Comparing Digital Reading Diaries: Pageticker vs BoomReader vs Learning with Parents

In today’s digital-first education landscape, schools and parents are increasingly turning to digital reading diaries to track student progress, boost engagement, and streamline communication. With several options on the market, it’s essential to choose the one that best meets your school’s needs. In this blog, we’ll compare three popular platforms: 

• Pageticker

• BoomReader

• Learning with Parents Digital Reading Log 

  
  

Let’s explore how they stack up in key areas such as user experience, features, and value for money.

User Experience (UX) Comparison: Pageticker vs BoomReader vs Learning with Parents

Pageticker: Intuitive and easy to use

Pageticker excels in its user experience with a clean, intuitive interface that puts key information immediately at hand for teachers and parents. 

For teachers: Key features are accessible within a single-page view, allowing teachers to log reading progress, view insights, and communicate without unnecessary clicks. Single-click ‘nudges’ and ‘likes’ are handy time-saving ways of boosting engagement. Its carefully-thought out, intuitive design makes it easy to master the platform’s core functionalities and a breeze to onboard staff.

For parents: The Pageticker mobile app receives push notifications to remind parents to log reading when new books have been added, or if they haven't read for a while. Logging reading is quick for parents - again, a carefully thought-through interface helps here. An attractive feature is the use of book covers in the app - unique to Pageticker in this comparison - which helps with the visual appeal to parents and children. Additionally, the 'Discover' section of the app helps bring books to life with book recommendations based on children's reading level, interests and reading history, and the 'Bookshelf' section provides a motivational record of every book a child has ever read. These features make it an app that families want to use - it's rated 4.6 stars on the App Store (correct as of September 2025).

BoomReader: Visually engaging - but key information harder to find

Despite not showing book covers, BoomReader offers a visually engaging design. However, key information - such as an overview of who didn't read yesterday - is several clicks further away than necessary, and key actions such as logging books or accessing reports can require navigating multiple screens. 

For Teachers: The teacher dashboard presents data in a ‘tile’ format. This works well on an individual basis, but makes it difficult to get a whole class overview to see who hasn't read in the last few days, for example. There is also a list view option, and this has a filter for who didn't read yesterday, and other options intended to reduce teacher workload - we'd recommend teachers use this view.

For Parents: The app gets mixed reviews from parents - it's rated 2.8 stars on the App Store (September 2025) - who value the ability to set reminders but numerously describe the interface as 'clunky', particularly when it comes to switching between multiple children. Functionality is largely limited to logging reading and a gem-based reward system.

Learning with Parents digital reading log: Simple but basic

While Learning with Parents focuses on simplicity, its interface lacks the polish and modern design of its competitors. Some users have found the experience too basic - ultimately, parents can only log reading by logging into the website every time, and the number of steps required to do this for each child means that parental uptake is low.

For Teachers: Focused on simplicity, the interface lacks polish, and the log-in process can be cumbersome for parents.

For Parents: Parents are required to log reading via the website each time, resulting in low uptake due to the number of steps involved.

Winner: Pageticker

Pageticker offers the best user experience with its simple, intuitive interface, ease of setup, and seamless integration for teachers and parents.

Key Features: Pageticker, BoomReader, and Learning with Parents

All three platforms offer similar features in terms of logging and tracking reading, but different platforms excel in different areas. For ease of comparison, we’ve only listed each product's unique features here.

Pageticker features

• Push notifications: Teachers can send push notifications direct to the parent app.

• Smart book suggestions: Pageticker leverages previous reading data to suggest new books tailored to student preferences and ability

• Comprehensive data: Logging beyond just pages - with Pageticker parents collect data on fluency metrics, such as accuracy, rate, comprehension and expression.

• Integration with book titles: Showing book covers and exciting synopses of books brings them to life, especially in the 'Discover' and 'Bookshelf' sections of the app.

BoomReader features

• Reminder Alerts: Ability to set reminders directly within the app.

• Data Dashboard: Available at an additional cost, the dashboard allows for comparison between different groups of readers, for example, pages logged by pupil-premium vs non-pupil-premium.

Learning with Parents Digital Reading Log features

• Photo and Audio Uploads: Ability for parents to share photos and audio clips of their child reading.

  
  

Winner: Dependent on needs

It’s hard to state a winner outright here, as it depends on the features each individual school feels it requires.

Ease of implementation: Setup and onboarding

All three products offer the ability to connect to a school’s MIS, but only Boomreader and Learning with Parents offer the ability to upload classes by .csv file too. Pageticker’s explanation for not allowing this is in order to protect the integrity of its data in the long term.

Pageticker

• Automated Setup: Implementation is largely automated - there is an instant free trial, and schools upgrade directly on the platform through online card payment or by raising a PO once they are satisfied. MIS connection is done through Wonde, and once this is established, it’s largely plain sailing thanks to its intuitive interface and in-product tours.

• Demos: Online demos are available if requested, and in the event of support being required, teachers are referred first to the help section of the website, and from there to the support team.

BoomReader

• Demos: BoomReader offer webinars to walk teachers through the dashboard. To trial the platform, book a call with one of the sales team, and further CPD can be booked if necessary. Schools can now trial BoomReader free for 1 month by following the steps on the website. A nice feature is that schools can download reading certificates from the BoomReader website.

Learning with Parents Digital Reading Log

• Simple Set-up: When getting set up with Learning with Parents, the steps to getting it working aren’t always clear. However, once set up, its simple feature set means adoption by staff is easy. When a school wants to trial the platform, they can book a demo with one of the sales team, and when rolling out to staff, another demo can be booked for onboarding.

Cost Comparison: Which platform offers better value?

Pageticker pricing

An annual, whole-school subscription to Pageticker costs:

• £99 for up to 75 pupils

• £199 for 76-225 pupils

• £299 for 226+ pupils per year.

BoomReader Pricing

BoomReader costs from as little as £1.55 per pupil per year for a whole school, plus an additional £1 per pupil per year for the data dashboard.

Learning with Parents Digital Reading Log Pricing

Learning with Parents can be purchased on a per-class basis, at a cost of £45 per class per year.

Winner: Value for Money

All three platforms are realistically priced with school budgets in mind. For a single class, Learning with Parents may work out more economical, but otherwise, Pageticker’s pricing is both simplest and most affordable.

Conclusion: Why Pageticker Stands Out for Schools

When it comes to digital reading diaries, Pageticker emerges as the top choice for most schools. Its intuitive design is key in making onboarding and adoption quick and easy and rendering lengthy staff training unnecessary. Additionally, its advanced features (particularly when it comes to its book suggestion engine), and strong focus on parental engagement make it a standout solution.

Pageticker combines ease of use with powerful tools that genuinely save teachers time whilst enhancing reading engagement across the school.

If you’re looking to simplify reading tracking, boost parental involvement, and empower teachers with actionable insights, Pageticker is the clear winner.