Kobo is launching its Kobo Plus subscription plan in the U.S. today. The plan starts at $7.99 per month and gives users access to 1.3 million books (but not all titles) from Kobo’s library.
This new subscription will be a rival to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited plan, which costs $9.99 per month. Amazon also offers a Prime Reading plan through its Prime subscription (which costs $119 per year) with a reduced catalog.
The Kobo Plus plan has three tiers. At $7.99 per month, you can either read unlimited books through Kobo Plus Read or listen to over 100,000 audiobooks through Kobo Plus Listen.
If you want access to both books and audiobooks, you will need to shell out $9.99 per month. This gives you access to titles across Kobo devices and the Kobo app.
Notably, the company offers offline consumption of books through its iOS, Android, and Desktop apps.
Kobo Plus was already available in countries like the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, France, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand with the U.S. as the latest entry to that list.
Along with the new subscription plan, the Rauketen-owned company also launched the Kobo Elipsa 2E e-reader with a 10.3-inch glare-free e-Ink touchscreen and a $399.99 price tag. The device has “weeks” long battery life, 32GB internal storage, and support for audiobooks through Bluetooth-powered earphones.