What's Actually Free in Velo

"Free reading app" usually means one of three things: an app with ads, an app that locks the core feature after a trial, or an app that's free because your reading data is the product. This page is the plain answer to what free means in Velo, so you can decide before installing anything.

The full free list

• RSVP mode — the word-by-word focus mode, 50 to 1,000 WPM, with ORP alignment and adaptive timing. Not a trial version. Not speed-capped.
• Reader mode — the full typeset page view, sharing one reading position with RSVP.
• Scrub — the momentum rewind between them.
• EPUB and PDF import — including the on-device pipeline that detects chapters, strips running headers, and links footnotes. TXT and Markdown too.
• Web articles — share from Safari, read cleaned-up in any mode.
• Reading stats — your real average speed and time, measured rather than guessed.
• The intelligence dashboard — on-device Apple Intelligence analysis of your books. Free because on-device inference costs nothing to run; there's no server bill to pass on to you.
• A classics library — public-domain books included, so the app is usable before you import anything.

Everything on that list works offline, and none of it involves ads or tracking. Books parse on your device; nothing is uploaded to process them.

The honest boundary

The free tier holds 3 imported books at a time. That's the entire limitation — a library cap, not a feature gate. If you're the reader with two novels and an occasional PDF, Velo is simply free for you, indefinitely.

Velo Pro — $69.99/year or $8.99/month after a 7-day trial — removes the cap and adds the features that cost real money to provide: cloud sync of your library and position across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, read-aloud, and the optional server-side processing pass for genuinely difficult scanned PDFs.

Why this structure

A reading app's free tier tells you its business model. Ad-funded readers monetise your attention — the exact thing a focus app exists to protect. "Free trial then paywall" apps demo well and then hold your library hostage. Velo's bet is different: the core reading experience is the product demo, permanently, and the subscription covers the things with genuine ongoing costs. No ads, no data sale, no feature that quietly stops working after 14 days.

That also means the honest comparison shopping question isn't "which app is free" — most will cost you something, in money or attention — but "what does the free tier let me verify before paying." With Velo you can verify everything that matters: import your three hardest PDFs, read a full book in both modes, check your real reading speed in stats, and see the on-device analysis work. If the modes don't suit how you read, you'll know without spending anything.

If you're new to word-by-word reading, start with what RSVP is and what the research says — it's the honest version, including where the technique's speed claims fall apart.

← All guides