“Bait and switch- $500 to finish up series if you aren’t watching 4-12 ads each episode. — I loved this app. Suggested to friends. Then I got 300-500 chapters in, and only coins will unlock chapters. I’ve purchased coins a couple times…”
Independent automated assessment · 3 signal sources · 1,857 reviews scanned · analyzed 2026-10-06.
4.7 ★271,471 ratings
—Downloads
12+Age rating
246 MBApp size
Free · In-app purchasesIn-app purchases
About this app
Pocket FM is the world's #1 audio dramas platform and the ultimate audio entertainment destination for 250M+ listeners worldwide. Whether you are an audiobook lover, a podcast fan, or just someone who wants great stories — Pocket FM takes you further. This is original audio fiction: episodic, binge-worthy, and built by 550,000+ creators including the world's best authors, storytellers, narrators, and voice-over artists. Pocket FM reimagines audio storytelling beyond radio and FM.
With over 100,000 hours of original audio content across every genre, Pocket FM is where great storytelling lives.
A new kind of audio entertainment
Pocket FM sits at the intersection of audiobooks, podcasts, and on-demand audio streaming — and goes beyond all three. Like your favourite podcast, new episodes drop every single day across hundreds of active shows.…
Preview
Real screenshots from the store listing.
Independent evidence report
The evidence behind this assessment
This is where the page changes from an app-store listing into an evidence report: findings, important reviews, pricing and a dated history.
Which version this describes
When we ran this analysis, and what the store lists now.
This analysis describes version 3.43.1 of the app, analyzed 2026-10-06 . The app may have changed since.
The store currently lists version 3.43.1, updated 2026-09-23.
What we measured
Each line is a measurement published as a measurement, never a verdict.
Each line is a measurement, published as a measurement. Where we have not looked, the line says so rather than reading as a zero.
Developer replies to reviews
Replies to fewer than 1 review in 20
Price in the store description
States no price and billing period
Cancelling, in the store description
Does not say how to cancel
Themes reported by reviewers
3 or more themes reported
Counted from the reviews we have read for this app. "No theme reported" means no theme reached our reporting threshold — it is not a finding that nothing is wrong with this app, and we do not say it is.
Five-star share of ratings
80–89% five-star
Arithmetic on the stores' own published rating counts. It says nothing about why the ratings fall where they do.
In the package we scanned
No package has been scanned for this app, so nothing is published about what it ships. That is an absence of evidence about the app, not a finding about it.
Graded bands · predicate set 1.4 · how these are measured
What the analysis found
App-specific findings, grouped by what each one rests on. How they are graded lives on its own page.
The catch list 1
Charges we publish at a strength we stand behind: measured from an artefact, agreed by independent sources, or reported by enough users to clear that charge's own published bar.
Reported by users: Aggressive ad load
Advertising volume or placement that interrupts normal use: ads between every action, unskippable or forced full-screen ads.
What we saw: Raised by 98 distinct reviewers — 5.3% of the 1,857 reviews scanned on this store leg (App Store).
Context 1
Measured and published because a reader would want to know — deliberately not a charge. The measurement alone does not show a harm.
Cheapest and priciest options are far apart
The disclosed in-app purchases span an unusually wide price range. Published as context: the cheapest and priciest items may be different kinds of product entirely, so the spread alone deducts nothing.
What we saw: In-app purchases run from USD 0.99 to USD 19.99 — a 20x spread across 10 items
One source only — shown, not confirmed 2
A single kind of evidence. We publish these because withholding them would be the bigger distortion, and we do not treat any of them as a finding we stand behind.
Reported by users: Reports that the ads misrepresent the app
Reviewers repeatedly report that the app is not what its advertising showed. We never see the ad creative itself, so nothing we collect can corroborate or refute this — it is published as an attributed user report: what reviewers say, and how many of them said it.
What we saw: Misleading advertising: raised by 27 distinct reviewers (1.5% of 1857 reviews scanned)
Reported by users: Price keeps rising
The price of the paid tier has been raised on existing users.
What we saw: Price keeps rising: raised by 19 distinct reviewers (1.0% of 1857 reviews scanned)
Highlighted reviews
Representative public review excerpts shown as user reports, not Appworthy audit evidence.
“Predatory — The most greediest app I have ever seen. They make it super hard for users on a budget. They have a ridiculous amount of ads. Like they ask you to watch 8 ads for 2 episodes. It doesn’t stop there either. They start you off…”
“Episodes are decreasing — There are a lot of good stories. I like the commercials that appear to pay for the application. There are not a lot. I would settle for one or two commercials a day. There are a good amount of episodes released…”
Assessment & version history
App changes and Appworthy events in one timeline.
Store listing updated to version 3.43.1.
What this app sells
Useful store-disclosed pricing, kept below the app listing.
Items shown8
Lowest$0.99
Highest$19.99
Buy coins worth $4.99$4.99
Buy coins worth $0.99$0.99
Buy coins worth $1.99$1.99
Buy Coins Worth $0.99$0.99
Buy coins worth $9.99$9.99
Show 3 more purchases
Buy coins worth $19.99$19.99
Buy Coins Worth $19.99$19.99
Buy Coins Worth $4.99$4.99