ReadingRate · Comparisons · 2026
ReadingRate vs tracking with Kindle
This one is less "versus" than it looks: Kindle is a reading device with tracking attached, not a reading tracker. But "I just use my Kindle stats" is the most common answer to "how do you track your reading?", so it deserves an honest comparison.
We build ReadingRate. The fair summary: inside Kindle books, Kindle's tracking is effortless and automatic in a way no manual tracker can match. The moment you pick up a paperback, a library book, or an EPUB from anywhere else, it goes blind — and everything it did record stays inside Amazon.
Which also means this pairing is natural rather than exclusive: keep reading on your Kindle, and let a tracker hold the whole picture — Kindle books, paper books, everything — in one place you own.
Disclosure: we make ReadingRate. Where Kindle is better, this page says so.
At a glance
| Kindle | ReadingRate | |
|---|---|---|
| What gets tracked | Kindle ebooks only — automatically | Any format: paper, ebook, library copies, uploaded EPUBs |
| Paper books | Invisible to it | Page logging, plus a shelf scanner that adds books from a photo |
| Reading insights | Streaks, days read, titles finished (in-app) | Reading speed, pace trends, predicted finish dates per book |
| Book difficulty | Not measured | Every book scored on 9 dimensions, plus literary regard |
| Your own EPUBs | Readable via Send to Kindle | Upload and read in the built-in EPUB reader, with progress tracked |
| Where the data lives | Inside your Amazon account, with no simple full export (as of 2026) | Your account, exportable as CSV anytime |
| Recommendations | Amazon's purchase graph — bestsellers and "customers also bought", tuned to sell books | Your own reading history matched against each book's measured profile — tuned to fit you |
| Price | Included with a Kindle | Free to track your reading; membership is €10/month (or €100/year) with a free trial |
What Kindle tracking gets right
Automatic beats manual, every time it applies. Kindle knows the page you are on without being told, keeps streaks without ceremony, and syncs across devices. For someone who reads exclusively on Kindle, the built-in insights — streaks, days read, books finished — may honestly be enough, and no log-it-yourself tracker can compete on effort, because the effort is zero.
What it cannot see
Everything that is not a Kindle book. The paperback on your nightstand, the hardcover from the library, the EPUB a friend sent you — none of it exists in Kindle's stats, so for most readers the record is a partial one that undercounts precisely the books that took the most effort. And the record itself lives inside Amazon: there is no simple way (as of 2026) to export your full reading history and take it elsewhere.
Kindle also measures nothing about the books: no difficulty, no sense of whether the next book fits your pace, no prediction of when you will finish it.
Tracking all of it
ReadingRate is format-agnostic on purpose. Paper books get logged by page — a ten-second entry — or added wholesale by photographing your shelf. EPUBs you own can be uploaded and read in the built-in reader, which tracks progress as you go. Everything feeds one history: reading speed, pace trends, and a predicted finish date for each book, with every book carrying a nine-dimension difficulty profile.
And the data is yours: export your whole library and history as a CSV whenever you want. Many ReadingRate readers still read on a Kindle — they log the pages here so paper, ebook, and library books finally sit in one record.
Stick with Kindle's built-in stats if
- You read exclusively Kindle ebooks
- Streaks and a finished-books count are all you want
- Zero-effort tracking matters more than completeness
Choose ReadingRate if
- Your reading is split across paper, ebooks, and the library
- You want reading speed and predicted finish dates, not just streaks
- You want your reading history exportable and yours
- You have EPUBs of your own and want reading and tracking in one place
Put your whole reading life in one record
Paper, Kindle, library books, EPUBs — log pages in seconds or scan a shelf, and ReadingRate computes your pace and finish dates across all of it. Tracking is free.
Frequently asked
Does Kindle track my reading?
Yes, but only inside Kindle books. The Kindle app records streaks, days read, and books finished automatically. It does not see paper books, library copies, or ebooks from other sources, and there is no simple way (as of 2026) to export the full history out of Amazon.
Can I track paper books with Kindle?
No. Kindle's tracking only covers reading done in Kindle ebooks. To include paper books you need a dedicated tracker — in ReadingRate you log pages in a few seconds, or add whole shelves by photographing them, and paper and digital reading merge into one history.
How do I track Kindle and paper books together?
Use a format-agnostic tracker. In ReadingRate you log your position in any book — paper, Kindle, library copy — and the app computes reading speed and predicted finish dates across all of them. EPUBs you own can be read in ReadingRate's built-in reader, which tracks progress automatically.
Can I read my own EPUB files on ReadingRate?
Yes. Upload an EPUB you own and read it in the built-in web reader; your progress feeds the same analytics as everything else you track.