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Updated July 2026 · real, multi-region App Store reviews
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Is it worth paying for

Readwise Reader

85
Value score / 100 Worth paying? Yes Worth it

Readwise Reader is a highly-rated, feature-rich reading and knowledge management app that many users find essential and worth its subscription cost, despite persistent bugs and performance issues.

Free to download seen up to $119.99 4.6★ lifetime (565) since 2022

Readwise Reader consolidates various reading materials like articles, newsletters, RSS feeds, PDFs, and ePubs into one app, offering powerful features like text-to-speech and highlighting that sync with Readwise. While many users praise its value and transformative impact on their reading habits, it is frequently criticized for bugs, performance issues, and a high subscription price.

Free vs paid

The app offers a free trial, but reviews indicate that continued use requires a paid subscription R4R196. There is no mention of a permanent free tier. The paid subscription unlocks all features, including text-to-speech, highlighting, and integrations with other services like Readwise for highlight syncing R1R26.

Value complaints

  • Many users find the subscription price, ranging from $8.99 to $12.99 monthly or $95.90 to $119.99 annually, to be too high for the service offered, especially given the app's bugs and lack of certain features.R13R38R54R83
  • Some users complain about a forced paywall after a trial, making it impossible to even explore the app without subscribing.R4R196
  • The app is perceived as not providing enough distinct value to justify a price similar to major magazine or newspaper subscriptions.R96

Where it delivers

  • Users praise the app's ability to consolidate various reading materials (articles, newsletters, RSS, PDFs, ePubs) into a single platform, reducing app-switching.R2R3R10R14
  • The text-to-speech (TTS) feature is highly valued for turning any content into audiobooks, allowing users to listen at various speeds and highlight while listening.R12R14R21R26
  • The highlighting and note-taking features, especially with automatic syncing to Readwise, are considered transformative for knowledge management and retention.R1R15R18R20
  • Users appreciate the clean interface, focused UI, and overall user experience, which helps minimize distractions and improve reading efficiency.R1R19R24R31
  • The app is actively developed with frequent updates and responsive customer support, making users feel valued.R1R9R11R21
Worth paying if

It is worth paying for if you are a 'power reader' or student who consumes a large volume of digital content from various sources, needs a centralized system for reading and knowledge management, and values features like text-to-speech, highlighting, and integrations for note-taking and review R1R2R10R14. It is particularly valuable for existing Readwise users who want to consolidate their reading and highlight management .

Skip / stay free if

You should skip Readwise Reader if you are looking for a free reading app, as it requires a subscription after a trial R4R196. Users who prioritize a bug-free experience, consistent performance, and specific features like robust PDF annotation with Apple Pencil, comprehensive reading statistics, or full offline reading capabilities might find the app frustrating in its current state R5R7R13R16.

Evidence note: The reviews provide extensive detail on both the app's strengths and weaknesses, with a slight skew towards positive sentiment in lifetime ratings but significant negative feedback in recent reviews regarding bugs and pricing. There is limited information on specific free tier features, as most reviews discuss the paid experience.

Frequently asked

How much does Readwise Reader cost?
Readwise Reader's subscription costs range from $8.99 to $12.99 per month, or $95.90 to $119.99 annually, with no permanent free tier available after a trial period R4R38R54R83.
Does Readwise Reader have text-to-speech (TTS)?
Yes, Readwise Reader features excellent text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities that allow users to listen to articles, books, and even YouTube transcripts, with some users highlighting while listening R12R14R21R26.
Are there many bugs in Readwise Reader?
Yes, many users report a high number of bugs and performance issues, including slow loading, frequent crashes, unreliable article parsing, and problems with features like TTS navigation and Apple Pencil support R5R7R13R16.
Can Readwise Reader handle paywalled articles?
Readwise Reader generally struggles with paywalled articles from publications like The Economist or New Yorker, often only importing the first paragraph because it lacks user credentials to access the full content R29.

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

  1. [R13] 1/5 · US TTS broken again: No QA testing before each update? Now when using TTS and you tap the button to jump back, it jumps ahead instead. Acceptable for a free or cheap service, not acceptable at this price.
  2. [R38] 3/5 · US Subscription: Can’t justify $12/m
  3. [R54] 3/5 · US Good App, too pricey: I enjoyed my first day using the app, but learned that it costs about $10-13 a month! I read that a year ago it was $8-9. In a perfect world I would use this app, but this cost is ludicrously high for the service offered. Subscriptions are everywhere now and I’m frankly fine with a free version that is slightly worse.
  4. [R83] 3/5 · US nice: but should be charge less 95$/yr for a reading app sounds crazy
  5. [R4] 1/5 · US Just downloaded but my trial is expired?: This app must be connected to to original in terms of subscription. I’ve never used this one before but I’ve used the Readwise app; just downloaded this, signed up and it told me to subscribe to continue as my trial is expired. I can’t move past that page to even see what the app entails. Thats a real bummer, really wanted to try it as I get back into read
  6. [R196] 1/5 · AU Not transparent about pricing: Seems like a good app. But not transparent about pricing. Upon downloading the free app, you are automatically placed in a 30 day free trial. No free tier option like other Read later apps. Would’ve been better if you were upfront about the cost of your service rather than trying to trap users into another subscription
  7. [R96] 1/5 · US subscription price makes no sense: I am not really sure why the subscription price for this product is about the same as the subscription for any magazine/newspaper subscription. All it does is reference other information and provides no distinct value on its own to warrant that price.
  8. [R2] 5/5 · US Revolutionized how I consume media: I finally feel like I have a grasp on everything I read and a single place to read it all. Highly highly recommend
  9. [R3] 5/5 · US Wow!: So I came from rss.app and Feedly cause I want to keep up with the playoffs.. I understand reader isn’t fast pace but it’s what I’m looking for .. use Flipboard and whatever is out there to find an article dump it in my library.. get feeds dump then then read them on my own time.. I been doing read later for now .. don’t get me started on chatting with highlights. I LOVE IT SO MUCH!! Using
  10. [R10] 5/5 · US The BEST media organization app: If you decide to use this app, prepare to expand your ideas of what is possible with a reader app. Wildly powerful and takes some time to get comfortable with, but for serious readers it’s 100% worth it. I wish there were TTS playlists but that’s not going to prevent me from happily giving 5 stars ✨
  11. [R14] 5/5 · US Elegant Interface - and a true 2nd Brain: I save everything in it - research, epubs, pdfs, feeds from twitter lists, and websites, blogs. The text to speech feature is excellent for anything from articles to books.
  12. [R12] 5/5 · US Great tts app: Please add a sleep timer The app is great so far
  13. [R21] 5/5 · US My most used iOS app: I love the text-to-speech feature, making any media listenable while allowing for reading without losing one's place. The app receives consistent updates and provides excellent support. The highlight feature is transformative.
  14. [R26] 5/5 · US Turned my books into audiobooks: I really like this app, I can read every kind of document I want, including YouTube where I can highlight text. Also, the text to speech feature I use to listen to my epub books before I go to sleep. Amazing.
  15. [R1] 5/5 · US absolutely worth it: this is the only app I’ve found worth paying a yearly subscription for. impeccable interface. so easy to use, yet so many awesome features. when I first started using Reader, I was between jobs. when my (already generous) free trial ended, they extended it by three more months for me + were highly responsive to emails. I did not feel like a random user; the Readwise team has
  16. [R15] 5/5 · US reader app made by readers!: read & highlight anything, including YouTube and podcast transcripts. I can feel the love put into this app.
  17. [R18] 4/5 · US I like it, but not seeing much progress: Been a paid subscriber for two years. I like a lot of things about the app: dark mode, flipping from one email to the next immediately from the end of an email I just finished, being able to save links inside of emails to read them later, custom email addresses to forward newsletters directly to the Reader. It solves the use case of “I want to have all my r
  18. [R20] 5/5 · US Excellent App: This is the app for those that read a lot and remember what they read.
  19. [R19] 5/5 · US Absolutely Life Altering: This reader has saved me so much time and also allowed mind to rest easier. All of my feeds and articles in one spot. I don’t get sidetracked as often with the focused UI. It’s a beautiful experience. I’m just kicking myself for not finding it sooner. I can’t wait for highlights view to be integrated!
  20. [R24] 5/5 · US Didn’t know how much I needed this: I try to minimize my use of apps/heavy tooling but this is downright incredible. It’s intuitive and exactly what I needed.
  21. [R31] 5/5 · US Packed with amazing features(but for the love of god change the app icon): I love this app. It basically combined my separate RSS and “read later” apps into a single amazing reading hub, and I am only scratching the surface of its functionality. But good god the app icon is ugly, please change it so more people can find out what an amazing piece of software this is!
  22. [R9] 5/5 · US Great app!: Battery and performance issues have been fixed :)
  23. [R11] 5/5 · US The best all-in-one reader around: This app has changed the way I consume almost all online, and some offline content. While it’s not perfect (yet), it is very actively developed and supported. New features are coming all the time and when things break, they’re at least quickly acknowledged and usually resolved reasonably fast as well. It’s the best app I’ve seen in this category and I’ve tried pl
  24. [R5] 3/5 · US Great app, disastrous quality control: The amount of bugs this app has is amongst the highest I've ever seen on any app, whether high quality or otherwise . It's too bad, because this thing is really, really, really good when it works. For at least a year or two now, my inbox on my iPhone just does not want to work properly. It takes forever to load, and I've cleared the cache and done everything
  25. [R7] 3/5 · US Unreliable: I love the idea of this app. I love the feature set. What I do t love is that a substantial portion of the articles I save get improperly saved. For example, I saved an article and the top and bottom sections (about 80% of the article) weren’t saved. I tried the same thing in GoodLinks, none. The article was as expected. Not sure what’s going on here but great features can’t make up f
  26. [R16] 1/5 · US No RSS compact view: Unlike every other rss app or similar apps such as email clients that all offer compact view vs default or vs expanded etc, Reader still has 0 options to customize the RSS screen. Can’t hide the image, can’t hide the excerpt etc so it’s a terrible rss experience and seems more aimed for the view one would want for curated saved articles not all ones rss feeds. Every years more
  27. [R29] 1/5 · US Missing functionality: I got this to be a good place to read all my favorite publications in one app. Unfortunately, it has been my experience that I’m unable to read any of these publications, such as the Economist, New Yorker, or History Today, in the Reader App. Whenever I try to import them, I only get the first paragraph, presumably because when Reader goes to grab the article, it does not ha

Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store