What Instapaper is great at
Instapaper is the cleanest reading experience in the category. It strips ads and chrome, gives you a calm typographic reader, and stays out of your way. It has been doing this since 2008 and the formula still holds.
Premium is $2.99 a month and adds unlimited notes, full-text search, and an ad-free experience. If you want a simple, stable place to read long-form, Instapaper still ranks.
How Oneaction is different
Instapaper assumes you will come back and read. Oneaction assumes you will not. So instead of saving the article for later, it reads it for you and returns one verb-led action you should do because of it. Six words or less. The action goes to your todo app or stays in Simple List.
- One action per save. Not a quiet pile of articles.
- No folders, tags, or note system to maintain.
- Hand off to your todo app. Instapaper does not.
- Free during beta. No credit card.
Oneaction vs Instapaper
Instapaper data reflects the product as it ships today, including Premium features where relevant.
| Aspect | Instapaper | Oneaction |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Active since 2008 | Public beta |
| What you get per save | Stored article | One verb-led to-do, plus title and summary |
| AI extraction | No | Yes |
| Hand-off to todo apps | No | Things, Todoist, TickTick, Reminders, MS To Do |
| Supported content | Articles | Articles, Reddit, X, YouTube, PDFs, EPUBs, podcasts |
| Text-to-speech | Yes | Yes, streams in about a second |
| Highlights and notes | Yes | No (intentional) |
| Folders and tags | Yes (Premium) | No (intentional) |
| Full-text search | Yes (Premium) | Yes |
| iOS / Android app | Yes | Roadmap |
| Web app | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop app | No | Native macOS and Linux. PWA on Windows |
| Browser extension | Yes | Yes (Chrome) |
| Privacy: no AI training on user data | N/A | Yes |
| Pricing | Free, or $2.99/mo Premium | Free during beta |
Migrating from Instapaper
Bulk import for Instapaper export files is in progress. Two paths until it ships:
- Start clean. Save new links as you find them.
- Paste your most-wanted Instapaper URLs into the web app or via the Chrome extension.
When the importer ships, your Instapaper CSV will load in one click. Subscribe to the changelog to know when.
Questions from Instapaper users
Can I import my Instapaper saves?
Bulk import for Instapaper exports is in progress. Until then, paste any URL into the web app or capture it with the Chrome extension.
Does Oneaction have folders or tags like Instapaper?
No, and that is intentional. Saving in Oneaction produces one verb-led to-do you do once. No folder hierarchy, no tag system to maintain.
Will I lose my highlights and notes?
Oneaction does not store highlights or notes. The output of every save is one verb-led action plus a short summary. If highlights are core to your workflow, Instapaper Premium still serves that better.
Do you have a mobile app like Instapaper?
Not yet. The web app works on phones. Native iOS and Android are on the roadmap. Desktop runs natively on macOS and Linux, and as a one-click PWA install on Windows.
How does pricing compare to Instapaper Premium?
Free during beta. No credit card. Instapaper Premium is $2.99 a month. After launch, Oneaction will offer a free tier and a paid tier for heavy daily use.
Is my data private?
We store the title, summary, action, and source URL. Not the full article text. We do not sell, share, or train AI on your data. Trash auto-purges daily.
Save your first link.
Free during beta. No credit card. Two clicks to set up.