Where to Read Manhwa on WEBTOON: What's Actually Free and What Costs Coins

You opened a series on WEBTOON, read twenty episodes without paying anything, and then hit a padlock. So which is it — is WEBTOON free or not?

Both, and the line between them is more predictable than it looks. Completed series are almost always free from first episode to last. Ongoing series are free up to a point near the front of the queue, and the most recent episodes are held back. What you're deciding is not whether to pay to read a series, but whether to pay to read it early.

This guide covers what that costs, what changed in 2025 when WEBTOON retired Daily Pass, and the 284 titles we've checked on the platform — 184 of them free outright.

Availability checked 19 September 2026. Platforms change catalogues, and access varies by country, device and subscription — always confirm on the official page before you commit to a series.

What you can read, and where

What free actually means here

WEBTOON's free tier is real, not a trial. You don't need an account to read, there's no subscription, and the ad load while reading is light compared to most free comic apps.

Of the 284 WEBTOON titles we've checked, 184 are free with nothing gated at all. Those are mostly completed series, and for those the honest answer is that WEBTOON costs nothing — you can read the whole thing.

The other 101 are free and paid. That combination trips people up, so it's worth being precise about what it means: the back catalogue is free, and a rolling window of the newest episodes is locked. On a long-running series that window is a rounding error against hundreds of free episodes. On a series thirty episodes old, it's a third of the story.

Fast Pass, Ad Pass, Coins — and the one that no longer exists

There are three ways past a padlock, and a fourth that guides still tell you about even though it's gone.

Fast Pass is early access. Episodes marked with the icon unlock with Coins, and the point is impatience rather than access — WEBTOON's own support docs are clear that Fast Pass episodes become free after a set period. If you wait, you pay nothing.

Ad Pass trades a short advert for an episode instead of Coins. The catch is that it's a rental: an episode opened this way stays available for three days, not forever.

Coins are the paid route, bought in bundles. An episode unlocked with Coins stays yours for as long as the series is on WEBTOON — which is a real caveat, not boilerplate. You're buying access, not a copy.

Daily Pass is gone. WEBTOON retired it in 2025. It let you unlock one episode of an older completed series per day for free, and a lot of advice written before then still describes it as the way to read completed series without paying. If a guide tells you to collect a Daily Pass, that guide hasn't been updated in over a year.

Originals and Canvas are not the same library

Search on WEBTOON returns two very different things side by side.

Originals are commissioned and edited: a fixed weekly slot, professional art, an editor, and a reasonable expectation that the series will be finished rather than abandoned. Almost everything in the table below is an Original.

Canvas is open self-publishing. Anyone can post. Some of it is excellent and a few Canvas series have been promoted to Originals — but nothing is vetted, update schedules are whatever the creator manages, and abandonment is common. It isn't labelled loudly in search results, so if you're wondering why quality swings so hard between two things you found the same way, that's why.

Neither is better in the abstract. But if you're new here and want a reliable first experience, start in Originals.

Where WEBTOON is weak

Three things worth knowing before you settle in.

You don't own anything. There are no volumes to buy and no files to keep. If a series is pulled — licensing lapses, a creator dispute, a regional rights change — the episodes you unlocked with Coins go with it. For most readers that's an acceptable trade. If you want a permanent copy, you want a storefront, not WEBTOON.

Availability is regional. WEBTOON is global, but individual titles are not. A series that's free in one country can be missing in another, and the app doesn't explain why. The table below reflects the English catalogue.

It's a vertical-scroll platform, not a manga library. If you came looking for Japanese manga you'll mostly be disappointed — the catalogue is overwhelmingly Korean webtoons and original English work. That's a genuine strength if that's what you want and a dead end if it isn't.

Is it worth paying for?

Our honest read: not usually, and that's a compliment to the platform rather than a criticism.

If you read completed series, you will never hit a paywall worth caring about. If you're following an ongoing series and the wait genuinely bothers you, Coins are cheap per episode and the money reaches the creator. What we'd avoid is buying Coins to binge a series you haven't started — the free back catalogue is deep enough to find out whether you like it first, and on a long-runner that's a hundred-plus episodes of evidence before you spend anything.

Worth starting with

• Tower of God — The flagship long-runner and the clearest case for WEBTOON's free tier — hundreds of free episodes before you reach anything gated.
• All of Us Are Dead — Completed and free end to end. Read it before the Netflix version if you want the version with teeth.
• Cheese in the Trap — A completed campus drama that's aged better than most of what followed it, and the reason a lot of readers came to the platform at all.
• Yumi's Cells — Completed, distinctive, and the rare webtoon with a structural gimmick that carries the whole run instead of wearing out.
• Annarasumanara — Short enough to finish in a sitting and the best argument that vertical scroll can do something print can't.
• Winter Woods — Fully free with nothing gated, and quieter than the platform's front page would suggest it has room for.