For many years, I have happily paid for Instapaper Pro. Up until two days ago, I would strongly recommend you do the same . . . but now they’ve gone and made it free. 

That’s right — while other companies are folding, and others still are hiking up their prices, Instapaper is offering the top tier of their service for free. There’s no cost and no ads.

Here’s why this post should be the last thing you ever read online outside of Instapaper.

What Is Instapaper?

Simply put, Instapaper is a service for saving things you find online so that you can read them later. If you’re familiar with Pocket or Evernote, it’s a bit like that. But Instapaper is different — it’s specialized.

While Evernote and Pocket want to be your repositories for everything — and while Facebook wants all your friends, and Pinterest is where photos go to be forgotten saved — Instapaper is where you put things you want to read.

It isn’t just a bookmarking tool, either. Instapaper transforms that small bit of the Internet you actually want to read into something that’s readable. It strips out all the ads, unnecessary styling, and comments and replaces it with pixel perfect typography.

And it’s as simple as clicking a button.

Read When and Where You Want

With Instapaper, you’re one click away from transforming Internet chaos into a beautiful article. Your saved stories sync to the cloud and then to all your devices.

Instapaper is available for Android and iOS. Its app is modeled after dedicated e-reader apps, like Kindle or Nook — and it’s actually on par with them.

You can download your stories to read offline, save your place between sessions (and devices), and even add highlights and annotations.

Instapaper Is for Readers

Instapaper really takes reading seriously. No other major service I know of does this: Instapaper is made for Kindle e-readers.

With a single click, you can have all your unread stories compiled into a magazine and delivered wirelessly to your Kindle. There’s even an option to have your unread stories delivered automatically either daily or weekly.

Thanks to Instapaper, I have become both more productive and more well read.

When I see a story that interests me online, in social media, or in team chat, I don’t have to choose between getting distracted now or forgetting the story later. I just save it to Instapaper.

Nothing is forgotten. The stories are waiting for me when I’m ready to read them — whether I happen to be in my browser, on my phone, or on my Kindle.

Specialization Leads to Mastery

At 9 Clouds, we’re firm believers in specialization leading to mastery. After all, it’s by zeroing in on a niche we know well that 9 Clouds has gone from a general inbound marketing agency to a leading automotive inbound partner.

Specialization is what I love about Instapaper.

By focusing on a single thing — making the Internet more readable — Instapaper has created a service without rival. It may not be the most popular or most versatile app for saving content you find online, but Instapaper should be the first choice for anyone invested in information.