ShelfMark vs Papyrus
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
ShelfMark
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A quiet reading tracker for people who love books more than apps. ShelfMark keeps your reading life in one calm, paper-warm place. Log the page you are on, keep a streak alive, and save the lines worth keeping. No account, no feed, no noise. MADE FOR READERS - Three shelves: to be read, reading, and finished. Move a book with a tap. - Quick page updates with percent complete, pages a day, and time left at your current pace. - A daily page goal beside your grace-day reading streak. - Search your library, filter by genre, and sort by recency, title, author, or progress. - A quote wall with the book, page number, and an optional photo of the page. - A yearly reading goal and Wrapped view with pages, streaks, genres, fastest reads, and monthly activity. - A private Home and Lock Screen widget for your current book, pages today, goal, and streak. - A complete local backup, additive restore, and Delete All My Data control. FREE AND LIFETIME ShelfMark is free for up to 3 books and 5 saved quotes. Reading progress, streaks, daily and yearly goals, search, backup, restore, deletion, and the widget stay useful without paying. A single Lifetime purchase unlocks unlimited books and quotes, the 30-day Reading Pulse, finish-date pace plans, full Wrapped statistics, and the one-page Reading Year PDF. It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. Existing records always remain readable and editable. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your reading library stays locally on your iPhone or iPad. No account, no analytics, and no tracking. Widget content uses Apple's private on-device App Group storage and is marked privacy sensitive.
Papyrus
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Papyrus turns everything you've read into a warm, real bookshelf โ right on your iPhone home screen. A cozy private library you actually want to look at. BRING YOUR LIBRARY HOME Every book you've read, standing on a beautiful shelf you can glance at without opening anything. As you finish books, the newest ones slide to the front โ so your home screen quietly tells the story of what you've been reading, all year long. Still fully customizable, move the books around how you want, make changes to the shelf and background. THE WIDGET One of our premium paid features is to add the Papyrus widget in small, medium, or large. Your shelf lives on your home screen, gorgeous and glanceable. If you aren't interested in seeing the books then you can see your reading statistics - how many books and pages you've read this year. IMPORT IN SECONDS Bring your reading history over from Goodreads, StoryGraph, or any CSV in a single tap. Your past library fills your shelf instantly. No problem if you don't have any accounts - you can add books individually from our massive library. THREE WAYS TO SEE YOUR SHELF - Spine view with procedurally illustrated, cover-matched spines - Cover view to show off your front covers - A 3/4 perspective "crate" mode that feels like a real shelf Press and scrub to browse, and drag to reorder your books exactly how you like them. STATS THAT FEEL LIKE A FOLIO, NOT A DASHBOARD See how you rate, your fiction vs. nonfiction split, the decades you read across, and your favorite authors and genres โ all rendered in big serif numerals with room to breathe. Look back on your year with Reading Wrapped. YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS Export your whole library any time โ as a spreadsheet (CSV/XLSX) or a self-contained offline webpage. Free or Pro, your library is always yours to take with you. FREE TO START Try everything with up to 10 books in your collection โ a real, full-fidelity trial, not a locked demo. Your wishlist is always unlimited and free. Upgrade to Pro to remove the collection cap and unlock your full library. Upgrade to Pro to unlock the full experience: - Unlimited collection โ shelve every book you've ever read, no cap - Your complete library on every widget size and display mode - Full reading stats and Reading Wrapped across your entire history - Export your whole library any time โ CSV, XLSX, or a self-contained offline webpage - No ads, no tracking, and your data is never sold โ free or Pro Built by one person who wanted their bookshelf on their home screen. No ads. Your data is not sold. Just a beautiful place to keep the books you love. Bring your library home. Terms of Use (EULA): https://papyrus-b03fd.web.app/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://papyrus-b03fd.web.app/privacy.html
Screenshots
Verdict
ShelfMark and Papyrus are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters โ price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them โ neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. ShelfMark sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Papyrus sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | ShelfMark | Papyrus |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Weekly | โ |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad โ better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 โ better |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | InnovaLabWorks | Tyler Nam |
In-app purchases
ShelfMark
- ShelfMark Lifetime$49.99
Papyrus
- Papyrus_monthly$1.991 Month
- papyrus yearly$14.991 Year
- papyrus lifetime$39.99









