Serial Reader vs ShortReads
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Serial Reader
Read classic literature in daily, manageable segments. This app breaks down over 900 books into daily issues, each readable in 20 minutes or less, helping you build reading habits and tackle lengthy classics. Customize your reading experience with various themes, fonts, and sync options.
- Daily book installments
- Over 900 classic books
- Serialize your own EPUBs
- Sync with Goodreads/Readwise
- Word lookup
- Reading streaks and badges
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Read classic books in daily bite-sized bits! Serial Reader helps you fit more reading into your busy life. Choose from more than 900 books — or add your own! — and the app delivers a new issue from the book every day. Build great reading habits and tackle daunting classic books. Each daily issue can be read in 20 minutes or less, making it easy to fit reading into your spare time! Picked as one of Apple's Best New Apps and Best New App Updates. "This free app will make you ridiculously well-read in 20 minutes a day" — Mashable "For those who are intimidated by thick, leather-bound tomes, Serial Reader is a good way to break it all down" — The Washington Post • Read hundreds of popular classic books for free • Large variety of themes & fonts • Serialize your own EPUB books • Sync to Goodreads and Readwise • Lookup words with quick dictionary & Wikipedia access • Earn fun badges and track your reading streaks Plus, with the Serial Premium upgrade: • Read tomorrow's issue early • Sync your reading across multiple devices • Save quotes & notes while reading • Save books to Read Later • Pause delivery of new issues • Pick specific delivery days and hours for new issues • Custom app icons "Serial Reader’s subscription format makes it a little bit more fun to crank through the classics" — Lifehacker "A useful tool that makes it easy in our modern world to make classic books part of your reading diet" — MacStories More than 900 books available in the app with new titles added each week. Every book is free to read! A preview of available books: Most Popular • Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen • A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens • The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald • Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky • War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy • Les Misérables - Victor Hugo • The Time Machine - H.G. Wells • The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway American Lit • Moby-Dick - Herman Melville • Little Women - Louisa May Alcott • My Antonia - Willa Cather • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Adventure • The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas • Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson • Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe • The Odyssey - Homer • King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard Romance • Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte • Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy • Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare Science Fiction • The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne • A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs Horror • Dracula - Bram Stoker • The Dunwich Horror - H.P. Lovecraft • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley • The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe • The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers • The Wendigo - Algernon Blackwood Mystery • The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle • The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie • The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins Biography • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass • Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup Children's • Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll • The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame • Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Fantasy • The Well at the World's End - William Morris • Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany • The Wood Beyond the World - William Morris Philosophy • The Republic - Plato • Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes • Rights of Man - Thomas Paine Nonfiction • Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft • On the Origin of Species - Charles Darwin • The Federalist Papers • The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Westerns • Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey • The Virginian - Owen Wister • Gunman's Reckoning - Max Brand Religion • King James Bible • The Dhammapada • The Quran Build great reading habits and finish classic books in days with Serial Reader!
ShortReads
Engage with addictive chat-style stories featuring interactive quizzes. Read carefully to answer questions correctly and reach the end of each narrative. Enjoy immersive visuals and typography for a unique reading experience.
- Addictive original stories
- Interactive quizzes
- Gorgeous typography and illustrations
- Offline reading
- Tap-to-advance text
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Read addictive stories with quizzes scattered along their plot. Answer correctly otherwise your story ends abruptly. Can you get to the end? StoryPick uses gorgeous illustrations and typography to immerse you into the story and allow you to enjoy each line of text. To make things even more fun and challenging, each story has a set of quizzes with the correct answer taken from the story itself. Make sure to read carefully if you want to finish it. StoryPick features: - addictive original stories - each story contains unique, gorgeous typography and illustrations - each story has quizzes to make things more fun and challenging - offline reading - the same tap for next lines of text format that you know and love - - - StoryPick is free to download and use. No online account or signup needed. For the Pro version we offer two subscription packages: $3.99/week (1 Week Subscription), $39.99/year (1 Year Subscription). All other features remain free to use indefinitely. These prices are for United States customers. Pricing in other countries may vary and actual charges may be converted to your local currency depending on the country of residence. Subscription service conditions: - Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase - Your subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period - Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period - You can manage your subscription and switch off auto-renewal by accessing your Account Settings after purchase - Refunds will not be provided for any unused portion of the term - Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable - All personal data is handled under the terms and conditions of Bookly’s privacy policy. More details can be found here: http://storypick.app/privacy-policy/ http://storypick.app/terms-of-use/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Serial Reader at 95% against ShortReads's 36%. Serial Reader also leads on ads (none vs shown) and rating (4.8 vs 4.5). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Serial Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and ShortReads sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Serial Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Serial Reader has 4.1K ratings behind it against 107, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 95% of Serial Reader's written reviews are positive against 36% of ShortReads's.
Serial Reader ships an update every 3 months, ShortReads every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Serial Reader | ShortReads |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (4.1K ratings) — better | 4.5 (107 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 95.2% of reviews — better | 36.4% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4.1K — better | 107 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 40 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Michael Schmitt | TwoDoor Games |
Customer experience
Serial Reader
ShortReads
Bugs and requests
Serial Reader
Reported bugs
2 issues- App crashes when changing fonts
- Issues with new chapter delivery not working
Requested features
4 requests- Add more modern/non-classic book options
- Improve sync functionality across devices
- Allow more customization of reading experience
- Provide flexible delivery schedule options
ShortReads
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Serial Reader
- Tip Jar - Essay$1.99
- Serial Premium$2.99
- Tip Jar - Short Story$4.99
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- Tip Jar - Novel$9.99
- Tip Jar - Epic$14.99
ShortReads
- Weekly Pro$2.997 Days
- Yearly Pro$14.991 Year









