A free paywall reader for news articles
Paste an article link — read it free:
A paywall reader opens an article that sits behind a subscription prompt and shows you the text in a clean, ad-free view. RemovePaywall is a free one: paste the link and it does the rest — and when a site only sends a preview, it tells you so instead of pretending.
What a paywall reader does
It fetches the article page itself, pulls out the headline and body text, and shows them in a plain reading view — no overlay, no ads, no pop-ups. It is the same idea as your browser's reader mode, but it does not depend on what your browser happened to load, and it can look elsewhere when the page is locked.
How RemovePaywall reads an article
First it reads the live page and extracts the article. If the text is not there — the publisher only sent the opening — it looks for a saved copy at archive.today and the Wayback Machine and reads that instead. If no copy exists, it says so and gives you the archive link to try later. Every step happens on our side; you just paste the link.
Paywall reader vs. browser reader mode
Browser reader mode only rearranges what is already on the page in front of you, so it helps on soft paywalls and nowhere else. A paywall reader fetches the page on its own and falls back to archives, which is why it opens articles reader mode cannot. For a how-to on reader mode itself, see our reader mode guide.
When no paywall reader can help
Some publishers never send the article to non-subscribers — the server stops after the first paragraphs (the WSJ and The Times, for example). No reader, extension or trick can show text that was never sent. For those, a gift link from a subscriber or your library's free digital access are the reliable ways in.
How to use the paywall reader
- Copy the link. Open the article and copy its address — on a phone, Share → Copy link.
- Paste it. Paste it into the box on this page and press Read free. Quicker: type removepaywall.co/ in front of the link in your address bar.
- Read. The article opens in a clean view. If it was only a preview, the page says so and shows any archived copy it found.
Free paywall tools compared (2026)
| Tool | How it works | No install | No login | Languages | Shows success rates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RemovePaywall | Reader-first extraction, then archive.today + Wayback, then a sandboxed proxy | Yes (web; optional extension) | Yes | 7 | Yes — live, per site |
| archive.today | Public archive lookup only | Yes | Yes | — | No |
| Bypass Paywall Reader | Aggregator — redirects you to archives (Wayback, archive.today, others) | Yes | Yes | 5 | No |
| Smry.ai | AI reader + article summaries | Yes (also an extension) | Free tier; Pro is paid | — | No |
| Bypass Paywalls Clean | Browser extension with per-site rules | No — sideload from GitHub | Yes | — | No |
Live success rates
Unlike other tools, RemovePaywall shows how often it actually works, from real usage — recent examples: The New Yorker ~100% · WIRED ~100% · The Atlantic ~82% · Business Insider ~97% · The New York Times ~83%. See the full live list.
Got an article in mind? Try it now: