smry

smry is a reading and research workspace for people who follow many publications, collect varied documents, or work with AI agents. It is strongest when you need summaries tied back to source passages and a library you can search later; readers wanting only occasional recaps may find its broader system unnecessary.

Its free tier is unusually capable, but daily summary and chat allowances, feed capacity, and the lack of shipped native mobile apps shape who should pay.

Overview

smry combines a clean reader with article filing, source-grounded summaries, passage-specific answers, highlights, notes, audio, and a searchable library. Answers that identify the exact passage give research users a way to verify an interpretation instead of relying on an unsupported paraphrase. Audio and annotations make it useful for revisiting material, while the library turns one-off reading into an ongoing archive.

Key features

Feeds and supported content

Following is broader than a conventional RSS reader: smry accepts RSS and Atom feeds, podcasts, YouTube channels, Reddit communities, X accounts, creator transcripts, and selected webpage monitors. It can also read YouTube videos, PDFs, EPUBs, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, plain text, Markdown, and subtitle files. That mix suits a research queue spanning media types, although the number of feeds and monitors is tied closely to the subscription.

Research and connections

Highlights, notes, searchable storage, and audio support the work after an initial summary. Connections are provided for Readwise Reader, Matter, keep.md, Raindrop.io, Instapaper, Notion, GitHub Stars, Pocket, and Safari Reading List. Highlights can be exported to Notion, Obsidian, Readwise, Zotero, Tana, Workflowy, Roam Research, Anki, Markdown, and JSON, making smry easier to fit into an existing knowledge system rather than forcing a closed workflow.

API and privacy

Every signed-in account, including Free, receives a personal Developer API and Streamable HTTP MCP server. Patron and Pro raise the available limits, which makes the higher tiers more relevant to automation and agent-based workflows. smry says it does not sell personal information, but it shares data with third-party services needed to run the product. It uses reasonable technical and organizational safeguards while not promising absolute security.

Pricing

Free

The Free plan costs nothing and allows 20 summaries and 20 article chats per day. Audio covers one article daily with two voices. You get 100 feeds, three webpage monitors, and 50 offline-ready article bodies. This is a sensible starting point for an individual reader, but frequent summarization or a large monitoring setup will reach those caps quickly.

Patron

Patron costs $6 a month, billed monthly. It expands capacity to 1,000 feeds and 10 webpage monitors, adds 10 GB of private file storage, and includes a seven-day no-card trial plus a 30-day money-back guarantee. It is the practical upgrade for serious personal reading and modest research collections; it does not approach Pro's automation and scale.

Pro

Pro costs $80 a month, billed at $80/mo. It raises capacity to 25,000 feeds and 100 webpage monitors, adds 1,000 feed folders, 20 active API keys, and 100 GB of private file storage. This is aimed at organizations, intensive monitoring, or agent-heavy workflows rather than ordinary reading.

Platforms

smry is offered on the web, through a browser extension, and on iOS. A dedicated desktop app is coming soon, while native iOS and Android apps are not currently shipped; Android users therefore lack a native option, and readers seeking a desktop application must use the web or extension.

Who it's for

Choose smry if you track many sources, read across documents and media, or need passage-grounded answers, exports, and API/MCP access in one workspace. It is also a good fit for individuals and small teams building a searchable research archive. It is less suitable for someone who only wants a quick summary occasionally, or who requires native mobile and desktop applications.

Pros and cons

• Pros: passage-linked answers support source checking; unusually broad feed and file support; extensive highlight exports; searchable library with notes and audio; API and MCP access even on Free.
• Cons: Free daily quotas and small monitor allowance limit heavy use; native Android and dedicated desktop apps are absent; Pro is expensive for individual readers who do not need high-volume feeds, folders, or API keys.

Alternatives

For a wider comparison, see AI Summarizers. Pick QuillBot instead if you need paraphrasing and grammar tools across many desktop and mobile platforms. Lemora suits users focused on upload-based tutoring with daily limits removed by its Pro plan. Choose AskSia for step-by-step problem solving and photo input. Briefy is a credit-based summarizer with a $89.88 annual Premium plan. Grasp fits users wanting browser and macOS runs, follow-ups, and file lookups. Summify emphasizes analyses, Learn cards, quizzes, and study lenses. Summio is suited to public summaries with translation and chat questions. Apogee is the choice for a free, extension-only tool requiring no account or API key.

Verdict

smry is a strong choice for readers and small teams that need one place to monitor diverse sources, verify AI answers against passages, and move highlights into other knowledge tools. Its broad content handling and accessible API make it more than a summary button. Look elsewhere if you need native Android or desktop apps, or if your reading volume is too light to justify a workspace whose main advantages emerge from sustained collection and monitoring.