Frequently asked questions

Click Sign up on the home page, enter an email address and a
password (at least 12 characters), and verify the email we send.
Verification usually arrives within a minute; check your spam
folder if it doesn't.

Yes. Reading on OutaStory is always free. The free experience is
ad-supported, with banners and short interstitials between
chapters. Premium removes ads and adds audio downloads + notes.

Premium is billed monthly. The exact price depends on your country
(we charge in your local currency where supported). The current
price for your region appears on the subscribe page
— there's no annual / monthly toggle and no auto-tier-up.

Go to Account → Subscription → Cancel. You keep Premium
benefits until the end of the current billing period — we never
charge for an unused month. Re-subscribing later picks up where
you left off.

For technical issues (we charged you while the service was down)
we'll refund proactively. For change-of-mind cancellations, we
don't refund the partial month — but cancelling stops all future
charges. Open a support ticket if you think your
situation is special.

On the web: credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, AmEx),
SEPA direct debit (EU), Apple Pay, Google Pay. On iOS / iPadOS,
we use Apple in-app purchase. On Android, Google Play Billing.

Account → Privacy → Close account. Your profile, library, and
reading history are removed. Stories you published stay live by
default; if you want them taken down too, tick "Also remove my
stories" before confirming. We retain only the records required
for tax and accounting (10-year retention under § 257 HGB) and
then delete those.

Yes — Sign in with Google and Sign in with Apple are both
supported. They create a normal OutaStory account; we don't share
anything with Google or Apple beyond what they show you on the
consent screen.

Open My library from the sidebar. Stories appear under
Reading (in progress), Read (completed), or Favourites
(you tapped the heart). Use the search bar at the top of the
library to filter.

Stories rated 16+ or 18+ are only visible to signed-in adults.
Anonymous visitors see the family-friendly catalogue (5+ to 12+).
Sign in to unlock the full library.

Premium subscribers can download a story for offline reading. Tap
Download on the story page. The story (text + audio) is
cached on the device. The free tier requires an internet
connection.

Progress syncs across devices when you're signed in to the same
account on each. Anonymous reading progress is per-device and
doesn't sync. If you signed in after starting anonymously, your
anonymous progress merges into the signed-in account on first
sign-in.

The home page mixes a curated section (the editor's flagship
picks, same for everyone) with personalised rows based on your
reading history (categories you read often, authors you follow,
similar stories to ones you liked). New readers see a
curated-only home page until you have enough history to
personalise meaningfully.

Most stories are written in one language and aren't auto-translated.
A handful of flagship stories are available in both English and
German — you'll see a language toggle in the header when one
exists. Otherwise, the language pick happens at the catalogue
filter level.

Click the ⋮ menu on the story (or chapter, or comment) and
pick Report. Choose a reason and add context. Our moderators
review reports within one business day. Severe issues
(CSAM, doxxing, threats) can also be reported via
abuse@outastory.com.

We use neural text-to-speech voices — high quality, but not human.
Most listeners find them natural; long sessions are comfortable.
Premium subscribers get the highest-quality voice tier; free
readers get a clean but slightly less expressive variant.

Anyone with a complete profile (display name, bio, avatar). No
application or approval is required for the first story; later
stories go through an automated content review for age-rating
consistency.

We currently support English and German for catalogue indexing,
audio narration, and AI-assisted descriptions. You can publish
in another language but readers won't find you through the
language filter and the audio narration won't generate.

Stories must be substantially authored by you. You may use AI
tools for ideation, editing, or research, but a fully AI-generated
story (where you only typed the prompt) is not allowed and will
be removed if reported.

Yes. Every published story participates in the 55/45 revenue
share automatically. No
application required; you start accruing the moment you publish.
Payouts begin once you cross the €25 threshold and complete
Stripe Connect Express onboarding.

Yes. Toggle Ads enabled off in the story-edit screen. No ads
will be served on that story; you give up the ad revenue but
keep all Premium revenue (reading minutes still count). Toggle
back on at any time.

Edits to a chapter don't break in-progress reading. Readers
already past the edit point see the original; readers reaching
that page after the edit see the new version. The chapter shows
a small "(updated)" tag for 7 days. The audio is regenerated
automatically.

My library → Authoring → ⋮ → Unpublish removes the story
from the public catalogue. Delete permanently is a separate
step that wipes the story (text + audio + comments). Revenue
already accrued before unpublishing pays out as normal.

Co-authoring is not directly supported — every story has one
author of record. For collaborations, you can credit
contributors in the author note at the top of the chapter; revenue
attribution flows to the named author and is split off-platform.

Authors set a minimum age band (5+, 9+, 12+, 16+, 18+) when
publishing. Bands are verified during moderation. Anonymous
visitors see only 12+ and below. Signed-in users in child mode
see only the band their parent set. See the
parental controls overview.

Yes, when used with parental controls. Switch the child's account
to child mode under Account → Family and pick the right
age band. The child can't disable child mode without your
password.

Comments are disabled in child mode. Children can read and
favourite stories but cannot post comments or messages. Adult
accounts (16+) can comment subject to community guidelines.

In-app: ⋮ menu → Report on a story, chapter, comment, or
author profile. By email: abuse@outastory.com for severe
issues (CSAM, doxxing, threats). Both routes go to the same
moderation team; the email path is for cases where you can't
sign in or the in-app report doesn't fit.

OutaStory aims for WCAG 2.2 AA. We support screen readers, full
keyboard navigation, three contrast modes (incl. AAA-contrast
dark), a dyslexia-tested sans-serif font, and we honour
prefers-reduced-motion. See the
accessibility article.

Reading minutes are used for two things: powering personalised
home-page recommendations, and the Premium revenue share
(paying authors for the time you spent on their work). We don't
sell reading data and don't share it with third parties beyond
the ad networks that already see what page rendered an ad.

Yes. Open their profile and choose Block. You won't see
their stories in the catalogue, their comments anywhere, and
they can't comment on yours. Blocking is bidirectional and
silent — they aren't notified.

Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari — all current versions. We don't
test on Internet Explorer or older mobile browsers; you may see
visual glitches or missing features there.

Yes — native apps on iOS, iPadOS, Android, macOS, and Windows.
The web version works on every modern browser too. All of them
sync to the same account.

Restart the app first. If it crashes again, open a support ticket
with topic "Technical" and include your platform + OS version
and what you were doing when it crashed. We see crash reports
in our error tracker but a ticket gives us the missing context.

Stuttering usually means an unstable internet connection.
Premium subscribers can avoid this by tapping Download on
the story page (caches text + audio offline). On a slow
connection without Premium, the audio buffers; pause it for a
few seconds and tap play again.

Most likely you signed in to a different account. Sign out, then
sign in with the email you used the first time. If you only ever
had one account and the library is genuinely empty, open a
ticket — we can help recover the missing rows.

Sessions expire after 30 days of inactivity. Sign in again. If
it happens after every page load, your browser is rejecting
cookies (check ad-blockers and "third-party cookie" settings).

Sign out (under your avatar in the top right) — that clears the
session token. Browser cache + offline downloads can be removed
via the browser's site-data settings, or in the native apps via
Account → Privacy → Clear local data.