- Micro-drama
- A serialized show shot for a phone screen, with very short episodes (roughly 1–2 minutes) and dozens to over a hundred of them per series. Also called a vertical drama or short drama.
- Vertical drama
- Another name for a micro-drama, referring to its 9:16 (upright-phone) orientation. Used interchangeably with 'short drama'.
- Episode
- A single instalment, typically one to two minutes long, usually ending on a hook so the next one auto-plays.
- Coins
- The prepaid in-app currency you spend to unlock locked episodes. You buy coins in packages; bigger packages usually give more coins per dollar, so the effective price of a coin depends on the package.
- Coin package
- A bundle of coins sold through the app store for a set dollar price. Stores publish the dollar price but not how many coins the package contains — that count lives inside the app.
- Unlock
- Spending coins (or using a subscription) to make a locked episode playable. Each locked episode has a set unlock cost in coins.
- Episode paywall
- The point in a series where the free episodes stop and the rest require coins or a subscription. How many episodes come before it varies per show.
- Free episodes
- The opening episodes a show gives you at no cost before the paywall. We observe and record this count per show; it is the starting point for a cost-to-finish estimate.
- Free-with-ads
- An unlock model where episodes are watchable at no coin cost in exchange for watching ads, rather than paying to unlock. Not every app offers it.
- First-purchase bonus
- Extra coins many apps add to your first top-up, making that first purchase cheaper per coin than later ones. A one-time bonus, so it mainly affects the low end of an estimate.
- Subscription
- A recurring plan some apps sell that unlocks content instead of, or alongside, coins. Where a subscription could be cheaper than coins for a given show, we compare against it.
- Cost to finish
- Our modeled estimate — usually a range — of what it takes to watch a show from where the free episodes stop to the finale. Always a labeled estimate, never a quoted price. See how we estimate.
- Modeled estimate
- A cost figure computed from observable inputs (free-episode count, advertised per-episode price, published coin packages) rather than a price the platform states for the whole show. Every cost figure on this site is one.
- Coin rate
- The effective dollar price of a single coin, derived from a coin package's price and coin count. It varies by package size, which is one reason cost-to-finish is a range.
- Escalation
- The practice on several apps of charging more coins for later episodes in a series than for earlier ones. It pushes up the high end of a cost-to-finish range.
- Checked date
- The date we last observed a platform's pricing for a show. Within 45 days we mark it verified; past 90 days we pull the estimate rather than show it stale. See freshness.