Matter vs Headlines
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Matter
Consolidate articles, newsletters, and PDFs into a single, elegant reading experience. Enjoy features like natural text-to-speech, fluid highlighting, and offline access. Sync your highlights to popular knowledge management tools.
- Save articles, newsletters, PDFs, and YouTube
- Natural text-to-speech for articles
- Fluid highlighting and note-taking
- Sync highlights to Notion, Obsidian, Readwise
- Send articles to Kindle
- Unified inbox for subscriptions
- Offline reading
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Finally, a better reading app. The internet is full of things you want to read – articles, newsletters, Twitter threads, PDFs. Matter brings them together in one place and gives you modern tools, like natural text-to-speech and fluid highlighting, to help you read more comfortably and effectively. "Matter improves vastly on earlier read-later apps like Pocket and Instapaper" – The Wall Street Journal Save anything: - Save full articles if you're within the paywall (eg. Bloomberg, NYT, WSJ) - Podcast transcriptions & synced playback - Save PDFs and YouTube Read across devices, including Kindle: - iPhone, iPad, Web - Send any article to Kindle in 2-taps Unified inbox for your subscriptions: - Sync your newsletters by connecting Gmail - Follow individual writers for their latest posts - Add any RSS feed The most elegant reading experience: - Best-in-class article parsing + readability - Available offline by default - Gorgeous night mode - Human-like text-to-speech - Fluid highlighting and note-taking Export your knowledge: - Sync your highlights to Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Readwise, and others Matter offers a free service and a Premium service. The free version of Matter includes: - Uncapped read-later library - Mobile & web extensions to save all types of content - Best-in-class parsing and readability - Unlimited tags - Full-text search - Customizable themes and fonts In addition to the free features, Matter Premium offers: - HD text-to-speech for all your articles - Seamless AI Co-Reader - Sync your newsletters, subscribe to writers, and add RSS feeds - Unlimited highlighting, note-taking, and integrations - Send to Kindle Payment for Matter Premium will be charged to your iTunes Account when you subscribe. Annual and monthly subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the iTunes Store after purchase. Manage your Matter Premium subscription by going to Matter's Settings page. Terms of Use: https://hq.getmatter.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://hq.getmatter.com/privacy
Headlines
Follow your favorite websites and read their latest content in a clean, ad-free reader. Organize articles into collections, save them for later, and receive daily reminders. Discover new content and enhance your reading with summarization and note-taking tools.
- Ad-free reading experience
- Chronological content feed
- Organize content into collections
- Save articles for later
- Summarize and take notes on articles
- Discover new content and sites
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Headlines is an app that allows you to follow your favourite websites and read content in an ad-free reader that is designed to let you focus. It’s the best way to keep up with the content you love to read online, like news sites, blogs, newsletters, and more. Headlines gives you a chronological feed of the latest content from the sites you follow instead of an algorithm telling you what to read. FEATURES: - Follow sites and writers (just like you follow people on social media) - Beautiful ad-free reader designed to help you focus without distracting ads - News Flash: Receive a morning, afternoon and evening roundup of what’s going on in your world. - Detox Mode: Need to take a break from specific topics or sites? Detox mode makes it easy. - Set your reading time routine in the app and get reminded when it’s time to read - Add anything to your saved list to read later, including pages from around the web from the Safari extension - Organize your content into collections, including sites, articles, and links from around the web. Great for organizing content around a given topic! - Powerful reading tools: enhance your reading experience with summaries, notes, highlighting and more. - Discover: find new content by exploring tags, featured sites, and suggestions based on your interests - Available on the web and iOS! Experience the full-featured web app on your desktop or from anywhere. Headlines is free to use with reasonable limitations that are lifted with a subscription to Headlines Pro. Made in Toronto by a human! Terms of Service: https://headlines.fm/terms\ Privacy Policy: https://headlines.fm/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Headlines at 5.0 against Matter's 4.6. Matter's advantage is ratings volume (1.2K vs 1) and chart position (#120 vs unranked). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Matter sells 20 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days and Headlines sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Headlines holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Matter has 1.2K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. Both last shipped on October 1, 2026.
| Parameter | Matter | Headlines |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (1.2K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 54.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1.2K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Best chart rank | #120 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 113 MB | 43 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Dig Wells, Inc. | Bradley Purchase |
Customer experience
Matter
Headlines
Bugs and requests
Matter
Reported bugs
4 issues- Subscription issues and inability to cancel
- Delayed or missing newsletter delivery
- Syncing problems across devices
- Crashes and freezes on certain content
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to manually add blogs and RSS feeds
- Customizable highlighter colors
- Offline mode for audio playback
- Integration with more note-taking apps
- Improved search and filtering capabilities
Headlines
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Matter
- Matter Pro Weekly$2.997 Days
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$7.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$9.991 Month
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- Matter Pro (Monthly)$12.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$13.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$14.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$15.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$19.991 Month
- Matter Pro (Annual)1 Year trial$59.991 Year
- Matter Pro (Annual)7 Days trial$59.991 Year
- Matter Pro (Annual)$59.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)$69.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)$79.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- Matter Premium1 Month trial2 variants$79.991 Year
- Matter Pro (Annual)$79.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)$99.991 Year
- Matter Premium7 Days trial$99.991 Year
- Matter Patron Tier$149.99
- Matter Premium (3 years)$149.99
Headlines
- Headlines Pro (Monthly)$3.991 Month
- Headlines Pro (Yearly)1 Year trial$44.991 Year









