Webcomic App Review - Tappytoon
Pretty good app and I read a lot on this one
If you’re new to this Substack, welcome! This is the fourth post of a six-part series I’m currently doing. I’ve been reviewing some of the apps I read digital manga/manhwa. If you have used this or any of the others I’ve reviewed, leave a comment. Let’s start a conversation about it.
What is Tappytoon?
As best as I can tell, Tappytoon is primarily a licenser of content from other publishers. They were started in 2013 by parent company Contents First Inc. The English language version was launched in 2016.
As you can clearly see in the screenshot above, they have both comics and web novels. You can also see just like with Lezhin and Coolmic, you can access both All-age content and spicier adult content on the site. You need to use a round about way via the website to access those stories on the mobile app. There’s a wide variety of content you can read. Pretty similar to Manta and Lezhin in that respect. I will note you’ll find some instances of overlap between Tappytoon and Tapas, which is the next app I’ll review.
Cost
There are some free chapters. It gives you a chance to decide whether you are into this story or not. It can vary, but typically it’s the first 3 chapters you get free. The currency system they use are points. Across the board (as far as I can see) all chapters are 300 points each.
However if you take advantage of “unlock and read” feature, you can access all the available chapters at the rate of 240 points per chapter. This means you get a 20% discount on all the chapters. However the catch is you have to unlock ALL of the available chapters. If you’re short, you’ll get prompted to purchase more.
Points can be purchased in two methods. You have Tappytoon club or point bundles.
Tappytoon club is basically a monthly subscription. For USD$4.99/mo, you’ll receive:
4,400 points
30 point bonus for every day you log into the app
Instead of waiting 24 hours to read a free chapter, you just wait 12 hours.
There six different bundles you can purchase the cheapest is $4.99 for 3,900 points. The most expensive is $94.99 for 91,000 points. So what does this all mean?
If you go with Tappytoon club, you’ll receive enough points to access 14 chapters a month. It’s not terrible, but if you’re going to be a binge reader this won’t cut it. You’ll most likely wind up buying the bundles to get enough points to read the stories you want in a given month. I will however state that compared to Coolmic and Lezhin, you get the best bang for your buck. Depending on which bundle you purchase, you can get 13-15 chapters for $5. Better than Coolmic (6-8) or Lezhin (6-10).
And as I mentioned earlier, you go even further if you take advantage of the bulk rate for unlocking all chapters. You’d be getting the 16-19 chapters for $5. However again you’d have to buy large point bundles to unlock all those chapters. This is just to get the value of what you’re spending rather than the reality of what you’re get with your purchase.
My personal thoughts
This isn’t a bad app actually. I’ve read a few stories and I will continue to do so. I did the math above to show you that in terms of value, this is actually a really good app to use. The only problem is that since stories have MANY chapters, you ultimately need to cough up money to be able to read the stories either to completion or the most recent chapter.
There are stories on here you can’t find on the other apps, but admittedly there is some overlap with Tapas. And as I said next time I’ll do the review of Tapas. All of these apps are competitors though I would argue to some degree Tappytoon and Tapas are the closest competitors with Lezhin right behind.
What do you think of Tappytoon? If you haven’t used it, you would consider it? Leave a comment!