No more PodRead subscription

PodRead is $2 per credit now. An episode is 1 credit. 2 credits for articles over 20,000 characters with a Premium voice.

Credits only. I removed the $9/month and $89/year subscription plans.

This is annoying if you liked the old plan (very few of you did). I'm sorry for the change.

Free tier is unchanged. You still get 2 episodes a month, 15,000 character cap, no credit card.

The old math didn't work

Premium was $9/month, unlimited episodes, 50,000 characters each, Premium voice. That's fine for someone who listens to a few articles a week. It doesn't work for someone who batch-converts their entire read-later queue on a Sunday afternoon.

The ceiling for an aggressive user on the old Premium plan: 14,400 episodes a month × $1.50 of TTS cost = $21,600 of cost. For $9. That would be very tough to explain to the Mrs.

I could have priced subscriptions higher. $19/mo, $29/mo, $49/mo. The shape of the problem is the same at any price point. Across the industry, unlimited pricing is going away anywhere the ingredient is AI inference.

AI inference is not zero marginal cost.

What credits look like now

Credits are the only way to pay beyond the free tier. Three packs:

• Starter: $9.99 for 5 credits ($2/credit)
• Standard: $17.99 for 10 credits ($1.80/credit)
• Bulk: $32.99 for 20 credits ($1.65/credit)

That's up from $1/credit under the old $4.99/5 pack. Credits themselves cost twice as much now.

An article costs 1 credit. The exception: articles longer than 20,000 characters that use a Premium voice. Those cost 2.

On PodRead the median article is 10,604 characters. 75% are under 18,239. 95% are under 45,932. If your reading sits around the median, every episode still costs 1 credit. If you routinely pick long articles and Premium voice, those specific episodes now cost 2 credits instead of 1.

79% of episodes on PodRead overall would cost 1 credit under the new rule. That number is pulled down by my own long-form reading, which accounts for every single 2-credit episode in the data. Every paying customer episode in the database would have cost 1 credit.

Machine Payments Protocol is also still there for agents that want to pay per episode without an account. More exciting capabilities on that front are on deck.

If you already bought credits

Your existing credits still work.

Because you bought them under the old price ($1 each, not $2), I doubled everyone's balance and added 20 credits on top as a thank-you. You should have an email about it in your inbox. If something doesn't match, reply to it.

Why I'm writing this

I'm a solo dev. PodRead runs on nights and weekends. When pricing doesn't work there's no room to hide inside a bigger business. I'm not giving away VC money because I don't have or want any. I either fix it or shut it down. I'm doing my best to bootstrap a business, which has always been my dream.

If the new prices don't work for you, the free tier is still there. If you're mad about the change, reach out.