Comparison

Merriam vs PulpShelf

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Merriam

Access America's leading dictionary with over 15,000 extra entries for people and places. Enjoy offline access, voice search, and daily vocabulary builders. This app offers expert word guidance with a thesaurus and example sentences.

Highlights
  • Ad-free experience
  • 15,000+ premium entries
  • Offline dictionary access
  • Voice search functionality
  • Daily Word of the Day
  • Vocabulary-building word games
  • Integrated thesaurus
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Get America's most useful and respected dictionary, optimized for your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Continuously updated with the newest words and meanings, this is the premier iOS app for English language reference, education, and vocabulary building. Key Features: * No ads! * Premium Content: Over 15,000 additional entries covering people and places * Offline access: Complete access to definitions and synonyms whether or not you're connected * Voice Search: look up a word without having to spell it * Word of the Day: learn a new word every day * Word Games: fun, fast quizzes to test your vocabulary * Favorite Words and Search History: keep track of the words that are most important to you * Favorite Word Syncing Through iCloud: share your favorites between devices and on the Web * For Tablets: browse the entire dictionary with a scrolling index * Apple Watch Extension: see the Word of the Day and find watch-sized definitions with voice search Expert Word Guidance: * Integrated Thesaurus: more than 200,000 word choices with examples of their use * Example Sentences: understand how a word is used in context * Audio Pronunciations: voiced by real English speakers, not text-to-speech robots Terms of Use: https://www.merriam-webster.com/terms-of-use

About

PulpShelf

Read full description

PulpShelf is the catalog for pulp magazine collectors. Pulp magazines — the adventure, detective, western, horror, and science fiction periodicals of the 1890s–1950s — predate barcodes and standard identifiers. PulpShelf fills that gap with a complete, browsable database of the pulp era and a permanent Universal Periodical Number (UPN) for every single issue. BROWSE THE COMPLETE CATALOG • 676 pulp titles and more than 42,000 individual issues • Cover images for nearly every issue • Full-text search across titles and issues — including renamed titles, so searching “Ka-Zar” finds the magazine it became • Publisher histories, format changes, and title genealogies • Every issue carries its permanent UPN reference number TRACK YOUR COLLECTION — FREE, NO ACCOUNT NEEDED • Mark issues as owned straight from the issue grid • Collection stats per title and overall • Works fully offline — your collection is stored on your device • Export your collection anytime FOR SERIOUS COLLECTORS PulpShelf Premium members additionally get cloud sync across devices, per-copy condition tracking, notes and photos of their own copies, want lists, scarcity ratings, and QR scanning of PulpShelf inventory labels. Built by a collector, for collectors. The stacks are open.

Screenshots

Merriam4 screens
PulpShelf4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: PulpShelf at Free against Merriam's $9.99. PulpShelf also leads on update cadence (every 9 days vs every 5 months). Merriam's advantage is chart position (#9 vs unranked) and device support (4 vs 2). On ads, in-app purchases and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

PulpShelf is free to download; Merriam costs $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Merriam ships an update every 5 months, PulpShelf every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Merriam versus PulpShelf: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMerriamPulpShelf
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating4.8 (22K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews82.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings22K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 monthsEvery 9 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemium—
Best chart rank#9 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.015.0
Further details — not scored
Size238 MB42 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperMerriam-Webster, Inc.Matthew Moring

Bugs and requests

Merriam

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App freezes and crashes on launch
  • Audio pronunciations not working in some cases
  • Inconsistent performance across iOS versions
  • Syncing issues between devices

Requested features

5 requests
  • Improved search with spell-check and suggestions
  • Ability to mark and review words
  • Integration with system search and Siri
  • Support for landscape mode and dark mode
  • Expanded word coverage and more detailed definitions

PulpShelf

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Merriam

No in-app purchases

None

PulpShelf

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Merriam free?
Merriam costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is PulpShelf free?
PulpShelf is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Merriam or PulpShelf have ads?
Neither Merriam nor PulpShelf shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Merriam or PulpShelf?
Merriam ships an update every 5 months, and PulpShelf every 9 days. Most recently, Merriam was updated on November 2, 2026 and PulpShelf on October 28, 2026.

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