SmartNews: Breaking News
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How much does SmartNews: Breaking News cost?
Prices are current as of 29 Sept 2026.
1 subscription from $3.99
In the United States, SmartNews: Breaking News has 1 subscription priced $3.99 – 4.99. Free trials run 7 days or 1 month.
| Subscription | Period | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Ads-free SmartNews | MonthlyTrial: 7 days, 1 month | $3.99 – 4.99 |
See what SmartNews: Breaking News costs in all 2 countries →
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| SmartNews: Breaking News |   CNN: Live & Breaking News |   USA TODAY: US & Breaking News |   NBC News: Breaking & US News |   Opera News: Breaking & Local |   ニュースライト |   日本経済新聞 電子版 - ビジネス・政治・金融・経済ニュース |   ニュースはNewsPicks｜ビジネス・経済ニュース・就活 |   Reuters - Breaking World News |   朝日新聞 - 国内外のニュースをいつでもどこでも |   TBS NEWS DIG 防災・ニュース・天気 by JNN | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.1 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 4.4 | 3.5 |
| Reviews | 2.9M | 2.2M | 253K | 172K | 103K | 99K | 46K | 33K | 12K | 5.5K | 337 |
| Released | 2012 | 2009 | 2012 | 2009 | 2019 | 2016 | 2010 | 2013 | 2013 | 2011 | 2022 |
| Monthly price | $3.99 | $3.99 | $14.99 | $5.99 | — | — | $38.99 | $15.99 | $4.00 | $12.99 | — |
| Annual price | — | $29.99 | $89.00 | $59.99 | — | — | $419.99 | $144.99 | $45.00 | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest.
SmartNews: Breaking News reviews
4.4 out of 5, based on 2,907,143 reviews.
What people like
- Clean interface that loads quickly
- Wide variety of news sources
- You can block unwanted topics
- News updates arrive in real time
What they complain about
- Ads interrupt you constantly
- Phone gets hot and drains battery
- Content feels biased to one side
- Articles often lack supporting images
Why
Great news terrible terrible pictures terrible images or no images most of the time it’s the only deterrent
WTF is with the TWITTER embeds?
Can no longer read the articles because of repeated Twitter embeds taking over the page. This repeats over every article. Are you owned by Musk now?
Good App
At times, when I try to post on Substack, Chinese language pops up. Why?
What’s with the music?
Overall, I like this app however, recently there have been stories I wanted to read, but this very loud music continues to play. Scrolling through there there’s no way to determine where it’s coming from or how to turn it off. If anybody has any insight as to what this is from and how I can disable it, I would really appreciate it.
Intrusive add icons
I understand that adds pay for the service, but they are place in a way that cause right handed users on a smart phone to accidentally open them. You have the best news aggregator app available. But aligning the adds to the left so right handed users don’t constantly open them unintentionally would make your platform more fluid. Also, the adds being double size to the news boxes makes it almost impossible to browse by them without accidentally opening them. Maybe this is intentional but it makes using the platform frustrating.
Points for reading is great
I have used the app for years and now earn points toward a gift card just for reading articles I would read anyway. The sources/selection of articles is solid, I can block sources or subjects I don’t want to read. Breaking News comes to my screen IRT.
Twitter embeds and unauthorized scans of my face - for who knows what?!
Why can’t you stop this
Good, but very Click Baity
Stories and News are Excellent, only reason I didn’t give five stars more times than not, stories refer to photos or images that are just not there. Example, the costumes were amazing, but there will be no photo, they will talk about many things with zero images to reference to. They just don’t bother with them on most stories.
Log in never, ever works
As you accrue points for reading the articles, you can never actually use them. Why? Because, you cannot log in to verify your phone #. This has been ongoing for 3+ months now. This appears to be a scam.
Over heated
I like it but it heats up my phone for one. And another thing, it goes to another page when I haven’t clicked on any page
My me time
I like reading the articles it gives me time for me and some quite time.. I like how the writers don’t have you jumping forwards and backwards to understand the story
Jerusalem Post
30% of all articles come from the (genocidal) Jerusalem Post. "Smartnews" took their dirty money, so you can't block them.
Review of SmartNews
I now go to SmartNews for all my updates. I still fact check articles alas some do indeed come across biased but for the most the articles have been well researched.
Great idea but buggy (UPDATED)
UPDATE: I fixed the issue where the phone gets super hot and drains the battery. Had to install an ad blocker on my phone! I downloaded NextDNS and set up a free profile. Have been using the app for about five minutes now (where my phone would get very warm and the battery would drain) and it’s now cool to the touch! Sounds like all those ads in the background were the culprit. I like the app for diverse content of news. Nothing I’ve seen so far comes close. Unfortunately after about 10-15 min the app slows my entire phone down to where everything locks up and the phone gets VERY hot. I don’t have anything else open and when I can finally close out of the app the phone immediately cools down and goes back to normal. I love the selection of news but they’ve really got to figure out the heat issue.
It was good but it’s a battery killer.
It’s a fairly good news aggregate but it used 27% of my battery in 37 minutes of reading today. It’s got to go whatever it’s doing jamming up the processor getting the phone hot. Sometimes I like to read statewide news stories but the local tab I use it for is local to the entire state of Ohio.
Great Way to Stay Updated
SmartNews is a good app for keeping up with the latest news. The interface is clean, articles load quickly, and it's easy to browse different topics. I would like to see even more personalization options, but overall it's a reliable app for staying informed every day.
Video “option”
I have seizures and I can’t be exposed to constant flickering content. There’s no tab to stop them so I may have to stop using your app.
Appreciate the quick streaming of events!
Have used SmartNews recently. I like the multiple news outlets available and quick update of current news events.
Popups again
Mostly garbage news sources these days. And full page popups are back. Nope nope nope. Delete. Update: Developers respond to requests, so that's nice. Wanted to be able to block specific publishers to try and limit the fluff and sure enough they added the feature. Current issue keeping me from using the iPad app at all now, and to some degree the iPhone as well, is the damn gamification popups. I'm sorry but if people need some reward for just reading the news perhaps news isn't your thing. In an effort to get people to read more they actually have me reading significantly less. Probably not the outcome they were going for. Gonna have to have a toggle to turn it off before I'm back to using the app much.
Room for improvement
Good collection of news but uses way too much data and battery. Increasing ads doesn’t help either.
Shallow articles
Not impressed with subject matter and in depth investigation of stories nor are we impressed with editor for letting 90% articles slide by without any oversight. Looks like unschooled teenagers posted these important News topics
Very Prejudicial
I am deleting your app. Very Pro genocidal entity. Can’t digest it, so throwing it up.
Great App Except For Stupid Game Ads
Great App but the choice of ads is making the site unusable
Too Biased
SmartNews seems very biased in their news coverage. SmartNews must really despise Donald Trump with a negative slant on every news story related to him. Was hoping for better.
Pros and cons
Excellent variety of news articles individually customized. Too many articles and ads flagged by my software as “questionable links” has become a major concern.
Favourite App Gone Bad
The best & only news app I used is now frustrating due to auto refreshes. I see several stories I want to read, but can only read one because they disappear after reading one, or sometimes two. I try to remember or write down keywords to search for the other stories. I used this app daily, but now rarely. Looking for a different news app.
App kills battery
Is this running background processes? Using this app causes the phone to get hot and it is unclear why.
International Users
I preferred when there was an international option for users.
Ads
So many news stories that are really ads, and it’s gets worse. They also added gamification…trying to reward you with meaningless points for reading which, coincidently, started with the last update that brought us more not-news. I should point out that the 4.6 rating (Aug 2026) is probably from old reviews when the app version that I liked was customer friendly.
Mostly usable by voiceover except for rewards section, which is not accessible to screen readers
Most of this app is very accessible to people who are blind and have vision impairment. However, I read it three stars because the rewards section where people can earn gift cards for reading this information news stories, which is very nice and I like the wide variety of outlets, you guys have here. However, I would really appreciate it if you would continue to make this app reward section usable for people with screen readers so that we can also be able to collect gift cards for reading. Thank you.
My Go To News Source
Smart News is my go to news source where I get all my social media news.
Memphis
Memphis TN is located in Shelby County,TN. You are including “Shelby County” info that is not in Tennessee. You need to Re-write your program so that does not pick up Shelby County outside of Tennessee. It is getting to the point that so many of your articles are being blocked by my Secutitu sidtware I don’t know who to trust on anymore
Glitchy App
Although a comprehensive source for timely news the pop up ads on my iPhone don’t necessarily disappear when you press the ‘x’ or when they just freeze that forced the user to completely reset the phone. Highly annoying and inconvenient.
Impossible to use. Will not scroll!
Locks up
Confusing
I really don’t know what to believe in this app. One day I get a notification that Trump’s approval rating is the highest ever. (Which I doubt). Then the next day I get a notification that Trump’s approval rating is the lowest it has ever been. Which one is accurate?
Informative
Accurate and timely
Dumb and irrelevant news.
The worst news site on the web.
A better take on older apps like Flipboard
Fast. Feeds seem to be well tuned. Animations are minimal. The “smart view” is clean. On the negative side it seems to have ads and no way to turn them off. I would pay for that option.
Politically Biased
Decided to try this news app again to receive extra points from FETCH. Many entertaining current affairs stories but all of the political news articles I read are so obviously heavily skewed to the left I deleted the app. Reminds me why I deleted this app years ago.
Too many ads
So many ads, it’s probably 50% ads: it makes it hard to scroll through to find relevant articles and difficult to scroll within articles because there is so much junk. I’ve had this app for many years but unfortunately I’m deleting it and finding an alternative. I like that articles are available offline.
The best
Excellent coverage on many items
Left wing hack
This isn’t a fair balanced source of news every story is left leaning and derogatory to the conservative right!!
Smart mode
Can we have smart mode as default mode.
“SmartNews”
Meanwhile,from the titles of most of the articles alone, (even with just business and finance as topics followed) there aren’t many brain cells being fired here.
Shocking number of identical ads
I like the format and content of Smart News but now an ad to retrieve my xrays appears between every two articles on every page. I'll have to delete the app soon if nothing is done.
Quality
Too much garbage that passes as news coverage
Sometimes not real news
I read an article today from “Knewz”. The article only had what was said by RFK Jr and there were no rebuttals to the contrary. No facts. Please do better.
Update please.
Kindly add “ Dark Mode” Thanks for the “Dark Mode” Cheers
Too Much Click Bait
Some of it’s articles are good, but many are biased, and a lot is click bait. For example, today, the article that keeps popping up about Phil Collins being summoned to say goodbye due to his health, then you open it, and this happened in 2024. Do you need clicks so bad you have to use misleading headlines?
Subscription
This is probably best news app, but unfortunately somehow, I can not subscribe (pay extra for some interesting subjects)
SmartNews: Breaking News price by country
A monthly subscription costs $3.99 in the United States and $4.89 in Japan — 1.2× more for the same thing. Below is the going rate for each plan in every country that sells it — the middle price of what the app charges there, in the country's own currency with the dollar equivalent beneath it.
| Country | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Japan | ¥770$4.89 |
| United States | $3.99 |
SmartNews: Breaking News FAQ
- Is SmartNews: Breaking News free?
- Yes. The app and its basic features are free, in all 130 countries it sells in. Premium features are paid: they start from $3.99 (US), across 1 subscription.
- How much does SmartNews: Breaking News cost per month?
- Ads-free SmartNews is $3.99 – 4.99 (US).
- Does SmartNews: Breaking News have a free trial?
- Yes — free trials of 7 days or 1 month (US), depending on the plan.
- Where is SmartNews: Breaking News cheapest?
- A monthly subscription costs $3.99 in the United States and ¥770 (≈$4.89) in Japan, its cheapest and dearest countries.
- What are the best alternatives to SmartNews: Breaking News?
- CNN: Live & Breaking News (4.7 from 2,235,449 reviews, premium from $3.99), USA TODAY: US & Breaking News (4.5 from 252,940 reviews, premium from $4.99) and NBC News: Breaking & US News (4.7 from 172,333 reviews, premium from $5.99).
SmartNews: Breaking News download
Last updated 10 days ago.
SmartNews: Breaking News sells in 130 countries. It was released 13 years and 10 months ago, on 8 Dec 2012. It holds a 4.4 rating from 2,907,143 reviews.
Supports 2 languages: English, Japanese.
How much does SmartNews: Breaking News make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.
Revenue by plan
- Monthly 100%
Revenue by country
- Japan 89%
- United States 11%