Not a blocker. A pause. When you open a social app, PageToll hands you a short passage on a topic you chose — then grants the break you asked for.
You opted in. PageToll just helps the calm version of you keep the promise the distracted version keeps breaking.
No red numbers, no failure modals, no streaks to break. If you relapse, PageToll quietly offers the break you asked for — and lets the reading do the work.
Twelve topics, picked by you at setup. Every passage is short, self-contained, and rendered in a reader-tuned serif with line-height that doesn't hurry you.
The pause is the product. Most users close the app after reading — no break needed. The rest take a timed break, on their terms.
Set it up once. The rest happens the moment you reach for Instagram, TikTok, X, or whatever else you chose to block.
Choose which social apps you want to pause before. Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit, YouTube — whatever pulls you in. On iOS we use Screen Time's secure picker, so even PageToll doesn't know their names.
Stoicism, History, Psychology, Science, Finance, Art, Nature — twelve curated topics. Multi-select whatever sparks curiosity. You can change them anytime.
PageToll intercepts. A short passage appears, drawn from your chosen topics. No timers, no tests — just read, at whatever pace you like.
When you reach the end, PageToll asks: still want the break? Most days you won't. When you do, pick a duration — one, three, five minutes — and the app opens. When time's up, it closes.
About 200 words. Takes a minute. Then a quiet question: do you still want the break?
Begin each day by telling yourself: today I shall meet with the meddling, the ungrateful, the arrogant, the deceitful, the envious, the unsocial.
All these things come to be because of their ignorance of what is good and bad. But I, who have seen the nature of the good — that it is beautiful — and of the bad — that it is ugly — cannot be injured by any of them.
For no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for cooperation.
Curated, not crowdsourced. Every passage is pulled from public-domain works, non-fiction classics, and editor-vetted summaries.
No free tier, no ads, no data sold. The app costs money to run, and we'd rather be honest about it than clever about it.
No. Traditional blockers either let you in or lock you out. PageToll does neither: it interrupts with a short, chosen reading, and then — if you still want to — grants a timed break. The pause, not the lockout, is the intervention.
There's no panic button. But you're an adult: the reading is the whole product, and so is your ability to uninstall the app. We trust the version of you that chose to install this.
PageToll caches passages on your device for exactly this case. You can still take a mindful break on the subway.
Yes. PageToll does not collect the content of your browsing, your messages, or anything beyond anonymous usage metrics you can opt out of. On iOS we use Screen Time's secure tokens, so we never even learn which apps you chose to block.
We don't sell ads and we don't sell data. A small monthly fee is how a calm, well-made product stays calm and well-made.
Android first, in the next few months. iOS shortly after. Join the waitlist above and we'll email you — once — the day it's live.
We're finishing the last polish now. Get notified the day PageToll is live on your phone.
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