Bookmarked · PRICES · 3 min read

What a year of smart bookmarks costs, for three kinds of reader

By The Margin Desk · Smart Bookmark Compare · Published 2026-09-30 · Updated 2026-10-11

The prices we used

All US App Store or app maker prices, read on 27 September 2026:

• Goodreads: free, no paid tier.
• Literal: free, no in-app purchases; optional membership $40 or $80 a year.
• The StoryGraph: free core app; Plus $49.99 a year.
• Fable: free core app; Plus $49.99 a year or $5.99 a month.
• Basmo: free to start; Premium $39.99 a year.
• Bookly: free to start; $29.99 for a year of Pro, with other options listed.
• Magic Bookmark: free to download; one credit per book, 1 for $4.99, 5 for $19.99, 10 for $34.99, 50 for $69.99; credits never expire.

Reader one: seven books a year, all needing help

A reader who picks up a long book every couple of months and loses the thread each time. On the free tiers, six apps cost nothing. Magic Bookmark costs $29.97 for seven credits (a 5-pack and two singles). A yearly paid tier elsewhere would cost $29.99 to $49.99, but those tiers add stats and goals rather than place-keeping.

Reader two: twelve books, all needing help

Magic Bookmark: a 10-pack and two singles, $44.97, about $3.75 a book. The free tiers still cost nothing. The calculation that matters is whether finding your page and seeing who's who is worth that to you, compared with typing a page number and keeping notes yourself.

Reader three: forty books, only a few needing help

A heavy reader who only struggles with the long, crowded books. If eight of the forty need help, Magic Bookmark costs the same as reader one plus one more credit: a 5-pack and three singles, $34.96, or a 10-pack at $34.99 with two credits to spare. Credits do not expire, so the spare ones carry over. If all forty needed help, the 50-pack at $69.99 would be the cheapest route.

What the $0 hides

Free tiers are paid for somehow, and the privacy labels are the clearest public record of how. Basmo's App Store label lists data used for third-party advertising, and Goodreads' lists data linked to you used among other things for marketing. Literal states no ads and no selling of data. Magic Bookmark's label lists identifiers used to track you. Our privacy criterion scores these labels; it counts 10% of the total.

Run your own numbers

The pick-up calculator takes your book count and shows each app's yearly cost from these prices, next to a ranking re-weighted for how you read.