TheMercury vs Daily Express Newspaper
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TheMercury
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The Mercury newspaper South Africa -- get a head start. TheMercury allows you to subscribe to four auto-renewable subscriptions: • 1 month ZAR 15.99 • 3 month ZAR 39.99 • 6 month ZAR 39.99 • 1 year ZAR 169.99 •Payment will be charged to iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase •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, and the cost of renewal is •You may manage your subscriptions and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the your Account Settings after purchase •No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during active subscription period •Any unused portion of a free trial period, will be forfeited when you purchase an in-app subscription or if you decide to migrate to an authorized subscription from in-app. •Terms of Use: http://themercury.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/iphone/homepage.aspx#_terms •Privacy Policy: http://themercury.newspaperdirect.com/epaper/iphone/homepage.aspx#_privacy
Daily Express Newspaper
Access an exact digital replica of the Sunday and Daily Express newspaper on your iPhone or iPad. Enjoy the latest news, features, and stories with an exceptional touch screen experience. Download and save pages for offline reading and easily navigate through content.
- Digital newspaper replica
- Touch screen navigation
- Offline page saving
- Search functionality
- Zoom function
- Social sharing integration
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Enjoy an exact replica of the “Sunday and Daily Express” on your iPhone or iPad everyday... Subscribe to the Daily and Sunday Express today and pay less for your favourite newspaper, not only do you save but you also get it delivered directly to your device every morning ! Daily and Sunday Express brings you the very best stories, news and features on your device, published in exceptional clarity, with an incredible touch screen experience allowing you to swipe through the paper Flip your device and read the newspaper as a double-page spread or full screen single page, tap the page selector to choose a specific page to fast-navigate to. You can also download and save individual pages to enjoy offline and when you are on the go. Your Daily and Sunday Express app features search functionality to find key-words relating to recent content, a zoom function to enable clearer reading of selected articles and social networking integration to keep your friends and social-circles up to date with all the latest shared news from the Daily and Sunday Express Payment for this subscription will be charged to your account upon purchase. The subscription will auto-renew within 24 hours of the current subscription expiring. Auto-renewing subscriptions can be managed via Account Settings allowing them to be turned off. No cancellations of the current subscription are allowed during the active subscription period. Please see our privacy policy at: https://www.express.co.uk/privacy-notice and terms of use at: https://www.express.co.uk/terms-conditions
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Daily Express Newspaper at none against TheMercury's shown. Daily Express Newspaper also leads on update cadence (every 4 months vs every 17 months). TheMercury's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.0). On price, in-app purchases and device support 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. TheMercury sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Daily Express Newspaper sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
TheMercury ships an update every 17 months, Daily Express Newspaper every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TheMercury | Daily Express Newspaper |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 4.5 (24 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 35.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 24 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 17 months | Every 4 months — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Subscription |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 50 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | PressReader Inc | Reach Shared Services Limited |
Bugs and requests
TheMercury
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Daily Express Newspaper
Reported bugs
58 issues- App crashes frequently
- App freezes or becomes unresponsive
- Content fails to download or update
- Login credentials not accepted
- Subscription access issues
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- Technical difficulties reported
- App causes iPad to reset
- Links not working
- Not optimized for mobile devices
- Top of pages cut off
- Enlarging print only works partially
- App refreshes constantly
- No image or content displayed
- App exits back to index
- Cloud icon with down arrow not working
- Square with up arrow showing
- App support links to news articles
- App slow to update index page
- Cannot jump to specific sections (e.g., sports)
- Swiping pages takes time to change
- Zoom snaps back
- Difficulty swapping between editions
- Awkward page navigation
- Limited access to back issues
- White screen displayed
- App not reinstalling
- Option to print page removed
- Paper arriving late
- Weekend magazines inaccessible
- Clearing cache not working
- Last week's magazines shown as current
- App jumps to semi-text based view on magnification
- Subscription expired message despite active subscription
- Unable to access paper on iPad but available on iPhone
- Scottish version always available, English version not
- App not working on linked iPad
- New update without instructions
- Previous version was better
- Content only available to subscribed customers
- Account needs activation with no instructions
- App not working on any devices after update
- Restored purchases message but no access
- New app without notification and no instructions
- Cannot get paper to download
- Update stops app usage
- Unable to download subscribed paper
- App asking for username and password after upgrade
- No reply from customer service
- Family sharing not working
- Need to activate account
- Swiping pages takes seconds to change
- Zoom only goes so far and snaps back
- Not easy to swap from Scottish edition to national
- Navigating pages is awkward
- Used to get access to all back issues now only a few
- Emailing help did not address issues
- Print too small on iPad
- App jumps to semi-text based view when increasing magnification
Requested features
10 requests- Improve search function
- Better reading experience when expanding page
- More user-friendly interface
- Cut out puerile puns
- Add more letters page space
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- Make Sudoku less hard
- Improve navigation to specific pages
- Allow family sharing
- Improve text-based view options
- Make print size adjustable on iPad
In-app purchases
TheMercury
- The Mercury$1.991 Month
- The Mercury$4.993 Months
- The Mercury$9.996 Months
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- The Mercury$20.991 Year
Daily Express Newspaper
- 7 Day Subscription1 Month trial$4.997 Days
- 1 Month Subscription1 Month trial$9.991 Month
- 3 Month Subscription1 Month trial$24.993 Months
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- 6 Month Subscription1 Month trial$49.996 Months
- 1 Year Subscription1 Month trial$89.991 Year
Questions
Is TheMercury free?
Is Daily Express Newspaper free?
Do TheMercury or Daily Express Newspaper have ads?
Which is updated more often, TheMercury or Daily Express Newspaper?
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