One of the big questions bullet journalers have is how many bullet journals they need a year. It isn’t always obvious because people use different amounts of pages per month and each bullet journal has a different number of pages. So I thought I would solve the problem for you! It’s easy enough to figure out how many bullet journals per year you need when you know the math behind it.
Let’s start off with how many pages you use a month. Now, I use roughly 10 pages a month (as seen in Table 1). I have a cover page (1), a calendar (2), a daily highlight spread (3), a habit tracker (4), a water tracker (5), a budget spread (6) and 4 weekly spreads. (I didn’t account for extra spreads like Valentine’s Day ideas or mental health spreads.) Most people use two pages for their weekly spreads whereas I only use one. So your average number of pages will likely be different from mine.
It isn’t too difficult to figure out your average. You simply need to take the number of spreads you used in the last few months then divide it by the number of months you added together. It might seem like a step you can skip but you’ll need to know this number in the future.
Number of Pages I Use a Month
| Month | Pages Used |
|---|---|
| August | 10 |
| September | 9 |
| October | 9 |
| November | 11 |
| December | 9 |
| January | 10 |
| February | 8 |
| March | 12 |
| Average | 9.75 |
Now that you know your average number of pages per month in your bullet journal, we can move on to the number of pages a journal typically includes. To know how many bullet journals you need a year, you’re going to want to know how many pages your bullet journal has.
Page Thickness
The thicker the pages in your bullet journal, the fewer pages you are going to have. When you have thicker pages, you tend to have less space. To avoid looking chunky, bullet journal creators add fewer pages to thicker paged journals. When you are shopping for a bullet journal for the year, you have to keep page thickness in mind.
Thicker pages are better for art, specifically paints and markers. Thinner pages lead to bleeding and ghosting, meaning that ink will bleed through the page or at least be seen on the other side of the paper. I use an Archer & Olive bullet journal with 160GSM, one of the highest page thicknesses you can find for a bullet journal because I hate seeing my designs through the paper. However, I do lose pages because of it.
Your choice of journal is up to you! It really depends on your preferences for paper thickness and page numbers. For instance, the Leuchtturm1917 journal has the most pages but the paper is very thin. You can see through the paper. If that doesn’t bother you, then it might be the perfect journal! Otherwise, you might have to look for something with thicker paper. Anything over 120GSM paper thickness for your bullet journal is typically pretty good but 160GSM paper is best if you want to use markers or paint in your journal.
Because page thickness plays a role in page numbers, I added it to the table below (Table 2).
Number of Pages in Popular Journal Brands
| Journal Brand | Page Thickness (GSM) | Number of Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Archer & Olive | 160 | 160 |
| Archer & Olive | 160 | 192 |
| Leuchtturm1917 | 80 | 251 |
| Leuchtturm1917 | 120 | 211 |
| Scribbles That Matter | 160 | 155 |
| Scribbles That Matter | 120 | 215 |
| Dingbats | 100 | 192 |
| AmandaRachLee | 160 | 160 |
| Lemone | 125 | 180 |
| Moleskine Classic Bullet Journal | 70 | 208 |
| Average | — | 192.4 |
There are plenty of other bullet journals out there with different amounts of pages but these journals are some of the most popular.
Based on the number of pages you have in your journal, you can easily figure out how many bullet journals you need in a year! You simple need to divide the number of pages you have in your journal by the average number of pages you use in a month. It gives you the time you have in that journal in months!
In the table below (Table 3), you can find how many months you would have with your journal if you use 5, 10, … 25 pages a month. Keep in mind that these numbers don’t include all the spreads you add at the beginning of your bullet journal! Most people have a good 10-20 pages at the beginning of their journal for yearly spreads. For example, you might not get exactly 32 months in your Archer & Olive journal. It might be closer to 29 months with 5 pages of spreads per month.
Number of Months You Can Use a Bullet Journal Based on Pages Used Per Month
| Journal Brands | Page Number | 5 Pages /Month | 10 Pages /Month | 15 Pages /Month | 20 Pages /Month | 25 Pages /Month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Archer & Olive | 160 | 32 | 16 | 10.7 | 8 | 6.4 |
| Archer & Olive | 192 | 38.4 | 19.2 | 12.8 | 9.6 | 7.7 |
| Leuchtturm1917 | 251 | 50.2 | 25.1 | 16.7 | 12.5 | 10 |
| Leuchtturm1917 | 211 | 42.2 | 21.1 | 14.1 | 10.5 | 8.4 |
| Scribbles That Matter | 155 | 31 | 15.5 | 10.3 | 7.7 | 6.2 |
| Scribbles That Matter | 215 | 43 | 21.5 | 14.3 | 10.7 | 8.6 |
| Dingbats | 192 | 38.4 | 19.2 | 12.8 | 9.6 | 7.7 |
| AmandaRachLee | 160 | 32 | 16 | 10.7 | 8 | 6.4 |
| Lemone | 180 | 36 | 18 | 12 | 9 | 7.2 |
| Moleskine Classic | 208 | 41.6 | 20.8 | 13.9 | 10.4 | 8.32 |
| Journals Per Year | — | 0.25-0.4 | 0.5-0.8 | 0.7-1.25 | 1-1.7 | 1.4-2 |
At the bottom of this table, I included how many years you would have in your journal based on the number of pages you use a month. Each column has two numbers. The first one is the number of years you would have with the largest number of pages. The second number is with the smallest number of pages. So if you use 5 pages a month in a Leuchtturm1917 with 80GSM, you can technically use it for up to 4 years (0.25 of a year).
Based on these calculations, you need one bullet journal a year if you use 10-15 pages or less in your bullet journal a month. If you use more than 15 pages a month, you will likely need two bullet journals within the year to hold all of your spreads.
Of course, the amount of time you have in a journal depends on how many pages you use. We all add random spreads in the middle of our journals that we didn’t account for. And the number of spreads we use per month does vary from month to month. So you might be able to get a year in a journal with 15 pages a month but you’ll more than likely be a few months short of a year with all your extra spreads.
Now that we know how many months you would get in your journal, let’s see what the ideal number of pages is for your bullet journal based on the number of pages you use per month!
Number of Pages You Need For One Year in a Bullet Journal
| Number of Pages Used Per Month | Ideal Number of Pages | Ideal Number + Beginning Pages (10) | Ideal Number + Beginning Pages (20) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | 60 | 70 | 80 |
| 10 | 120 | 130 | 140 |
| 15 | 180 | 190 | 200 |
| 20 | 240 | 250 | 260 |
| 25 | 300 | 310 | 320 |
| 30 | 360 | 370 | 380 |
The number of pages you need obviously varies based on how many pages you use. I also added the number of pages you would need with the spreads you add at the beginning of your bullet journal.
As I use on average 10 pages per month, I would ideally need a journal with 140 pages. (I like to have a lot of spreads at the beginning of my journal.) This number seems about right! I can typically get about a year in my journal (192 pages) but I also add other spreads throughout the year that would make my average a little higher than 10 spreads per month.
You’ll find that you have a lot of extra spreads throughout the year, so it’s best to give yourself a little extra room in your journal.
Averages and the Perfect Number of Pages for Your Bullet Journal
Based on the average number of pages in a bullet journal (192.4 pages, seen in Table 1), the ideal number of pages used per month in your bullet journal is 10-15.
The average number of pages used in a bullet journal a month is 14. You have a cover page (1,2), a calendar (3,4), a habit tracker (5), a mood tracker (6), and weekly spreads (7-14). Therefore, the perfect bullet journal has 168 pages with about 20 extra pages for your beginning spreads and extra things throughout the year (188 pages).
Based on these numbers, I would suggest you look for a journal with 192 pages to last you the whole year.
Multiple Bullet Journals a Year with Different Purposes
Other than the number of pages you would need to last you a year, there are other reasons that people have multiple journals throughout the year.
For some people, separating different areas of their lives into different journals makes sense. There are plenty of bullet journalers who use multiple journals a year for their personal life, work, and finances.
If you prefer these areas of your life to be separate, you wouldn’t be the only person. It is perfectly reasonable to have multiple bullet journals for different purposes. As I always say, your bullet journal is yours! You can do whatever you want with it.
By separating all of these areas of your life, your journals are likely to last longer. You might have two or three bullet journals but they might also last you for a few years.
As long as you are happy with your bullet journaling system, that’s all that matters!
In All,
How many bullet journals you need per year will depend on how many pages you use a month. The average and perfect amount of pages used a month are between 10-15 pages. But if you use any more pages than that, you will likely need 2 bullet journals within the year. Basically, the number of bullet journals you need a year is all up to you!
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