A mobile app for writers
The critique app for unpublished writing.
Share pages with your critique group, beta readers, or a friend. They read and mark up on their phones. You get every reader’s notes in one place. No one sees anyone else’s notes, and readers can’t copy your pages.
Sharper feedback, less friction.
Why not just share a Google Doc?
Most groups start there, and it works until more than a few people are reading. Three things go wrong, and CritPages is built around each one.
Comment boxes replace listening.
In a live session everyone reads the margin instead of hearing the pages.
Readers mark on their own phones while the pages are read aloud. No one’s screen fills with anyone else’s notes.
The first opinion sets the tone.
Every reviewer sees every other reviewer’s notes. Psychologists call it anchoring bias. In a critique group it shows up as feedback that herds.
Each reviewer marks a clean copy and sees only their own notes until the author collects them.
The page arrives cluttered.
Spellcheck squiggles, suggestion bubbles, and editing chrome sit between the reader and the sentences.
A drawn manuscript page with nothing on it but the words and the marks, and no way to copy the text off it.
How it works
Three steps, and the reading happens on the phones your readers already carry.
Share pages
Create a workspace and invite readers by email. Post a few pages, or import a .docx manuscript and it arrives as chapters.
Readers mark on their phones
A mark is a tag, a strike, a heart, or a comment a reader attaches to a word, a sentence, or a paragraph. Two taps each. Every reader works on a clean copy.
You read all the feedback
Every reader’s marks, in one place, one reader at a time or all at once. Nothing leaves the app.
The page reads like a manuscript.
Double-spaced, in a clean serif, with no spellcheck underlines and no selection handles. Text size follows your phone’s accessibility setting until you choose your own. Marks sit in the gutter and under the words they belong to, so the rhythm of the read survives.
Who it’s for
Choose one when you create the workspace. The page, the privacy rules, and the two-tap marking are the same in all three.
You swap pages with a partner or work with an editor
Swap critique with a partner, or get feedback from a single reader. Two people, whenever suits you both.
Free, always.
You’re in a critique group
A critique circle, workshop, or class of three or more. The Lead, the person who runs the group, invites members and starts the live sessions.
Free for members. The Lead’s seat is paid, and free during the beta.
You have a manuscript for beta readers
Send a manuscript to readers who react as they read. Readers never see each other, or each other’s notes.
Priced per round, and free during the beta.
What you get
Mark in two taps
Tap the line, then the tag. There is no save button, and you never lose your place in the read.
Read aloud, together
The group reads aloud while everyone follows and marks the page on their own device.
Only your marks
Each reviewer works on a clean copy and sees only their own notes, so no one’s opinion anchors anyone else’s.
All in one place
The author collects every reviewer’s feedback and reads it one reviewer at a time, or all at once.
Pick up where you left off
Your place on the page is saved. Long pieces arrive as chapters, with next and previous at the foot of each.
Your intellectual property, protected
The page is drawn, not selectable text, so readers can’t copy it. Only the people you invite can open your pages, and you can remove a reader or end a round at any time.
Groups get workshop marks and beta rounds get reactions. Both vocabularies are on the features page.
Who’s building this
CritPages is built by one person: an avid writer and poet, and a software and data engineer by trade. It started at a writers’ guild table covered in photocopies, and it is built to make the core of critique free for the writer community.
How your pages are protected
The page is drawn, not selectable text.
Readers can’t select or copy the words. There are no selection handles and no clipboard.
Invite-only.
Only the people you invite by email can open your pages, and an invite binds to the address you sent it to.
You stay in charge of the roster.
Remove a reader or end a round at any time. Their access ends with it.
Questions people ask
Why phones and tablets, and not a website?
Writing happens at a desk. Critique is a social act, and it happens wherever your readers are: on the train, in bed, or in the group’s living room. A native app on the phone your friends already carry makes it easy for them to actually do the reading, and the page is built for that screen. The web is for what sits around the reading: invites, your account, finding beta readers, group table reads, and group session scheduling.
What does it cost?
One-on-one critique is free, always. A group is free for its members, and the Lead’s seat is paid. Beta rounds are priced per round. Everything that is paid is free during the beta. We do not publish prices yet.
How is my intellectual property protected?
Readers can’t copy text off the page, because the page is drawn rather than selectable text. Only the people you invite can open your pages, and you can remove a reader or end a round at any time. The honest caveat: no app stops a determined person with a second camera. The goal is that casual copying cannot happen.
Do I need a whole group?
No. A one-on-one works with a single partner or reader, and a beta round works with one reader while you try it. Read together, the live mode, is built for a group.
Get early access
We are onboarding a handful of groups, beta rounds, and one-on-one pairs first. Tell us how you would use CritPages. On launch day we will email you so you can download the app and start inviting your friends. Whole groups go to the front of the line.