Breaking news: Scribd drops monthly credit limit

Almost exactly two years after it was first announced, Scribd discontinues the monthly reading limit. In 2016, they have introduced a model which allowed subscribers to read three books and one audiobook for the monthly fee. As Scribd pays its publishers according to number of pages read, it seemed reasonable that they have decided to keep the service sustainable: neither decreasing publisher revenues, nor increasing subscription prices. But thankfully, they have now decided otherwise: Scribd Unlimited is here!

The change, so far, comes with no increase in price: for just 8.99 dollars a month, content-hungry readers can get their book fix from one single source. In their announcement, Scribd co-founder and CEO Trip Adler points out that this change will increase the company’s contributions in the publishing ecosystem.

What content does Scribd Unlimited offer?

Unlike the majority of similar services, Scribd is famous for having content available from big publishers including Random House or Simon & Schuster. They don’t only offer books, but also audiobooks, magazines, selected, in-depth news articles, and long music sheets. While still everyone can upload their documents to Scribd and decide whether they want them to be included in the premium catalogue, Scribd is no longer a place for BA dissertations only.

Their carefully curated catalogue has already drawn in half a million people. No wonder: Scribd checks every book before they enter their catalogue of around a million titles. The readers might be coming for the Fire and Fury, but will now stay to read unlimited books by self-publishers. There is no longer a need to “save up” credits to read a book, and carefully decide between two interesting titles. This improvement could result in an increase in reading independently published titles.

Unique features of Scribd

In addition to providing quality content and bringing self-published and traditionally published books to a wide audience, Scribd offers great exploretools to its readers. You can sort literature by most read or most recent, or check out reading lists curated by Scribd editors and other influencers. They not only offer related books, but also related articles in the topic; I wish Netflix had a feature like that when I was binge-watching The Crown last month. The Scribd app is available for both iOS and Android devices.