Learning and memory
Apps like Imprint, including free options
Short answer
For free, Headway and Blinkist each give one book summary a day, and Scroll (ours) gives 5 short lessons a day. For a monthly plan below Imprint's $15.99, Scroll costs $3.99 and Blinkist $12.99 on the US App Store (October 17, 2026). Headway and Blinkist take 15 minutes a summary, and Scroll's lessons are text, without Imprint's visuals.
Imprint, from Polywise, Inc., teaches psychology, philosophy, history, finance, science and other subjects in short illustrated chapters. On October 17, 2026, its US App Store page listed a monthly subscription at $15.99 and yearly ones at $74.99 or $99.99, and neither that page nor its Google Play listing describes a free plan. This guide is for people who like the format but want to start free, pay less or pay month to month.
Scroll is our app and one of the options below, so we say where it falls short too. We didn’t test the other apps hands-on; everything here comes from their store listings and websites, read on October 17, 2026.
What Imprint does well
Imprint’s case rests on its visuals. Its listing says each idea is explained with visuals made to clarify it, and that a chapter takes two minutes or less, which is short enough to finish in a queue. The catalog comes in three kinds: courses (one is on philosophy and the meaning of life, taught with Professor John Kaag), quick reads such as one on Freud’s id, ego and superego, and visual guides to bestselling books, including Sapiens and Atomic Habits. There are daily quizzes, and you can save ideas to review later.
People who use it rate it highly. On the US App Store it had 4.8 stars from 57,938 ratings on October 17, 2026, and its iPhone app was updated two days earlier. Its Google Play listing says Google Play named it one of the best apps of 2023.
Its limits are the price and the language. The app is in English only, and the listings describe no free plan.
What Imprint costs
The US App Store page lists three subscriptions with a period attached: $15.99 a month, and $74.99 or $99.99 a year. A fourth item, Imprint premium, costs $29.99 with no period given. Google Play’s in-app items run from $15.99 to $99.99. Neither store says which yearly price a new subscriber sees.
Divided by twelve, the yearly plans come to $6.25 or $8.33 a month. Paying $15.99 every month for a year adds up to $191.88, so if you expect to keep Imprint for a year, the yearly plan costs 39% to 52% of that. If you’re not sure you’ll keep it, the monthly plan is the cheaper way to find out.
Free apps like Imprint
Headway gives one free 15-minute book summary a day, which you can read or hear. Its Premium plan adds learning plans, audiocasts, spaced repetition and quizzes. It covers similar ground to Imprint’s guides to bestsellers, at greater length: its App Store listing counts 1,700+ summaries of nonfiction bestsellers.
Blinkist’s free plan, Basic, gives one summary a day, chosen by its editorial team. Premium opens its 9,000+ book and podcast summaries, again as text or audio, and Blinkist also works in a web browser.
Scroll’s free plan is 5 lessons a day, and it doesn’t expire. Each lesson is one idea in 21 to 115 words, followed by a four-option question with an explanation; at the median read time of 44 seconds, the five free lessons take about 3.7 minutes. The topics overlap with Imprint’s: Psychology, Philosophy, History, Science, Money, Business, Productivity and Tech & Internet. Unlike Imprint, Scroll’s lessons are text, with no illustrations.
Nibble’s first lesson is free on iOS, Android and the web, and after that its site describes a 7-day free trial that converts to an annual subscription.
Duolingo and Elevate also have free tiers, but they teach languages and run brain games, so they’re further from what Imprint does.
Monthly plans that cost less than Imprint’s
If you’d rather not pay a year up front, the monthly prices on each US App Store page are the place to compare. Two of the apps here list a monthly plan below Imprint’s $15.99: Scroll at $3.99 and Blinkist at $12.99 (Blinkist also lists one at $15.99).
| App | Format | Free without paying | Monthly | Yearly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Imprint | Illustrated chapters of 2 minutes or less, with daily quizzes | None described | $15.99 | $74.99 or $99.99 |
| Scroll (ours) | Text lessons of 21 to 115 words, a question after each | 5 lessons a day | $3.99 | $19.99 |
| Blinkist | 15-minute book and podcast summaries, text and audio | 1 summary a day | $12.99 or $15.99 | $79.99 to $119.99 |
| Headway | 15-minute book summaries, text and audio | 1 summary a day | Not listed | Not listed |
| Nibble | Lessons of 3 to 10 minutes, plus games, video and audio | First lesson, then a 7-day trial | $19.99 | $12.99 to $89.99 (five prices listed) |
| Brilliant | Interactive math, coding and physics problems with an AI tutor | None described | Not listed | Not listed |
Prices are the in-app purchases on each app’s US App Store page on October 17, 2026; where a page lists more than one price for a period, we give the range. Headway and Brilliant list prices without saying whether they’re monthly or yearly, so we wrote “not listed”. Headway’s own site sells plans of 4, 12 and 24 weeks instead, starting at $19.99 for the first 4 weeks and then $39.98 every 4 weeks. Brilliant’s App Store items, all called Premium with Tutor, run from $167.99 to $239.99.
Brilliant is here for a narrower reason. If what you liked in Imprint was learning from pictures, and your subject is math, coding or physics, Brilliant’s listing says its tutor can draw on your screen and build visualizations as you work through problems. It covers none of Imprint’s humanities subjects.
Imprint vs Headway
The two overlap on bestselling nonfiction, but they’re built differently. Imprint turns a book into a short illustrated guide and also runs its own courses and quick reads, while Headway summarizes the book in about 15 minutes, to read or to hear. Only Headway has a free summary every day.
On price, Imprint labels its plans by period ($15.99 a month, $74.99 or $99.99 a year). Headway’s App Store items run from $12.99 to $89.99 without a period attached, and its site sells 4, 12 and 24-week plans, with introductory prices that double after the first period ($19.99, then $39.98 every 4 weeks). Headway’s app is available in English and 10 more languages; Imprint’s is English only. Both are well rated on the US App Store: Imprint 4.8 from 57,938 ratings, Headway 4.6 from 117,200.
Imprint vs Nibble
Nibble covers more ground and takes more time. Its lessons run 3 to 10 minutes across 35+ topics, and it adds games, video and audio episodes and chats with historical figures, with quizzes inside the lessons. Imprint keeps to chapters of two minutes or less with daily quizzes.
Nibble lets you try a lesson free, then offers a 7-day trial. Its US App Store page lists a monthly plan at $19.99, which is $4 more than Imprint’s, and five annual prices from $12.99 to $89.99, without saying who gets which. It’s rated 4.3 from 46,849 ratings there, and it works on iOS, Android and the web.
Where Scroll fits, and where it doesn’t
Scroll’s $3.99 a month is the lowest monthly price in this comparison, its yearly plan is $19.99 in the US, and 5 lessons a day are free. Its lessons are also the shortest stated here. Each of the 1,753 lessons is one idea in 21 to 115 words, the app shows a read time of 32 to 50 seconds, and every lesson names the book, paper or record it comes from. Scroll’s prices are set out on the homepage.
Measured against Imprint, it’s missing several things. There are no illustrations, so if visuals are what you liked, Scroll won’t replace them. There’s no audio and there are no book summaries. The app is English only, and the free plan stops at 5 lessons a day. You can read a few lessons without installing anything on the Philosophy page, if you’d like to compare the format with Imprint’s philosophy course first.
Deciding whether a yearly plan pays off
A yearly price is easier to judge per day of use. Say Amara would open Imprint five days a week, about 260 days a year: $74.99 works out to about 29 cents a day, and $99.99 to about 38 cents. If she’d open it twice a week (104 days), the same plans cost about 72 and 96 cents a day. Count how often you opened a similar app last month before you pick.
If you already pay yearly and rarely open the app, the renewal date is when to decide. The money spent on this year doesn’t change what next year is worth to you, though it can feel as if it should. This is Scroll’s lesson on why, with its question:
The Sunk Cost Fallacy
You stay in a bad movie because you paid for the ticket. You keep a failing project alive because you invested years. The money or time is gone regardless. It is a sunk cost. Rational decisions look forward, not backward. But our brains hate "wasting" past investments, even when continuing wastes more.
Source Arkes, H.R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost.
Quick quiz
You have invested two years in a project that is clearly failing. The rational decision is to:
For the wider field, including Duolingo, Elevate and Brilliant, our comparison of eight microlearning apps sets out lesson length, quiz style, free tiers and prices side by side.
Drafted with AI assistance and checked against each app's US App Store listing, Google Play listing and website on October 17, 2026. We didn't test the other apps hands-on. Scroll is our app.