Bible apps with no ads — which ones, and what the catch is

Read from Google Play listings (US region) on 18 September 2026. "No ads" is a claim about a listing on a date, so the date is printed next to it.

The short answer

Two widely used Bible apps show no ads and no in-app purchases on their Play listings: DailyVerses (500K+ installs, and it has a home-screen widget) and YouVersion (100M+ installs, verse-of-the-day widget). Blue Letter Bible is also ad-free, but its listing does not mention a widget.

If your requirement is "free, no ads, and I want a widget", there is no gap in the market. Start with DailyVerses.

Three different business models, often confused

Model	What you experience	Examples from our check
No ads, no purchases	Nothing to buy, nothing to dismiss. Usually funded by a ministry or donations.	DailyVerses, YouVersion, Blue Letter Bible
Ads, with a paid way out	The app is free; a banner or interstitial appears; subscribing removes it.	Bible Widgets, Daily Bible: Widgets & Prayer, Bible Gateway
Paid only	You pay up front or subscribe; no ad software is ever loaded.	Mostly study-Bible apps (Logos, Olive Tree) rather than widget apps

How to tell which one you are installing, before you install

Read the "In-app purchases" line on the Play listing. If it says "No in-app purchases" and the listing shows no ad-supported free tier, you are in the first row.
Look at the size of the price range. A range spanning $15 to $170 is a store of content plus subscriptions; a narrow range is usually one thing.
Check the reviews for the word "ads". Sort by newest. If the top complaints are about ads rather than about the app breaking, you are in the second row.
Remember what subscribing buys. On a widget app, it buys the absence of ads and sometimes extra widget styles. It does not buy the Bible — public-domain translations are free to ship, and the ad-free apps above prove it.

Why "ad-free" is rarer than it sounds

A Bible app with no purchase option has to be paid for some other way: a ministry, donations, or a parent organisation selling something else. That is why the ad-free list is short and stable, and why the widget category specifically is dominated by ad-supported apps — a widget is cheap to build and expensive to keep fed with new styles.

The practical consequence: if you see a Bible widget app with a large install base and no ads, either it is run by an organisation with another revenue source, or the ads are coming.

Disclosure: we make AI Verse Widget, which uses the second model — ads in the free version, removed by subscribing. We are telling you that plainly because this page would be worthless otherwise. If you want an app with no ads and no purchases at all, DailyVerses and YouVersion already do that and we are not a better answer for you.

One more thing to check: which translation you get

"Ad-free" and "text you can trust" are separate questions. Modern translations — the NIV, ESV, NLT and their Portuguese counterparts — are copyrighted and require a licence to redistribute; public-domain texts such as the KJV, the World English Bible, the Berean Standard Bible and the Bíblia Livre can legally ship inside an app. An app that shows a translation it has no right to distribute may have to remove it later, which is a worse surprise than an ad.