YONDER
reviews and complaints

I’ve been looking for an app that translated the Korean Webnovels that I’ve been wanting to read. Previously I had to read on other sites that weren’t official translations. This is amazing and has all of the series I’ve been looking forward to reading and more. The content library is huge and I already see so many of my favorites on this app. The user interface is very intuitive and makes it incredibly easy to find content. The tags are well done and makes discovering content even easier. This is the app I’ve been waiting for and I’m super excited to use it every day!

During the pandemic, Yonder’s partner app Webtoons was the only thing that got me through it. Despite not reading manga before reading Webtoons I grew to love it: the art form, the stories, and the passion that the artists had for what they were doing. I still love it and now with Yonder I have a new way to see and read the stories that I enjoy. In fact I almost like Yonder more? Before manga I was a reader first and foremost and so now it’s like coming back to my roots. 13/10 stars would definitely download both apps in a heartbeat! Download this, you won’t regret it!

Compared to other reading apps; I love this app for the genre of books it has. I found a book I loved on the first click compared to the endless searching and previewing on other apps. BUT what this app lacks that other apps HAVE is a real book feel and dictionary. There is no page count or "page flip" transition from one page to another, You can't hold down a word to look the definition up 'in app,'(iPhone) or even to copy/paste it to google at the least. I like the comment feature that's one thing other apps dont have but this app would be much better if it had that natural book feeling and a way to look up words.

I’ve had Wattpad downloaded for years and I’ve always adored the variety of books that were available. But I’ve recently come to discover Yonder. Although I like that Yonder retains books that seem more edited and professionally written, there aren’t as many options available to choose from unless you’d like to spend money or wait forever to eventually get through the books. On top of that, you get one or two free chapters per day with a book of your choice. The problem? The chapters are only available for three days. It seems super money-hungry and manipulative for someone to purchase a chapter just to be unable to go back and read it at their leisure.

I would like to chose exactly how many chapters to unlock at once. I sometimes try to buy multiple chapters of a series but I usually have to click through the chapters individually to do it. They did change it recently so that you can buy multiple chapters in one click but it’s only if you buy 50 chapters at once but I usually buy a little less than that.
Also the amount of coins needed to unlock chapters is weird. It’s 29 coins per chapter but all the coin packs come is bundles that are divisible by 5 or 10. So no matter which pack you buy, you always seem to fall short and don’t get to buy all the chapters you want.
If those were fixed I’d like it better

Already I am struggling with a couple itty bitty aspects of the app. Love the dark background it already comes in though. Can we have an update where you can click on a book to show full description but you can swipe left or right to go the the next book? And an update where you can swipe to exit from where you’re at to go back to the main screen instead of using the back arrow. Also PETITION FOR US TO BE ABLE TO CHANGE OUR USERNAMES PLEASE! And to follow & message each other. And to find readers with similar taste/book reviews as you. Maybe that’s asking for a lot but it’s food for thought. However, I shall give you my second review at a later date when I’ve figured out all the kinks of the app. Love y’all! xx
- KSKS

So I was reading a novel called “I Obtained a Mythic Item” under Reaper Scans and the most recent chapter was released a while ago. RS said that they would be dropping novels because YONDER is doing them but it’s been a while and I still can’t find IOMI in YONDER, so I was wondering if YONDER was continuing to pick up novel series from the WEBTOONs or if they’re just dropping translations of them entirely. This is also the case with some other novels. The app seems good and has a large selection of novels of all types to read but there are still a lot of things I was anticipating of this app that were not delivered upon (as of writing this). It would be a personal 5 star if all of the novels that got axed on other TLs would actually be on here, but they’re simply not.

When I first saw it I was hesitant to get it because of how it is advertised, but I love it. I wish they did better with the covers though, some of the books are written webtoons and have a weird cover when there’s already drawings of the series that could be the cover instead, or a simplistic cover would be better. Anyways, I got ahead of several series I enjoy on webtoon because there’s a written version of it on yonder, and I feel like the written version has more depth. I didn’t spend any money but I’m ahead on like 4 webtoon series, I just used a daily pass everyday from the point I was on. Plus they give like 500 coins to spend for free once in a while if you subscribe to another book series. Highly recommend! However yonder makers if you’re reading this please let us be able to see our past comments as a list like webtoon! Thanks

If anyone knows the nightmare of a scam that webtoon is, this is another extension piggybacking off of the Wattpad platform. All of these reviews are fake and sound like a commercial trying to pitch a product. Guess I now know why Wattpad has gone to absolute over the years if webtoon is involved. Quizilla 2.0 happening right before our eyes - an imminent crash and burn is about to happen to this whole platform if they keep getting greedy and going the way they’re going. How companies think changing a good thing so much is wise is beyond me. I know plenty of platforms that are beloved because they stay true to their beginnings and don’t jerk their customers around every two months. Considering Wattpad’s lovely new ad bar addition that blinds everyone every time they try to read a book, I’d bet this is all tied together to being in more revenue.

I really enjoy reading some of my favorite webtoons on here, but the chapters are not very long and only one chapter a day for free for every single book is pretty annoying; it’s like they took the immediate daily pass feature from webtoon that is webtoon’s absolute worst feature and applied it to everything so they can make more money. I have spent money on coins and I realized the numbers are just unreasonable; if you bought all the chapters you would be spending over $40-50 to read one novel, which is pretty insanely expensive for a light read; much cheaper to just buy whole novels on other platforms. I will probably have to delete it after finishing my current reads (trying to pace myself with only the free chapters) unless some big changes are made in pricing because I just can’t afford it and it’s frustrating to only get a tiny chunk of the story at once.

So I found the app on a Facebook ad and begin reading the book The True Luna. About a week into downloading the app I began to notice that I was getting a notification that I had a free pass to continue reading the next chapter BUT I couldn’t ever get the free pass. So fast forward a week later I opened the app again and went to read a chapter and bam I was logged out of my app (I never logged myself out) . So I decided maybe I should just delete the app and then redownload it so I did. When I redownloaded it I couldn’t find the book I had began to read.
Be careful when you download it because thinking about it once I downloaded this app my phone started acting weird I’m not saying it’s the app itself but just a thought.
You’re gonna have to pay to read some chapters because apparently the free passes are only available for certain books. If I can’t find the book again I’m going to delete this app for good.

TLDR: a predatory pricing scheme to make pyramid schemes blush, do not use.

I decided to try this app because a web novel I am a fan of was brought into the platform. After a lot of complaints in the fandom I figured I should try it. I’ll note I also am a Webtoon user and this is the same parent company.

Bluntly: this is more predatory than Webtoon and that’s saying something. All in app purchases are in multiples of 100, but chapter unlocks are 29 coins. This means that unless you spend ungodly amounts of money, you’re always going to have leftover coins. Immediately you’ve induced sunk cost fallacy on any user, encouraging them to buy more. A friend ran the calculations and some series are overall more expensive than it would be to get a single paperback copy. Or even hardback.

This app is not worth the amount of time it takes to download it. I would love to say “use this and support the author of the series I love” but as is I cannot say that in good faith.

I’m currently enjoying a few K-novels on yonder that have webtoons out right now. The stories are excellent so far so I can’t complain much about story quality. However with that being said the cost of chapters is ridiculous. It takes 29 coins to read one chapter. Most series range from 200+ chapters. The promotion periods usually only award only 500 coins which is only about 14 chapters of a book. If you’re paying for coins (which I have done) they run out quickly and you still haven’t finished the book. For example it’s $10 for 1000 coins. Which sounds great if the chapters were to only costs 10 coins, but since it costs 29 coins (weird number choice btw) you can only read 34 chapters out of an approx. 200 chapter book. So lets so I get the first 5 chapters free, if I pay $10 for 34 chapters it would cost around $50 for a 200 chapter book. And all of this is just assuming that its a 200 chapter book. Most K-novels easily go over that since in actual publishing its multiple books of a series (like Harry Potter). While 200 chapters seems like a lot, they are typically short reads. A person who has trouble reading could probably finish a chapter in under 5 minutes. Paying 29 coins for a quick read is absurd and charging that much to purchase coins that barely pay for chapters is a scam. Either fix the cost of chapters and coins, or provide wayyyyyyy more promotional coins.

I had high hopes for the app, knowing that some of the stories that were only PTR (pay to read) on Wattpad I might finally have a chance to read them. It was nice that the app was mostly creator reviewed in the selection of books/stories, but I do have some issues.

• Not all chapters and books are marked as FREE, the swirl for daily pass, or that they need coins. Before I really get into a book, I’d like to know before hand (maybe around the summary?) if I’m going to need coins before hand.

• The genres could be a bit more separated.
It’s cool to have Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and all of that, but even with your search feature I can’t find the specific tags I want. What if I don’t want a story labelled Sci-Fi and Fantasy? What if it’s like, Fantasy Erotica or something (just a random thing). I wish there was a way to sort by the available tags/genres, rather than having them bunched together.

• More personalization?
I know this isn’t like Wattpad. This isn’t something they made completely by themselves, so it won’t have all of the same aspects that have me keeping their app, but.. maybe allow at least the profile pictures to change?

• Comments.
I liked how in Wattpad, you were able to select the text you wanted and then make a comment on it, and have the number comments in that paragraph shown on the side of the screen. I want to leave comments, but it’s hard to when I don’t know how to make a comment on a specific part.

That’s about it, I know there’s people that have fully thought out and elaborate reviews, but this was mostly me just projecting what I hope can be added or implemented in some way in the future.

Well, I haven’t used this that much, I think it’d be so much better if there was more incentive to go on the app, but one chapter a day is unfortunate. It makes it easy to forget. Especially if you’re only reading a particular set of novels. Make a reward system, have a ‘free to play’ reader base, let then watch ads, earn rewards by reading other novels. Engage them to read more and spend more time on the app, this way you can have your users explore the app more, find new novels, and overall get people to read more of your novels. The interface is also not that great. There is not much options for anything, no variety, it devoid of any uniqueness. Add more options, font changes, also please make it easier to tap out of the chapter, I keep going to leave a chapter but move to the next page instead. Make it scrollable, instead of taping for pages. Build a community with this app, profile pics, bios with read lists and recommendations. I know its about the money, but please make this a top tier app. The prices are too much, a dollar for three chapters is quite a lot. I would actually prefer if you had a subscription program, different tiers, a $5 that allowed 10 extra chapters, a $10 that allowed 20 extra chapters, and a $50 one that allowed every chapter to be free. I think its a good idea, but I’m not an expert so I could’t calculate if it’d bring in more revenue.

Overall, this app has its ups and downs, I kept it because I was hoping it would get better, but I understand that its a slow process. However, this all has potential, just tap into it, small improvements can make a difference. May your app achieve greatness

I was going to try it but not please right now. This app it just like Dreame, Webnovel and etc. Where it cost money if you want to pay to unlock chapters or slowly earn coins other ways. It doesn’t really offer you much compare to other apps. Just another app where it will take time to read stories or pay to read.

Not please with the login option. You can’t change your username. Only have 3 options to sign in. Either through FB, google or Apple. If either of these have your real name it shows up. At least through Dreame & Webnovel they give you an option to sign in through an email. Choose your username. Maybe in the future if they change the login to include an email option and allow us to choose our username.

I’ve contact support and basically said as following.

To log in using Facebook, Google, or your Apple ID, make sure:
• To enable the permissions that allow you to access YONDER using these services.
• That you've entered the correct username and password for your Facebook/Google account or Apple ID.

This email didn’t address the issue I had ask. Just restated what was the login looks like. You can’t even respond to the email from support. You have to resubmit a new contact form. So make sure you fill as much as you can so you don’t have to resubmit more than 1 “contact us form.”

Also, a better search engine to search specific tags. Not just limited to the ones you think are useful. You can’t really find what you look for because the tag isn’t available.

I might my change my review in the future if the app improves but as of right now. It’s nothing different than what’s already out there.

*Also check Amazon/online to see if the author have their books up for sale. It just might be cheaper to purchase the elsewhere if you enjoy the story. Especially if it’s going to take forever to unlock the book.

This app offers good stories and several ways of reading for free.
It offers one chapter per day for free, AKA daily pass, on most( but not all) stories. However the chapter length varies greatly from novel to novel and even the stories that offer daily pass do not off the daily pass on the last 5-7 chapters so if you want to finish you story you have to pay for the last few chapters with coins. I normally use promo codes the give out to read these chapters.
I have even found a few novels almost completely free. One novel only the last chapter, labeled bonus chapter or bonus story, was not free and the second was the same except the bonus story was 7 chapters long. The entire book was free except the last 7 chapters.
Coins can be bought (do not expire)or received from promotional events(do expire).
They give out promo coins, which is super nice, fairly regularly. Unfortunately they give out numbers like 100 or 500 when most chapter cost 27 or 29 coins meaning a good chunk of those coins will expire before you can use them because the chapter cost do not go evenly into the number of promo coins given.
Unfortunately buying coins is extremely expensive, considering most novels on the app can easily cost up to $50 by the time you buy all chapters, where as a paperback novel or digital book on Amazon normally cost approximately $20. An example is popular book The Remarried Empress. To by all current chapters the total cost would be between $70-$80 at this time(this includes buy chapters in groups of 50 versus 1 at a time, which does save some money). They do not currently have an option to buy the entire novel at once, even for completed novel.
App also offers extra free chapters on Wednesday and Friday however the app chooses which novels are part of the promo so it is really a way to get you engrossed in a new story vs. a way to help you read more of your current stories. However sometimes you get lucky and the books you are read pop up on the lists
Wednesdays they offer passes (normally 20) that you can use to unlock any chapter for free, with in the chosen novel.
Fridays they unlock a certain number of chapters to be read for free starting from the beginning. I have seen this number as high at 138 as it seem to be based on the number the novel contains (They still always leave a a decent chunk of the end of the novel beyond of the unlocked chapters). This is awesome, however if a novel you are reading has 50 chapters unlocked and you have already reached chapter 51 you get nothing new unlocked but you could reread the first 50 chapter as a binge read.

Yonder is an app that gives readers a wide selection of webnovels with some works being officially licensed and translated versions of Korean Naver novels with many receiving Manhwa/Webtoon adaptations. I love the app and use it every day, mostly reading Korean action/fantasy novels. With anything you love however, you must be mindful of its shortcomings and hope they can be improved.

The Good: Quality and Quantity
Chapters have very good translations and proofreading. For the Korean novels there are some translation errors but they are so far and few between that the content of the chapter can be understood. Chapter length averages 9-12 pages per chapter but some series like “The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide” has around 20 pages per chapter with up to 56 for the climax of a story arc. Update frequency for translated novels is one new chapter 5 days per week regardless of the novel has 50k or 500k views. Another key point is that with so many of the novels having Webtoon adaptations, the translators are very adamant on the names and level of localization used (name spelling and use of Korean honorifics) between comic and novel are consistent. Lastly the user interface is very good. Page layout can be changed between a swipe and scroll style, font size can be changed, and color themes can be customized including a white and black theme akin to light mode and physical books and a black and white theme akin to dark mode and much easier on the eyes when reading before bed or simply in dark environments.

The Bad: Coins
Yonder works a lot like its sister app Webtoon where chapters are unlocked in a slow trickle with daily passes (or sometimes free passes during special events) or with coins. Coins are supplied for free around once every 2-3 weeks and allow for 17 chapters to be purchased of any series. Now it doesn’t sound too bad at first but unlike most Webtoon series, all webnovels are only free for the first 5 chapters (not including prologues or chapter 0s) with subsequent chapters being unlocked via daily pass or coins. Now some complain about daily pass since they can’t unlock chapters every day but I am pretty diligent with getting the full use of daily pass. My main issue is that a series is only daily pass until it is completed or until a specified date, then chapters can only be unlocked with coins. Another problem is that coin promotions are not enough and too far in between to supplement one, let alone several, series without daily pass unlocks. This is obviously to direct readers to buying coins given how Yonder has dedicated itself to have no ads in its app but it is very difficult to be able to read for free with all of these constraints.

The Weird: (the lack of) Bundle Saving
One odd quirk is that the purchase sizes of coins ranges from $0.99 to $38.99 but where normally the most expensive option would net you the best deal (4000 coins for $38.99 or ~103 coins per dollar), it is actually one of the medium price options (1300 coins for $11.99 or ~108 coins per dollar). For reference, the cheapest option with no bonus coins 100 for $0.99 is worth ~100 coins per dollar Again, nothing bad but just strange and something that is readers should be aware of.

Suggestions
I’ve read some other reviews and agree that with many novels having additional cover art as well as dedicated portraits to help readers visualize characters available would be a great change. Maybe like a gallery tab for the novel with spoiler blockers for some of the images to warn you that the picture only makes sense at chapter XX. Another thing is to help readers read paid chapters by giving them a way to unlock coins for free through voluntarily watching an ad or checking out a novel.

Concluding Thoughts
I believe that Yonder has given myself and many others a great source to read many novels, especially Korean novels which, along with other Korean media, has been gaining immense traction in recent years. I think that the great experience can become amazing as the Yonder team listens to community feedback and improves the user experience. Thank you for taking the time to read my long winded review and suggestions.

Not paying to read ….

webtoon promo code does not work

Won’t let me download books. Get to 90% and then gives an error message.

I would rather literally not read then swipe.
LIKE WHY CANT I JUST SCROLL?

Needs more lgbtq+ like trans ones and lesbians and not all just romances I mean come on

I get a notification that I have a daily pass but when I select my chapter it directs me to the coin shop. Please help!

On the yonder app when you try to find a way to create an account there is no way to create an account you can only log in

Seemed like an awesome was loving the books but I wish there was a monthly subscription option instead of constantly purchasing coins

I can’t buy coins. I’ll re-review once that is fixed but I only use Yonder for a few books I already liked and it’s kind of reflecting bad on the authors how it’s going so far.

There needs to be a “completed” tab for me to look up stories that are done. I want to spend my money on a book, not chapters for a book that I might never read the ending for. I don’t want to wait two years for all of my books.

They use a system of complexity and limited ways to get things for free to trick people into paying far more than a physical book would cost.
Chapters are spliced up and released slowly so you don't even know how many are in the whole book.

I was reading return of the blossoming blade/return of the Mount hua sect/volcanic return. It’s so good bit I can only find it on the NAVER series app in Korean. Would love an English translation so I don’t have to work so hard to continue reading it

It’s a scam. They nickel and dime you for everything and it’s not worth it. Don’t support an app like this and support authors by buying their books. Forcing reader to buy chapter by chapter is insulting and a waste. It unmotivating and takes the fun out of reading.

i love the app but they way we have to purchase a book is literally outrageous i get you have other way but like cant you do ads to get free coins cause im definitely not that desperate and dumb to spends some money on some coins but i love everything about the app gives me good vibes .

ITS SO BAD I WOULD GIVE IT A 0 BUT THAYS NOT POSSIBLE SO I GIVE IT A 1, IT WONT LET ME READ ANYTHING AT ALL AND THERES NO OPTION TO BE ABLE TO ASK FOR ASSISTANCE OR HELP, I MEAN LIKE WHATS THE BIG IDEA? THEYRE HEAVILY RACIST AND DISCRIMINATING AGAINST ME BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF MY SKIN…

It locks stories behind paywalls, feeding users arbitrary “chapters” that are artificially kept short and cut off half way though scenes. A Yonder “chapter” is not the same as the actual book’s chapters.

And at the end of the day, after all these micro transactions? You don’t own the story. And if the author and yonder ever decide to end their deal, you’re left with nothing.

Had 29 coins. Got 50 for free for reading a chapter. At 79 now. Used 30 for a chapter. Should be at 49 but when I checked, says 20 coins available. Not the first time that had happened either. Happens just about every time they give out free coins. Use a few and they magically make extra disappear. They did better with webtoons. Only a few decent reads here, few more really good ones. For the most part, seems the stories are basic werewolf/vampire stuff. Very meh. Not as much variety as webtoons. Stick to there.