Lesson 9 of 10 · CHOOSE AN APP · 2 min read

Pay per book or subscribe: what bookmark apps cost in a year

The short answer

Five of the seven apps are free to use with an optional yearly plan or membership, Goodreads is free with no paid tier, and Magic Bookmark charges one credit per book with packs that never expire. Which is cheaper depends on how many books you need help with, not how many you read.

By The Margin Desk · Smart Bookmark Compare · Published 2026-10-13

The three ways these apps charge

Free. Goodreads has no paid tier. Literal has no in-app purchases on the App Store and an optional membership ($40 or $80 a year).
Free to start, optional yearly plan. The StoryGraph Plus is $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Fable Plus is $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Basmo Premium is $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Bookly lists $4.99 for a month and $29.99 for a year of Pro, plus a $79.99 Pro option.
Per book. Magic Bookmark is free to download and uses Bookmark Credits: one credit per book, 1 for $4.99, 5 for $19.99, 10 for $34.99 or 50 for $69.99. Credits never expire and there is no subscription.

All prices are US App Store or app maker prices read on 27 September 2026.

Worked examples for Magic Bookmark

Because credits never expire, the cheapest approach is the pack mix that covers the books you expect to need it for:

1 book: one credit, $4.99.
7 books: a 5-pack and two single credits, $29.97.
12 books: a 10-pack and two single credits, $44.97, about $3.75 a book.
30 books: a 50-pack, $69.99, with 20 credits left over for later.

The key question: how many books need help?

A subscription costs the same whether you read 5 books a year or 50. A per-book price grows with the number of books you use it for. If only the long or complicated books need a bookmark that finds your place, the per-book count may be much lower than your reading count. If every book does, a yearly plan elsewhere may be cheaper, but it does a different job.

What do the paid tiers add?

Paid tiers on the tracker apps mostly add deeper stats, more goals or supporter perks, not place-keeping. For example, Fable Plus adds multiple goals and weekly and monthly goals, and StoryGraph Plus is the paid tier of an app whose core tracking is free. Check what a tier adds before paying for it.

Try the numbers

The pick-up calculator takes the number of books you read in a year and shows each app's cost from the published prices, next to a ranking re-weighted for your answers.