Ever Hear of Instapaper? Well Now Its Premium Read-it-Later Service Is Free. An infusion of cash from Pinterest has allowed Instapaper to ditch subscriptions.
By Stephanie Mlot •
This story originally appeared on PCMag
Instapaper Premium is now free for everyone, bringing an ad-free website, full-text search for all articles and unlimited speed reading to everyone.
"Now that we're better resourced, we're able to offer everyone the best version of Instapaper," the company wrote in a blog post, referencing Pinterest's recent acquisition of the bookmarking service.
Starting today, all users can access unlimited notes, text-to-speech playlists, "Send to Kindle" via bookmarklet and mobile apps, and Kindle Digests of up to 50 articles. Existing Instapaper Premium users, meanwhile, will no longer be billed $2.99 per month (or $29.99 per year), and can expect a pro-rated refund for their current subscription.
"Thanks for your support throughout the years, we appreciate it," the Instapaper team said.
Instapaper, first launched in 2008, lets folks save an unlimited number of articles and videos for later viewing on the Web, an iPhone, iPad, Android device or Kindle. In August, Pinterest bought the read-it-later app, three years after betaworks acquired it from original creator Marco Arment. Instapaper has since moved from betaworks in New York City to Pinterest's headquarters in San Francisco.
As The Verge points out, the app has gone through various business models -- free with ads, paid only, paid with optional subscription, free with optional subscription -- and three different owners.
Instapaper, meanwhile, also said goodbye to its developer product, Instaparser, which officially shuttered today.
