What original research does Best Book Tracker Apps publish?

Best Book Tracker Apps editors · Data refreshed 4 November 2026 · Editorial assessment

Updated 4 November 2026

Bottom line.We publish two datasets built from primary sources, App Store listings, Google Play listings, help centres and official pricing pages, with every cell sourced and dated. Each study has a full version on a sister site and a summary here, written for people who use book trackers.

Do book tracker apps recap the plot or protect you from spoilers?

12 trackers checked against 18 other reading apps: recaps, cast lists, spoiler controls, export and privacy labels. November 2026.

What do book tracker apps cost in Q4 2026?

Every paid tier for nine trackers, monthly and yearly, with the yearly saving and the fine print in Apple's in-app purchase lists.

How we build these studies

We read each app's own listing and help pages on a single day, record the exact wording we relied on, and store the source URL and check date with every value. Where a maker does not describe a feature, we write "Not published" instead of guessing. Prices are US prices before tax, from the US App Store in-app purchase list and the maker's pricing page.

Where are the full studies?

The full recap and spoiler study, with the 30-app dataset, lives at bookrecapapps.com. The full price index, covering trackers, ebook and audiobook plans and recap apps, lives at bestbookapps.com. Both are published by Alegria Media and Consulting Ltd., which also publishes this site.

How often are they updated?

Once a quarter. The next price read is due in February 2027. If a maker changes a price or documents a feature in between, we update the summary here and date the change.

What did the recap and spoiler study find across all 30 apps?

The full study covers 30 reading apps: trackers, ebook and audiobook stores, library apps, recap companions and a few adjacent tools. Counted from the data, checked 4 November 2026:

4 of 30 publish a recap limited to your place in the book: Magic Bookmark, Kindle Story So Far, Google Play Books "Catch me up" and Spotify audiobook Recaps. Two more are partial: Basmo recaps your own notes, and Thus Far mentions chapter recaps for hosted clubs without saying how they are made.
1 of those 4 works with a print book: Magic Bookmark, which sets your place from a photo of the page, a typed page number or the last phrase you heard in an audiobook, for supported titles on iPhone.
2 of 30 generate a cast list: Magic Bookmark and Kindle X-Ray. Bookly lets you type characters in by hand.
8 of 30 publish place-gated spoiler protection. Four are social (StoryGraph readalongs, Fable chapter rooms, Readory club notes, the Thus Far chapter feed) and four are recap or answer tools.
14 of 30 know your place automatically because you read or listen inside them. Trackers rely on a page, a percentage or a timer from you.
12 of 30 list at least one category under "Data Used to Track You" on their App Store label, most often identifiers (11 apps). Book Tracker is the only app whose label says "Data Not Collected".
10 of 30 document a way to export or sync your data out of the app.

What did the price index find across 26 apps?

The full price index records 82 prices for 26 book, audiobook, tracker and recap apps, 37 from official pricing or help pages and 45 from US App Store in-app purchase lists, all read on 4 November 2026:

No headline price went up. Of 44 prices we had already published across our sister sites, 38 were unchanged and none of the six that moved was a plain increase.
Every reading tracker has a free tier. Paid tiers run from $9.99 once (BookBuddy Pro) to $80 a year (Literal Supporter); The StoryGraph, Hardcover and Fable all charge $49.99 a year.
Yearly plans usually save 16% or more. For the trackers, the yearly saving runs from 16.5% (The StoryGraph, Hardcover) to 49.9% (Bookly).
The iPhone app can cost more than the web. In 9 web and in-app pairs for the same plan, 4 cost more inside the iPhone app. Fable Plus costs the same either way: $5.99 a month or $49.99 a year.
Recaps are either included in one store or paid per book. Kindle Recaps and Story So Far carry no separate fee inside eligible Kindle ebooks; Magic Bookmark charges one credit per book, from $4.99 for one to $1.40 each in a 50-pack, with the first credit free.

Which question does each study answer?

Counts and prices checked 4 November 2026. US storefronts, before tax.
If you want to know	Read	Short answer
Can my tracker remind me what happened in the book?	Recap and spoiler summary	No. None of the 12 trackers publishes a plot recap.
Which trackers keep club discussion spoiler-free?	Recap and spoiler summary	The StoryGraph, Fable and Readory gate discussion by reading progress.
Which trackers let me take my data with me?	Recap and spoiler summary	Six document an export, from Goodreads CSV to Hardcover JSON.
Which tracker is cheapest to upgrade?	Price summary	BookBuddy Pro at $9.99 once; Bookmory at $3.49 a month.
Is the yearly plan worth it?	Price summary	If you would stay a full year, yes in every case we checked.
What does a recap cost?	Price summary	Nothing extra inside Kindle; $1.40 to $4.99 a book with Magic Bookmark.
Which audiobook plan is cheapest per credit?	Full price index	Audible's 24-credit annual plan, at $9.56 a credit.
Which apps recap audiobooks?	Full recap study	Spotify Recaps for Spotify audiobooks, and Magic Bookmark for supported titles.

How do we check every value?

We read each app's own sources on one day: its US App Store listing, its Google Play listing, its help centre and its pricing page.
We copy the exact words we relied on into the dataset, next to the value, the source URL and the date.
A script checks that every price in the price index appears in the quoted text for its row, so a typo cannot slip through.
We code each feature with a fixed status (see the next table), then re-check the code against the quoted text before publishing.
Where two of a maker's own sources disagree, we record both. Two examples from November 2026: Magic Bookmark's App Store page says "Your first credit is free" while its website advertises a two-week free trial, and Thus Far's App Store page calls it a subscription while its website says reading is free.

What do "Not published" and the other codes mean?

In the recap study, 118 of 420 cells are Not published. We update a cell when a maker documents the feature.
Code	Meaning
Yes	The maker's own listing or help pages describe the feature.
Partial	Something close exists, such as a recap of your own notes rather than of the book.
Manual	You can do it, but you type it in yourself, such as a character log.
Place-gated	Spoilers stay hidden until you reach that point in the book.
Manual tags	Spoilers are hidden only when the person posting marks them.
Not published	The pages we checked do not describe the feature. The app may still have it.

How can you use the data?

Quote it, chart it or check it. If you cite a number, link to the full study on its home site, because that page carries the dataset, the method and every source. Suggested citation: "Recap and spoiler-safety features in 30 reading apps (November 2026)", Alegria Media and Consulting Ltd., checked 2026-11-04. For prices: "Reading app price index, Q4 2026", Alegria Media and Consulting Ltd., checked 2026-11-04. The summaries on this site pick out what matters to people who use book trackers; the full studies cover the wider market.

Do the studies change our ranking?

No. Our one scored ranking, getting back into a book without spoilers, uses the five criteria and weights on How we rank. The studies feed facts into the review and comparison pages, such as prices, export routes and privacy labels, and when a fact changes a score we say so in a dated note. On 4 November 2026 no score changed.

What are the limits?

Both studies are desk reviews of what makers publish. We did not test whether any recap is accurate or spoiler-free in practice, and we did not complete a purchase. Prices are US prices before tax and change without notice. Privacy labels are written by the developers, and Apple notes they have not been verified by Apple. Thirty apps and twenty-six price lists are not the whole market.

Questions

Q1Where can I download the datasets?

From the full studies. The recap study's CSV and JSON files are published with it on bookrecapapps.com, and the price index's files with it on bestbookapps.com. This site carries summaries and charts.

Q2Who publishes the research?

Alegria Media and Consulting Ltd., which publishes Best Book Tracker Apps and its sister sites. Both studies list every source and the date we checked it, so you can verify any value yourself.

Q3How current are the numbers?

Every value was checked on 4 November 2026. We re-read prices and features once a quarter; the next read is due in February 2027.

Q4Why do you write "Not published" instead of "No"?

Because we only know what a maker describes. If an app has a feature it does not mention on its listing or help pages, a "No" would be wrong. "Not published" says exactly what we found.