smry

smry is a reading and research workspace for people who collect material from many sources and want to query it later. It is a stronger fit for sustained reading than for someone who only needs the occasional article recap.

Overview

smry brings a clean reader, summaries, passage-grounded answers, highlights, notes, audio, and a searchable library into one workflow. The ability to get an answer tied to an exact passage is useful when you need to check a claim against its source rather than rely on a compressed summary. Its breadth is a practical advantage for readers managing a continuing queue, but can be more than a casual summarizer requires.

Key features

Feeds and supported material

Feeds cover RSS and Atom, podcasts, YouTube channels, Reddit communities, X accounts, creator transcripts, and selected webpage monitors. smry also handles YouTube videos, PDFs, EPUBs, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, text, Markdown, and subtitle files. This range makes it suitable for a mixed reading and research library, while feed and monitor caps determine how much of that stream a plan can accommodate.

Reading, research, and exports

Highlights, notes, audio, and searchable storage extend the service beyond first-pass summaries. Connections include Readwise Reader, Matter, keep.md, Raindrop.io, Instapaper, Notion, GitHub Stars, Pocket, and Safari Reading List. Highlight exports support Notion, Obsidian, Readwise, Zotero, Tana, Workflowy, Roam Research, Anki, Markdown, and JSON, a useful spread for readers who already maintain notes in another system.

API and agents

Every signed-in account, including Free, gets a personal Developer API and a Streamable HTTP MCP server; Patron and Pro have higher limits. That makes smry unusually relevant to readers incorporating agents into a research workflow, although the Free plan's daily usage caps still constrain the service's own summaries and article chats.

Pricing

smry is freemium, with a Free plan and paid plans from $36/yr, plus a 7-day trial. The Free plan costs nothing and allows 20 summaries and 20 article chats per day, audio for one article per day with two voices, 100 feeds, three webpage monitors, and 50 offline-ready article bodies. It is enough to judge whether the reading workflow fits, but the daily caps and relatively small monitor allowance make it a poor home for heavy ongoing collection.

Patron costs $6 a month, billed monthly. It raises capacity to 1,000 feeds and 10 webpage monitors and adds 10 GB of private file storage. Its 7-day no-card trial and 30-day money-back guarantee lower the risk of trying the paid tier. Patron is the sensible step up for an individual whose feed collection outgrows Free but does not need large-scale monitoring.

Pro costs $80 a month, billed $80/mo. It includes 25,000 feeds, 100 webpage monitors, 1,000 feed folders, 20 active API keys, and 100 GB of private file storage. Those expanded limits suit intensive collection or workflows with several API keys; they are hard to justify for an ordinary personal reading queue. The plans' distinct capacities matter more than the headline starting price: check the feed and monitor ceiling against the volume you intend to follow.

Platforms

smry is available on the web and as an extension. Although iOS appears among its platforms, the service says native iOS and Android apps are not currently shipped; a dedicated desktop app is coming soon. Readers who expect a native phone or desktop application should factor that gap into their choice rather than assume a dedicated app is part of the current offering.

Who it's for

smry is aimed at individuals and small teams, especially readers following many publications and people who use agents. It is a good match for a research habit that mixes feeds, documents, passage-checking, and export to other note systems. Someone who wants only occasional summaries, or whose workflow depends on native mobile apps, has a clearer reason to look elsewhere.

Pros and cons

Pro: Passage-grounded answers make it easier to verify what a summary says against the source.

Pro: Broad feed and document support brings varied reading material into one searchable workspace.

Pro: Free accounts include API and MCP access, with upgrades available for higher limits.

Con: Free caps summaries and chats daily, and its three webpage monitors may be restrictive for active tracking.

Con: Native iOS and Android apps are not shipped, and the dedicated desktop app is still forthcoming.

Con: Pro's $80 monthly price and much larger capacities are excessive for readers with modest feed needs.

Alternatives

For a broader set of AI summarizers, browse AI Summarizers. Choose QuillBot instead if you want a tool with Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows apps alongside its browser extension and web version; its Free plan covers paraphrasing up to 100 words. Lemora is another option for learners who want its tutor chats and uploads, with a free tier subject to daily limits and a Pro plan that removes them.

AskSia is a better fit when the task is solving problems step by step or working from a photo, rather than maintaining a broad reading library. Sidenote suits a lighter document-focused workflow: its free plan allows three documents per month, with caps on summaries, explanations, glossary builds, and chat turns. Briefy may suit readers who prefer a credit-based summarizer; its free plan provides 30 credits monthly, while Premium is $89.88 per year billed annually.

For podcast-focused work, Podwise offers podcast Q&A, clips, translation, RSS and audio uploads, and 20 AI processing credits per month on Standard. Scholarcy is oriented toward article summaries and flashcards, with a free limit of 10 summaries. SciSummary is the alternative to consider for paper-oriented work when API access is useful; its 7-day free trial includes 30,000 words, figure analysis, chat messages, and article searches.

Verdict

Choose smry if you want one workspace for a high-volume reading stream, source-checkable answers, and exports or agent access. Its Free plan makes that broader workflow accessible, but daily usage caps, feed ceilings, and the absence of shipped native apps are real constraints. Readers seeking a focused summarizer, or a native mobile experience, should look elsewhere.