expressive. It’s not the flashiest iPad, but for illustrators, it hits a sweet spot of performance, portability, and price.
Design and build: For Procreate users, the design is less about looks and more about how it feels over long sessions – and here, the iPad Air M4 still nails it. The flat-edged aluminium body is light, balanced, and easy to hold, whether you’re sketching on the sofa or working at a desk.
At around 6.1mm thick, it’s not the thinnest iPad, but that actually works in its favour. There’s just enough substance to grip comfortably without hand fatigue. The 11-inch size is particularly well suited to digital sketching: big enough for detailed work, but not so large that it becomes awkward to rotate or reposition mid-drawing. For more room, the Air 13-inch is available, but it costs more, to the point you’ll start to think an iPad Pro could be a better bet.
Display: This is where expectations need to be set correctly. The 11-inch Liquid Retina display remains a sharp, colour-accurate panel with P3 wide colour, which means your illustrations look vibrant and consistent – crucial for anyone sharing work online or prepping for print.
But it’s still a 60Hz display. If you’re coming from an iPad Pro or even a rival like Samsung Galaxy Tab, you’ll notice the difference immediately when sketching fast or doing quick strokes – it’s slightly less fluid. That said, for most Procreate workflows, it’s perfectly suited. The combination of low Apple Pencil latency and good palm rejection means drawing still feels responsive and controlled. You just don’t get that ultra-slick ‘ink gliding on glass’ feel of 120Hz, but also, you won’t really miss it.
Performance: This is where the iPad Air M4 really earns its place for Procreate artists. The extra power offers creative freedom and flexibility, and it also means Procreate Dreams now runs on Apple’s mid-range iPad. You can push higher-resolution canvases without Procreate warning you about layer limits as quickly. Complex brushes behave more consistently, and stacking adjustments, textures, and effects doesn’t bog things down as easily. Time-lapse recordings also feel smoother to manage in the background.
Pricing: Starting at $599 / £599, the iPad Air M4 sits in a very comfortable place for artists. Pair it with the Apple Pencil Pro, and you’ve got a setup that delivers most of what illustrators actually need, without drifting into Pro-level pricing. But be aware that styluses are extra with Apple, so the $599 price creeps up to $730.
Yes, the higher-end iPads offer OLED and 120Hz, and if you’re hyper-sensitive to display smoothness or working at the absolute top end of resolution, that might matter. But for the vast majority of Procreate users, the Air M4 hits the practical sweet spot: powerful enough to grow with your skills, portable enough to use anywhere, and priced in a way that still feels justifiable.
Pain point: The big one is missing the OLED, 120Hz display offered on the iPad Pro (M5), which delivers noticeably lower latency and more immediate zooming and rotating. But it comes at a cost, and honestly, for running Procreate, the new Air M5 will do you just fine.
Read our iPad Air (M4) hands-on impressions
Georgia Coggan
“I couldn’t think of anything but ‘why fix what isn’t broken?’. The M4 model is as sleek as ever – and the purple hue is, frankly, delightful. It feels and looks stunning, all sparkle, shine and rounded edges.”
The best iPad for Procreate for beginners
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30-second review: Want something a bit cheaper than the first iPad on our list? The iPad (2025) is reasonably affordable, and thanks to its new A16 chip, it runs Procreate more smoothly than previous vanilla iPads. With a comfortably sized display, this iPad will suit anyone who doesn’t mind using the older generation of Apple Pencil, as it’s not compatible with newer ones.
Pricing: It may not be perfect, but at $349 / £329, this entry-level iPad is easily the best value Procreate tablet you can buy right now.
Design and build: The 11th-generation iPad is externally identical to the 2022 10th-gen model, with a premium-feeling build and a vibrant 10.9-inch display. Nothing wrong with that – the 2022 iPad felt great to draw on, and so does this.
Display: The display is dimmer than the Pros’, at 500 nits rather than an eye-scorching 1,600 nits, but our reviewer still found it a pleasure to draw on, even in outdoor light. The 60 Hz refresh rate is adequate for a responsive drawing experience – not buttery-smooth, but perfectly fine. A 13-inch display would be a little roomier than an 11-inch, but it still provides a comfortable space to work in Procreate.
Performance: This tablet may be on the cheaper side, but it still includes True Tone support, Apple’s technology that adjusts colour balance based on the room’s lighting conditions. It’s A16 runs Procreate more smoothly than the A14 on the 2022 iPad did; if anything’s going to annoy you, it’s likely to be the slow USB 2.0 port, which can make file transfers a long process if you’re not using iCloud.
Pain point: This iPad is only compatible with the first Apple Pencil and the cheaper USB-C Apple Pencil (which lacks pressure sensitivity and is therefore not really worth bothering with for Procreate). If you want to use the Pencil 2 or Pencil Pro with their physical controls and other features, you’ll need a more expensive iPad.
Read our full iPad 2025 review
Daniel John
“You can put the iPad to a broad range of creative tasks, then take it with you to watch videos after you’re finished, or perhaps read an ebook […] it’s a general-use tablet that will find a use in families, with students, and with professionals too.”
The best iPad for Procreate for sheer power
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30-second review: The 2024 M4 iPad Pro didn’t really need to be any more powerful for the kind of work that most people will be doing in iOS apps, but if you want the absolute most powerful iPad available today, the M5 iPad Pro is it. Released in October 2025, it’s one of the fastest-performing tablets on the market. It’s slim, well-built, and most relevant for drawing in Procreate. It has a bright OLED display with a fast refresh rate for seamless sketching using the Apple Pencil Pro.
Pricing: This is the most expensive iPad, starting at $1,299 / £1,299. However, professional digital artists may find it worth it for the brighter OLED screen, fast refresh rate, and ability to make light work of more demanding tasks like video or heavy image editing.
Design and build: The design is the same as the 2024 iPad, with two size options: 13-inch or 11-inch. We reviewed the larger of the two and feel that this size is more comfortable for drawing. Obviously, it’s slightly heavier and less compact, but the tablet is just 5.1mm thick and light enough to carry around in a bag. It also feels reassuringly robust despite the slim build. The speakers are excellent for a tablet, and the device manages heat well, which is again impressive given its thin design.
Display: The OLED display is quite incredible. Apple’s calling it Tandem OLED since it’s two OLED panels sandwiched together. Our reviewer noted the outstanding contrast between darks and lights.
Up to 1,000 nits of standard brightness and 1,600 nits of HDR brightness mean it’s much brighter than other iPad displays. It also has tech to reduce glare. Together, these make this iPad better than others for drawing outside in bright sunlight. The display has a fast 120Hz refresh rate too, eliminating any lag in the drawing experience.
There’s also an option to choose a nano-texture glass finish (at an extra cost). This makes the drawing experience feel more tactile and less slippery, more like using a traditional drawing tablet.
Performance: The M5 iPad Pro is extremely powerful, more than most users will need for drawing. We found it flew through Procreate while excelling on much more demanding software, including Final Cut for video editing. If you only want a device for drawing, this may be overkill in terms of performance – an iPad Air or even the standard iPad will do the job fine. But pro artists will welcome the superior display.
Read our Apple iPad Pro 13 (M4) review
Glen Southern
“Another amazing piece of creative hardware from Apple. But if you aren’t a professional creative or power user then this is overkill in most cases.”
The best iPad for Procreate for lightness
30-second review: If you’re after the best thin and light iPad for Procreate, the 5th-generation iPad Air is an excellent value. The M1 processor grants it very past performance, and our reviewer called it a “pretty astounding creative computer”.
Pricing: The main reason to choose this older iPad Air over the new 2024 iPad Air is that you can usually find it at a decent discount. Make sure you compare both prices first, though!
Design and build: Compared with the 13-inch iPad Pro, the 5th-gen iPad Air is a lighter, more portable device that still feels very robust and premium, thanks to its sleek aluminium finish. Its real selling point, though, is its portability. Weighing just 462g and measuring 247.6 x 178.5 x 6.1 mm, this is an iPad you can take pretty much anywhere, allowing you to fire up Procreate no matter where you are.
Display: The 1640 x 2360 Liquid Retina IPS LCD screen makes anything you make in Procreate look fantastic. Our review found that the screen resolution is comparable to previous Pro models, while the backlighting is even and colour-accurate, making it a great choice for drawing.
Performance: This Air isn’t the best option for those who want a tablet that they can also use for more demanding tasks, such as video editing, but for drawing, the M1 chip is plenty powerful.
Pain point: The one thing that disappoints us is that it comes in only two storage sizes: a 64GB version, which is really too small these days, and a 256GB version, which may be too big for some people. Another drawback is lower brightness than the Pro’s Ultra Retina XDR OLED display, and a refresh rate of only 60Hz (compared to the Pro’s 120Hz).
Read more: iPad Air (5th Gen, 2022) review
Matt Bolton
“The iPad Air is a pretty astounding creative computer. A high-quality screen, supreme portability, a huge range of interesting apps from music synths to advanced image editing, and enough power to make sure that you can do whatever you want with them.”
The best compact iPad for Procreate
30-second review: This is the latest version of the iPad mini. It doesn’t use Apple’s M-series silicon, but it’s equipped with an A17 Pro chip, which means Procreate runs very well indeed – we put it through the wringer with some big files and had no problems to speak of. It supports Apple Pencil Pro for a premium drawing experience – the only question is whether the display is large enough for your needs.
Pricing: The iPad mini 7th Gen starts out very reasonably at £499 / $499 – though of course, you’re already looking at an extra three-figure bump if you want to get the Apple Pencil Pro. You can easily spend a lot on this iPad if you add features like cellular connectivity or 512GB storage, but you can also get it for a reasonable outlay.
Design and build: As the name suggests, we found the mini wonderfully compact and suitable for carrying anywhere, since it fits neatly into a small bag (read our guide to the best iPad cases). In design terms, it’s pretty much exactly the same proposition as the previous iPad mini 6th Gen from 2021.
Display: The 8.3-inch Liquid Retina screen offers 2266×1488 resolution at 326 pixels per inch. It’s crisp and vibrant, and while the frame rate hasn’t been increased from 60 Hz on the last model, Apple at least quietly fixed the infamous ‘jelly scrolling’ issue that plagued the previous iPad mini.
Performance: Make no mistake, Procreate really runs on this thing. The new chip has put the latest generation of iPad mini on a par with the iPad Air series in terms of power, and it’s just a pleasure to use. The OS is zippier, apps load faster, and of course, Procreate handles like a dream. Our reviewer loaded up some enormous files on the iPad mini 7th Gen in Procreate, working in multiple layers, and the app ran as smoothly as you could ask for.
Pain point: The only real downfall to the mini, display-wise, is one that’s well-advertised going in: the 8.3-inch screen is, well, small. This creates a bit of a mismatch in the iPad mini 7th Gen’s Procreate capabilities – you have enough computing power to work on big, complex projects, but the cramped screen real estate can make the process fiddly and frustrating.
Read more: Apple iPad mini 7th Gen (2024) review
Daniel John
“With the addition of the A17 Bionic chip and Apple Pencil Pro support, the iPad mini really does offer the ‘full’ iPad experience in a smaller package, handling everything from digital painting to video editing almost as well as its bigger siblings.”
The best budget iPad for Procreate
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30-second review: The previous generation of the iPad (2025) ranked number two on our list; the iPad (2022) is even more affordable and will work well for creating art in Procreate, too. It doesn’t run Procreate quite as smoothly as later iPads, but it’ll get the job done.
Pricing: It was cheap on release, and it has only got cheaper – the iPad 2022 is a downright bargain, even when you factor in the extra cost of a Pencil.
Design and build: The 10th-generation iPad has a larger screen than the 9th-generation model and feels more premium as a result, with a robust build. It comes in a variety of colours, and its design proved so successful that Apple didn’t change it at all for the 2025 version.
Display: Perfectly fine, with no danger of being exceptional. The extra legroom (penroom?) in this 10.9-inch display is what makes this tablet a substantially better buy for Procreate than the 9th-gen iPad, even though you could easily find that one cheaper.
Performance: This iPad uses the A14 chip, rather than the more powerful M-chips found in higher-end iPads, so while Procreate runs fine, you don’t get quite as slick an experience. It’s only compatible with the first Apple Pencil, and you can forget about Apple Intelligence. With that said, it’s still got True Tone support, and our reviewer found that creative apps like Procreate ran reasonably well.
Read more: iPad 2022 review
Kerrie Hughes
“Apple’s iPad 2022 boasts a bigger, brighter display, more power, USB-C support and all-new accessories. Add Apple Pencil support to all that and it’s the perfect choice for those wanting more from Apple’s entry-level iPad.”
How we test the best iPad for Procreate
When testing iPads for drawing, I put each tablet through its paces with demanding brushes, layering heavy projects, and intricate line art. Each stroke is scrutinised for lag, responsiveness, and overall performance. From subtle blending to pressure sensitivity, we test how faithfully the iPad translates every nuance of the artist’s hand onto the canvas.
I also look at practical considerations such as how long the battery lasts, how much storage there is for projects files, and whether the iPad offers value for money overall.
How to choose the best iPad for Procreate
Industry-leading digital art app Procreate has transformed the iPad into an artistic powerhouse. However, it doesn’t work with all iPad models, so picking the perfect one can feel a bit confusing.
The first task is to check that the model is actually compatible with Procreate. All our picks in the list above are, and we have a full list of compatible iPads in our FAQs below. Secondly, you should consider which of the three Apple Pencils you want to use, and check compatibility there too.
Thirdly, think about what screen size you prefer. A large screen means more space to draw, but also makes the iPad bigger and less portable, so there’s a balance to be struck there if you plan to often be sketching on the move. Fourthly, consider whether the extra features in the latest version of Procreate are important to you: if so, you’ll want one of the newest iPads, as we detail in our list above.
You’ll also want to consider storage space, see our how much iPad storage do I need guide? for advice on that.
FAQs
What is Procreate?
Procreate is a powerful and popular raster graphics editor app designed specifically for iPads and iPhones. It’s typically used by artists for digital painting, illustration and sketching on the iPad. First launched in 2011, it’s made by by the Tasmanian software company Savage Interactive. In 2018, Procreate became the overall best selling iPad app. Read our selection of Procreate tutorials to get started with using this app.
What’s the latest version of Procreate?
The latest version of Procreate is 5.4, which was released on 11 September, 2025. It introduced over 150 new brushes across 18 sets designed by Procreate’s in-house Brush Developer Kyle T. Webster. It also introduces a revamped brush library structure and a search functionality to make it easier to organise and find brushes.
Procreate 5.4 also improves on the app’s brush creation features. You can now remove anti-aliasing with alpha threshold and there are more controls for spacing, shape roundness, stroke jitter and per brush pressure curves.
Which iPads support Procreate?
To run the latest version of Procreate you need to have an iPad with iPadOS 16.3 or newer installed. All iPads released since around 2017 have supported Procreate:
iPad Pro (M4)
iPad Air from 2nd generation onwards
iPad Pro 12.9-inch (all generations)
iPad Pro 11-inch (all generations)
iPad Pro 10.5-inch
iPad Pro 9.7-inch
iPad from the 5th generation)
iPad mini from the 4th generation
Procreate is only available for iPad. If you want to mirror your screen on a PC, see our guide to how to use an iPad as a drawing tablet with a PC.
What’s the best Apple Pencil for Procreate?
You need to make sure that you choose an Apple Pencil that’s compatible with your iPad. Only the budget Apple Pencil USB-C is compatible with all recent Apple tablets.
We think the Apple Pencil Pro provides the best drawing experience on an iPad thanks to its advanced features like hover, a squeeze gesture for quick actions and a barrel roll feature for quick brush adjustments. This stylus works with the iPad Pro M4, iPad Air M2 and M3 and iPad Mini 7. However, the original Apple Pencil supported by the basic iPad is still a fine option for drawing on a tablet, although it required a USB-C adapter for connection and charging.
See our Apple Pencil comparison and our Apple Pencil Pro review for more details.
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