- Starting price
- Free
- Free tier
- Yes
- Platforms
- iOS - Android - Web - Daily email
- Developer
- Alpha International
- Launched
- 2012
- Updated
- Jul 26, 2026
The verdict
This is not a new product - it is Bible in One Year with the Gumbels' names moved to the front of the label, and this site's existing Bible in One Year review covers the same binary. Take it for a warm, free, audio-backed year through the whole Bible in NIVUK. Skip it if you want to choose your translation, keep private notes, or read fresh commentary in year two.
Try The Bible with Nicky and Pippa ↗Opens bible.alpha.org
Take the identity question first, because it decides how you read this page. The Bible with Nicky and Pippa is the same application this site already reviews as Bible in One Year. The evidence is not circumstantial: the Apple listing is numeric ID 504133402 in both cases, the Android package is still literally com.multipie.bibleinoneyear, the publisher is still Alpha International, and Apple's legacy URL slug is still bible-in-one-year even though the page now renders the new title. Alpha rebranded the wrapper and left the programme alone.
That programme has been stable for over a decade. Each day serves a passage from a Psalm or Proverb, a New Testament passage and an Old Testament passage, wrapped in commentary by Nicky and Pippa Gumbel. The FAQ states the text is the New International Version UK edition, with some references to particular passages of Eugene Peterson's The Message. Bible readings are narrated by the actor David Suchet, the Gumbels read their own commentary, and the Youth edition adds Toby Stokes from the HTB youth team. Three lengths ship in one download.
The provenance is long. Gumbel's Bible in One Year book appeared in 2011 and the app followed on 2 March 2012. He was curate at Holy Trinity Brompton from 1986 to 2005 and vicar from 2005 to 2022, and took over the Alpha Course in 1990, so the devotional carries the accent of the Anglican charismatic evangelical church that built Alpha. Version 29.0 shipped on 1 July 2026 - a serious maintenance record for a free charity-funded app.
So the rebrand is cosmetic, and the app remains one of the best on-ramps to a whole-Bible year in existence. The reason to read a second page about it is everything Alpha's own pages disclose and never reconcile: three different user-reach figures, two different language counts, two different Youth durations, and an Apple privacy card and a Google Play data-safety card that flatly disagree about whether this app shares personal and financial data.
✓ The good
- Genuinely free with no asterisk - Apple lists no in-app purchases, there are no ads, and Alpha funds the work through voluntary donations rather than a premium tier
- Three lengths in one download - Classic at 25 minutes, Express at 15, Youth at 12, so a missed week can be absorbed by dropping edition instead of quitting
- Full audio with a professional reader - David Suchet narrates the Bible passages, which makes the whole 365 days workable as listening rather than reading
- The daily mix is the design win - a Psalm or Proverb plus New Testament plus Old Testament each day means nobody stalls inside Leviticus, where whole-Bible plans die
- You may start on any day - onboarding lets you pick Day 1 or Day 256, so someone who finds it in September need not wait for January
- Long, funded, maintained - on the store since March 2012, version 29.0 on 1 July 2026, from a charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1086179) and Scotland (no. SC042906)
✗ Watch out
- One translation, no switching - the FAQ names NIVUK and there is no picker, so anyone committed to ESV, NASB, CSB or KJV reads a version they did not choose for a year
- The commentary is largely recycled - Alpha says the majority of the content will be the same with small updates each year, and that if you have done it before it may sound familiar
- A non-January start desynchronises you - the FAQ states that if you began Day 1 on 2 March, your app readings will not match the website and email readings
- Sync is opt-in and account-gated - progress crosses devices only with an Alpha account, and the documented fallback is resetting the app and reselecting your last day
- Changing edition destroys your downloads - the FAQ states switching between Classic, Express and Youth deletes previously downloaded audio, costing you the offline library
- No documented notes, highlighting or bookmarking - the FAQ covers translations, audio, sync and email but never an annotation layer, so this is a plan, not a study workspace
Best for
- First-time whole-Bible readers
- Listeners who want narrated scripture
- Alpha and HTB church congregations
- Anyone who has abandoned a plan before
Avoid if
- You need a specific translation
- You want original-language tools
- You keep detailed study notes
- You are repeating a second year
What The Bible with Nicky and Pippa is
The Bible with Nicky and Pippa is a fixed 365-day devotional that walks the entire Bible, published free by Alpha International, the charity behind the Alpha Course and Holy Trinity Brompton in London. Each day pairs three readings - a Psalm or Proverb, a New Testament passage, an Old Testament passage - with commentary and a prayer written by Nicky and Pippa Gumbel. The text is NIVUK, and everything can be read or heard.
Three editions ship inside the same app: Classic at roughly 25 minutes a day, Express at 15 and Youth at 12. The arithmetic is worth knowing before committing - 365 days of Classic is about 152 hours, Express about 91, Youth about 73. This is the same programme this site catalogues under the slug bible-in-one-year; the name on the icon changed, the plan did not.
The relationship to Bible in One Year is the whole story
Most app rebrands are worth a footnote. This one is worth the headline, because a reader searching either name finds two review pages pointing at one download. Alpha moved from a description of the product to the names of the people who present it, which is commercially sensible - the Gumbels are the draw. YouVersion's July 2026 roundup lists the entry as The Bible With Nicky and Pippa Gumbel Classic Version With NIV Audio 2026, credited to Alpha, fourth among the year-long plans after Tara-Leigh Cobble, Tyndale House and BibleProject.
What the rename does not do is create a second product to evaluate. The Android package identifier, the Apple numeric ID and the 365-day structure are unchanged, so anyone treating the two names as competing options is choosing between a thing and itself. The practical cost is small but real: older church-group materials and third-party plan listings still say Bible in One Year, and the icon on a member's phone now says something else.
Three editions, one plan, and a hidden cost to switching
The Classic, Express and Youth editions are the app's best feature and the reason its completion odds beat most whole-Bible plans. All three cover the same 365 days at about 25, 15 and 12 minutes, so a reader falling behind can drop to Express for a fortnight and keep the day count intact. Youth is not merely shorter - it is separately narrated, with Toby Stokes of the HTB youth team joining the Gumbels.
The catch is in Alpha's own FAQ and easy to miss: changing edition deletes previously downloaded audio. Anyone who has synced weeks of Classic audio for a commute and then switches to Express loses that library. The FAQ also notes downloads are bounded by device storage, which for a 95.7 MB app with a year of narration behind it is a real constraint on older phones. Minimum supported iOS is 13.0.
NIVUK only, and commentary that repeats by design
The FAQ is unambiguous that the app uses NIVUK, with some references to particular passages of Eugene Peterson's The Message, and documents no way to change translation. For a devotional that is defensible, since the commentary is written against specific wording. For a reader whose church preaches ESV or CSB it means a year in a version their pulpit does not use, and no setting will fix it. Compare YouVersion or Olive Tree, where translation is the reader's choice.
The commentary is also, by Alpha's own account, mostly static. The FAQ says the majority of the content will be the same with small updates each year, and that Nicky and Pippa only make slight tweaks, so if you have done it before it may sound familiar. That is honest disclosure and it sets a clear ceiling: a superb first year and a much weaker third. There is no notes or highlighting layer to build on across cycles either.
Progress, sync, and the date-alignment trap
Flexible start is a genuine kindness - onboarding lets you begin at Day 1 or jump in at Day 256 - but Alpha spells out the consequence. Start Day 1 on 1 January and the app matches the website and email readings; start Day 1 on 2 March and the FAQ says they will not. Church groups therefore need a common start date or the discussion is about different passages. Alpha also documents that leap-year content in 2024 introduced a one-day offset after Day 60.
Cross-device sync exists but is off by default: you must create an Alpha account and enable the toggle. The documented recovery path without one is manual - note the day you finished, reset the app on the new phone, reselect that day. One further quirk to know before Day 365: the FAQ states the app will not auto-reset at year end unless you have completed 255 or more days.
Pricing
Free
Free
Everything: all 365 days, all three editions, the full Gumbel commentary, David Suchet audio, offline downloads and progress tracking. Apple lists no in-app purchases and there is no advertising. Funded by voluntary donations to Alpha International, a registered charity, not by a paid tier.
Daily email
Free
A one-email-a-day subscription from the bible.alpha.org homepage - Alpha's wording is that you will get one email each day. Note the scope limit it discloses: the email carries the Classic commentary only, so Express and Youth readers cannot get their edition by inbox.
Optional donation
Amount not published
Giving is via the app menu or the website donate page, and Alpha encourages regular monthly gifts. It publishes no suggested amounts, no currency tiers and no cost-per-user or cost-to-run figure anywhere - unusual for a charity-funded app, and worth stating as a finding rather than guessing at.
Free means free. Apple lists the price as Free with no in-app purchases, there is no advertising, and the FAQ describes it plainly as a free Bible reading app from HTB and the Alpha Course. There is no premium edition, no gated commentary and no ad-removal upsell. For a product with 13,423 US App Store ratings, that is a rare structure.
The funding is voluntary giving to Alpha International, which the donate page identifies as a charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1086179) and Scotland (no. SC042906), and a company limited by guarantee (no. 4157379) at HTB Brompton Road SW7 1JA. Alpha encourages regular monthly gifts on the grounds that one could help thousands of people every month.
What is not published is the number. The donate page prints no suggested amounts, no currency tiers, and no figure for what the app costs to run or to serve one user. Many charity-funded apps publish a per-user cost to anchor giving; this one does not, so nobody can say what a fair contribution is.
The one scope limit inside the free offering is the email channel. The FAQ says you can subscribe from the homepage, but specifies the Classic commentary - so Express and Youth are app-only. If you chose Express because 25 minutes was why you quit last time, the inbox route is not open to you at your chosen length.
Where The Bible with Nicky and Pippa falls behind
Three different reach figures, none reconciled. The About page states that over 4.5 million people from 160 countries have experienced the devotional. The App Store description for the same product says over 1.5 million users worldwide. Google Play reports 500,000 or more Android installs. Three claims of very different magnitude on three pages Alpha controls, so this review reports all three rather than picking one. Store votes give independent scale - 13,423 US App Store ratings, about 7,400 UK, about 15,600 on Google Play - but roughly 36,000 settles nothing about 4.5 million.
The privacy disclosures contradict each other across platforms. Apple's App Privacy card lists only Data Not Linked to You - analytics, product personalisation, app functionality - with nothing under Data Linked to You and nothing under Data Used to Track You. Google Play's Data safety section for the same package states the app shares Personal info and Financial info with third parties, and that data can't be deleted. Both cards are vendor-supplied for one binary and cannot both be complete. Alpha's privacy policy sits closer to Play: date of birth and gender, bank and card details, IP address, and sharing with National Alpha Offices potentially outside the EU.
The language count depends which Alpha page you read. The FAQ lists nine: Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, English, Simplified Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Spanish and Thai. Both store descriptions list eleven, adding Italian and Vietnamese. Apple's own listing metadata declares one - English - and that is the field which drives App Store language filtering, so a Spanish or Hindi speaker browsing Apple by language will not surface this app at all.
Even the edition lengths disagree. The store description says Youth runs 12 minutes; the About page says roughly 15. Three minutes is trivial in itself, but it is the third numeric disagreement between two pages of one vendor about one product, which suggests the marketing pages are not revised against each other. The age ratings diverge too: Apple carries 12+ while Google Play rates the identical app 3+.
As a Bible tool rather than a devotional it does very little. No cross-references, no Greek or Hebrew, no commentary library, no serious topical search and, as far as the FAQ documents, no notes or highlights. That is not a criticism of what it set out to be, but it is why this should not be anyone's only Bible app - free YouVersion, or a free web page like Blue Letter Bible, covers the reference work it deliberately skips.
The Bible with Nicky and Pippa vs. Bible in One Year vs. The Bible Recap
The first comparison is a non-comparison and should be said plainly: The Bible with Nicky and Pippa and Bible in One Year are the same app. Same Apple ID 504133402, same Android package com.multipie.bibleinoneyear, same publisher, same 365 days, same commentary. If you are deciding between them you are deciding between one download and its former name, and this site now carries two pages describing one thing.
Against The Bible Recap the difference is real, and it is order and voice. Cobble's plan reads the Bible chronologically with an eight-minute daily podcast; Alpha reads canonically in a three-strand daily mix with 12 to 25 minutes of Gumbel commentary. Chronological order helps readers who want the history to make sense; the three-strand mix helps readers who need a Psalm and a Gospel to survive the genealogies. Recap also lets you bring your own translation, which Alpha does not.
Against the audio-first options - Through the Word, Daily Audio Bible - Alpha's edge is that Suchet's narration, the commentary and the plan arrive as one object with a day counter, and its weakness is that all of it is fixed. If you want a finish line dated 365 days out, Alpha wins; if you want your own pace, it is the wrong shape.
The bottom line
Judged as a free devotional this is close to best in class: a fifteen-year-old programme, warm commentary, professional narration, three lengths that let a stumbling reader recover, and no paywall or advertising. Judged as a new product it does not exist - it is Bible in One Year renamed, and anyone who read that page has read this one, though the US App Store aggregate has since grown to 13,423 ratings. What the rename has not fixed is Alpha's bookkeeping: 4.5 million users on one page and 1.5 million on another, nine languages in the FAQ and eleven in the store, and an Apple privacy card claiming nothing is linked to you while Google Play says personal and financial data are shared and cannot be deleted.
Alternatives to The Bible with Nicky and Pippa
Bible in One YearThe same app under its former name - our existing review of Apple ID 504133402. Not an alternative so much as the other half of the record.
The Bible RecapA chronological year through the Bible with an eight-minute daily podcast, free, and translation-agnostic where Alpha locks you to NIVUK.
Through the WordFree, ad-free audio that reads a chapter then explains it in about ten minutes, with no fixed 365-day calendar to fall behind on.
Lectio 365The other free British daily app, from the 24-7 Prayer movement - a contemplative prayer rhythm rather than a whole-Bible reading target.
Daily Audio BibleBrian Hardin has read the Bible aloud daily for two decades; a looser, community-driven counterpart to Alpha's structured year.Frequently asked questions
Is The Bible with Nicky and Pippa the same thing as Bible in One Year?
Yes. It is one app under two names. The Apple listing is numeric ID 504133402 for both, the Android package is still com.multipie.bibleinoneyear, the publisher is Alpha International, and Apple still serves the app from a URL slug reading bible-in-one-year. Alpha changed the branding from a description of the plan to the names of the presenters; the 365-day structure and the commentary did not change.
Which Bible translation does it use, and can I change it?
The FAQ states it uses the New International Version UK edition, with some references to particular passages of Eugene Peterson's The Message. There is no documented translation picker, so you cannot switch to ESV, CSB, NASB or KJV inside the app. If choosing your own translation matters, run a general Bible app alongside it.
Is it really free, and how is it paid for?
Yes. Apple lists the price as Free with no in-app purchases and there is no advertising. It is funded by voluntary donations to Alpha International, a charity registered in England and Wales (no. 1086179) and Scotland (no. SC042906). You can give from the app menu or the website, but Alpha publishes no suggested amounts and no cost-per-user figure.
Do I have to start on 1 January?
No - onboarding lets you pick any day, including Day 256. But Alpha spells out the side effect: if you started Day 1 on 1 January your app readings match its website and email readings, and if you started Day 1 on 2 March they will not. Small groups reading together should agree a common start date.
Will my progress follow me to a new phone?
Only if you opt in. You must create an Alpha account and switch on progress syncing in Settings. Without it, recovery is manual: note the day you had completed, install on the new device, select that day during setup. Also worth knowing - the FAQ says the app will not auto-reset after Day 365 unless you have completed 255 or more days.
Is the commentary new every year?
No, and Alpha says so. The FAQ states that the majority of the content will be the same with small updates each year, and that Nicky and Pippa only make slight tweaks, so if you have done it before it may sound familiar. Treat it as an outstanding first pass rather than an annual subscription to fresh writing.
What does it collect about me?
The two store cards disagree, so read both. Apple's App Privacy section lists only data not linked to you - analytics, product personalisation, app functionality - with nothing used to track you. Google Play's Data safety section for the same package says the app shares personal info and financial info with third parties and that data cannot be deleted. Alpha's privacy policy is broader still: date of birth and gender, bank and card details, IP address, Google Tag Manager analytics, Mailchimp for the daily mailout, and sharing with National Alpha Offices that may sit outside the EU.
Sources & further reading
More Devotional Apps
Spoken GospelA reading plan that gives you a 3-minute spoken-word video on every chapter of the Bible - the rare Bible companion that actually changes how the page reads.
GlorifyThe Christian app that feels like Calm - five-minute devotionals, ambient worship, sleep stories, and a guided journal in one beautifully designed package.Bible in One YearThe free 365-day reading plan that walks you through the whole Bible with a warm daily commentary in your ear - the one that has actually gotten millions of people to finish.
BlessedA polished, all-in-one daily companion - morning and evening verses, guided prayer, an AI Bible chat, and a multi-translation reader, wrapped in one of the slickest free Christian apps around.
Today in the WordMoody Bible Institute’s long-running daily devotional, now a clean, completely free app - fresh Scripture-based studies each day, organized into monthly journeys through books of the Bible and biblical topics.
Word AlertA deliberately simple daily-verse app - it pushes one Scripture to your iPhone or Apple Watch at the time you set, ready to read or share, without the clutter of a full Bible platform.