Coins are the in-app currency you buy in packages and spend to unlock locked episodes — and the rate you pay per coin moves with the package size.
Most micro-drama apps don't sell episodes directly. Instead you buy coins (sometimes split into a 'coins' balance plus a separate top-up 'bonus' balance), and each locked episode costs a set number of coins to unlock. Some apps also sell a subscription that unlocks content instead of, or alongside, coins.
You buy coins in packages through the app store — a small package for a dollar or two, larger ones for more. The catch is that bigger packages usually give you more coins per dollar, so the effective price of a coin depends on which package you bought.
Because the per-coin rate changes with package size, the same locked episode can effectively cost you more or less depending on how you topped up. On top of that, several apps quietly charge more coins for later episodes in a series than for earlier ones.
The app stores publish what each coin package costs in dollars, but not how many coins it contains — that number lives inside the app. That gap is exactly why the cost figures on this site are modeled ranges rather than exact prices.
Many apps sweeten your first top-up with bonus coins, which makes the very first purchase cheaper per coin than later ones. We note that bonus where a platform offers it, but a one-time bonus can't be assumed across a whole series, so it mostly affects the low end of an estimate.
More terms in the glossary, or read how we estimate costs.