Become a speed reader the first time you try it.
No courses, no drills. Focal streams words one at a time to a fixed focal point — a technique called RSVP — so your eyes stop traveling and your pace doubles.
Windows 10/11 · free 14-day trial included
Live demo — press play
THE MOVE
Three keys. Anywhere in Windows.
Highlight anything — an AI answer, an email, a PDF — press Ctrl+Shift+R, and Focal is already streaming it. No copying, no switching windows, no new tab.
Highlight it
In Chrome, Word, Outlook, a PDF — anywhere you can select text.
Press Ctrl+Shift+R
The popup opens already reading. Measured at about a tenth of a second.
Read in flow
One word at a time at your pace. Eyes still, WPM slider right there.
Also works from the clipboard — copy anything, press the same keys.
The loop has three speeds.
You type at ~40 wpm. The AI answers at effectively unlimited speed. Then you read at 240. Two of those numbers got fixed by technology.
“ChatGPT gave me 900 words. I read the first paragraph and the bullet points.”
“I copy answers into a doc to read later. Later never comes.”
“By paragraph three I'm already typing the next prompt.”
You're not behind because you're undisciplined. The format is broken — AI writes faster than anyone reads.
Focal fixes the third number.
Your eyes spend most of a page just moving. Focal holds every word still and hands your brain one job: understanding.
The science
Why one word beats a page
Ordinary reading
The eye does not glide across a line of text. It jumps ahead,
stops, drifts back to a phrase it already covered, and starts
again. Each of those small corrections costs a fraction of a
second, and a page is made of hundreds of them.
- Eyes sprint left to right
- Line jumps and backtracking
- Attention drifts mid-paragraph
In Focal
- Eyes hold one point
- Words come to you
- Rhythm holds attention
Your comprehension lives in your brain, not your eye muscles. Focal removes the travel; you keep the understanding.
Your eyes don't glide, they jump
Reading looks smooth from the inside, but the eye moves in short hops. Every hop is time spent aiming at the next word instead of understanding the last one.
You keep going back
Regressions — flicking back to a line you already covered — quietly eat up to a third of a reading session. Most of them happen without you noticing.
The ceiling isn't your brain
Reading research puts the typical adult around 240 words a minute. Take the eye movement out of the loop and the same brain comfortably handles 400 to 700.
Same brain. Fewer wasted motions.
The full loop
Read it. Hear it. Remember it.
Three ways Focal moves a document into your head — and you can use any of them alone.
One word at a time
The RSVP stream at your pace, from 200 to 1,000 words a minute. Your eyes hold one point and the text comes to you.
Premium narration
A real voice reads it to you, and the voice follows your speed slider instead of fighting it. Listen while your eyes are busy.
An AI recap when you finish
A headline and the handful of points worth keeping, generated the second you reach the end. Saved with the document, so it's there when you come back.
Narration and summaries run on credits — Pro includes 10 every month, and packs start at $5.99. Both are toggles: turn either off and Focal is just a very fast reader.
Built for the reading that piles up.
We're not going to tell you to speed-read a novel. Focal is for the reading that stacks up faster than you clear it.
Great for
- AI answers and chat threads
- Email and Slack recaps
- Reports and briefs
- Newsletters
- Documentation
- Research first-passes
Triage mode
Stream it once at speed and decide if it deserves a slow read. Most things don't.
Speed is a dial
Slow down, pause, jump back. Comprehension outranks bravado — the slider is the point.
The desktop app
Flow Read: highlight text in any app, press Ctrl+Shift+R, and you're reading — in about a tenth of a second.
Windows first. Chrome extension included with Pro.
The reader
One word at a time, held at a single point, with a green anchor letter your eye locks onto. 100 to 1,000 words a minute, with smart pauses at commas and full stops so sentences still breathe.
Narration
Hear it while you see it: synchronized voice keeps your brain locked on the stream. The free web app uses your browser's built-in voice; Pro users can spend credits on premium AI narration.
Everywhere you read
Flow Read on Windows: highlight anything in any app — Word, email, PDFs — press Ctrl+Shift+R, and a floating reader starts instantly. Plus the free web app, and a Chrome extension included with Pro (coming soon).
Just a tool
No library. No account to start. No streaks, no badges, no weekly reading report. Paste, read, close.
Same paragraph. Two and a half times the pace.
Both lanes are reading the exact same text. One of them finishes while the other is still on the first line.
Read an hour a day? Doubling 240 to 480 hands back about 21 hours a month.
Pricing
- —Web reader only
- —First 500 words of any text
- —Up to 400 WPM
- —Narration with the standard browser voice
- —No account, no signup
about $1.67 a month
- —Unlimited length
- —Unlimited speed
- —Premium AI narration — pay-as-you-go credit packs
- —Narration + AI summaries
- —10 AI credits a month
- —Windows desktop app with Flow Read (highlight anywhere → instant reader)
- —Chrome extension — read any webpage in one click
- —File import
- —Resume across sessions
The other guys charge $24+ a year and $99 for lifetime. We're a tool, not a lifestyle.
The distance between “I should read this” and “done” is three keys.
Free web reader, no account. Free 14-day desktop trial. $19.99 a year if it sticks.
Cancel anytime · 14-day refund policy