Instapaper vs Matter
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Instapaper
Save articles from the web for later reading, with a clean, clutter-free experience. Access your saved content offline, anywhere, anytime. Features include text-to-speech narration and customizable reading options.
- Save web articles for offline reading
- Clutter-free reading experience
- Text-to-speech narration
- Customizable fonts and themes
- Highlighting and note-taking
- Article organization with folders
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Instapaper is the simplest way to save and store articles for reading: offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere, perfectly formatted. Instapaper for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch provides a mobile-optimized text view that makes reading Internet content a clean and uncluttered experience. Instapaper also enhances the standard reading experience with features like text-to-speech. Instapaper has been inducted into the iPhone and iPad Hall of Fame, received Macworld Editor's Choice Award, and has also been featured in publications including Wired, TIME, Daring Fireball, and The Verge, among others. Core Features: - Strip away all clutter and save the content of web pages into iOS-optimized formatting. - Read anywhere! No internet, no problem: access your articles on airplanes, subways, elevators, or Wi-Fi-only devices away from Internet connections. - Save to Instapaper from other iOS applications with one tap. Additional Features: - Control every aspect of your reading experience with a variety of font, color themes, and spacing options. - Find that great quote you want to remember and share? Instapaper makes it easy to highlight and add notes to text in any article. - Have your Instapaper articles narrated to you with text-to-speech. Just turn up the volume on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch and relax! - Sort your list of articles by popularity, date, and article length. - Folders for easy organization. Instapaper also offers an optional Instapaper Premium subscription for $5.99/month or $59.99/year. With Instapaper Premium you receive: - Full-text search for articles in your account - Unlimited highlights and notes. - Text-to-speech Playlist to seamlessly listen to multiple articles. - Unlimited use of the speed reading feature to help you get through articles up to 3x faster. On sign up for Instapaper Premium, payment will be charged to your Apple ID account at the confirmation of purchase. The subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled 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 and cancel your subscriptions by going to your App Store account settings after purchase. Terms of service: https://www.instapaper.com/terms Privacy policy: https://www.instapaper.com/privacy
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
Screenshots
Verdict
Instapaper and Matter both sit at 4.6 stars, but that hides the real split: 64% of Instapaper's written reviews are positive against 54% of Matter's. Matter's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 2 weeks). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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. Instapaper sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month and Matter sells 20 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Instapaper against 4.6 for Matter. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3.5K and 1.2K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 64% of Instapaper's written reviews are positive against 54% of Matter's.
Instapaper ships an update every 2 weeks, Matter weekly. Both last shipped on September 25, 2026.
| Parameter | Instapaper | Matter |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (3.5K ratings) | 4.6 (1.2K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 64.1% of reviews — better | 53.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3.5K — better | 1.2K |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Best chart rank | #119 | #81 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 113 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Instant Paper, Inc. | Dig Wells, Inc. |
Customer experience
Instapaper
Matter
User reviews
Instapaper
From 3.5K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Efficient reading experience
- 👍 Clean, minimalist design
- 💡 Useful features like highlighting and notes
- 🚀 Seamless integration with various platforms
- 👍 Reliable and stable app
Room to improve
- 🐛 Bugs and crashes
- 🔒 Concerns about data privacy and GDPR compliance
- 💰 Subscription price increase
- 🔍 Unreliable search functionality
- 🚫 Inability to delete account
Matter
From 1.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Seamless reading experience
- 👍 Elegant and intuitive UI
- 🔊 Excellent text-to-speech functionality
- 💡 Unified inbox for newsletters and articles
- 🌟 Best read-it-later app on the market
Room to improve
- 🔒 Concerns over privacy and data collection
- 💰 Expensive subscription model
- 🐛 Inconsistent article parsing and formatting
- 🔍 Limited author/feed discovery options
- 🔇 Audio playback issues and bugs
Bugs and requests
Instapaper
Reported bugs
5 issues- Speak feature freezes on most articles
- Pagination issues causing text to be cut off
- Folders and archives disappearing
- Inability to save articles from certain websites
- Subscription not unlocking premium features
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for tables and charts
- Improve text-to-speech quality
- Implement a 'go back to beginning of article' feature
- Add support for EPUB files
- Introduce a 'random article' feature
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
In-app purchases
Instapaper
- Instapaper Premium$5.991 Month
- Instapaper Premium$59.991 Year
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








