Free vs Premium — How Much of Yomite Is Actually Free?
A feature-by-feature breakdown of Yomite's free tier versus the one-time ¥1,980 Premium unlock — voice count, pronunciation dictionary, iCloud sync, auto-ruby registration, and the grandfather guarantee that protects what you buy.
“I want to try it, but I can never tell how much is actually free before I have to pay.” That’s a common complaint about app pricing pages. With Yomite, the answer is simple: the free tier already covers the core reading experience end to end. Premium is a one-time purchase that layers on voice variety and dictionary/sync flexibility on top of it. Here’s the breakdown, feature by feature.
What the free tier includes
Every one of these is available with no payment required:
- 2 voices (Mai and fumifumi) with fully offline AI narration
- Importing EPUB, plain text, and web articles
- The Aozora Bunko reader (with search and favorites built in)
- Vertical/horizontal text toggle and a furigana-enabled reader
- Bookmarks, sleep timer, and playback speed control
- Lock screen and Dynamic Island playback controls (Live Activity)
- The built-in pronunciation dictionary (5,000+ entries, read-only)
- Library backup export
- Year in Review (shareable as a PNG)
In other words, if all you want is to have EPUBs, Aozora Bunko classics, or web articles read aloud offline, the free 2-voice tier already gets you there. Reading-experience features like furigana display and the vertical reader aren’t locked behind a paywall either.
What Premium (¥1,980, one-time) adds
Premium is a single ¥1,980 payment, not a subscription (currently a launch-commemorative price). It unlocks:
- 30+ voices (on top of the 2 free ones, with more added over time)
- iCloud sync (library, bookmarks, and pronunciation dictionary shared across your Apple devices)
- The advanced pronunciation dictionary (add and edit your own entries, import/export as JSON)
- Auto-ruby registration (pulls existing
《》-style ruby annotations out of a chapter and registers them in bulk) - A PDF album for Year in Review (the free tier only shares a PNG)
- Backup restore (export is free; restoring from a backup is a Premium feature)
- Family Sharing support
- One purchase valid across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS
If “the built-in voices are fine” and “occasional mispronunciations don’t bother me” describes you, the free tier is enough on its own. If you’re registering your own terms and character names from a web novel, want to pick up on your Mac exactly where you left off on your iPhone, or just want to try a wider range of voices, Premium is where that value shows up.
What you buy today, you keep
Yomite’s Terms of Service spell out a grandfather guarantee that protects purchasers. The pricing or billing model may change in the future (for example, a move from a one-time purchase to a subscription), but anyone who bought Premium before that change keeps everything that was included in Premium at the time of purchase, permanently. Any pricing or billing model change is also required to be announced at least 30 days in advance, on the website and in-app.
That guarantee protects ongoing access to the Premium tier itself. It’s worth noting separately that individual voices licensed from third parties could, in some circumstances, become unavailable later if the licensing terms change — the guarantee covers your access to Premium as a plan, not the permanent availability of any single licensed voice.
The same terms also commit that features currently free (offline narration, the 2 free voices, EPUB/Aozora Bunko/web article import, the reader features) won’t suddenly be moved behind a paywall.
Android will cost the same
Yomite currently ships for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, with an Android version planned. When it launches, Premium will be available on Google Play at the same price. If you split your reading between iOS and Android, you won’t pay more on one platform than the other.
The short version
Yomite is built so you never have to wonder how much of it is actually free. The free tier gives you a fully working offline reading app with no artificial limits on the reading experience itself. Premium is a one-time purchase for the parts that matter more the longer you use the app: voice variety, dictionary control, and cross-device sync. A reasonable way to decide: start with the 2 free voices and see if Yomite fits how you read, then consider Premium once you find yourself wanting your own dictionary entries or sync across devices.
Related: Premium details · Terms of Service
Questions or feedback: [email protected]
— Yomite Team