Tapas now has a kill date for the end of the service. The North American webtoon app will end service on March 31, 2027, at 11:59 p.m. PDT, according to an FAQ the platform published on October 1. After that clock, the site, the app, and the episodes readers already unlocked all go dark.
Kakao Entertainment said on September 22 that it planned to shut Tapas down. The FAQ is the first public calendar. @tapas_app pointed readers at the same page the morning of October 1. Ink spending, episode unlocks, and content access all stop at the same minute. Starting October 1, users can no longer buy more Ink, and they cannot earn free Ink through the app either. Whatever is already in the wallet can still be spent until March 31. Tapas said there are no extra sales or special events planned before the lights go out, and episode prices stay where they are.
The line that hurts most is the one about purchased chapters. Tapas said the platform and previously unlocked content become inaccessible after the service ends. Readers lose access to episodes they already paid to open. Those purchases cannot be moved to Kakao Page or Kakao WEBTOON. Ink buys are generally non-refundable under the existing refund policy. Unspent Ink dies with the app.
That is a harder close than a lot of digital storefronts have done in the past. Some services let a library sit in an account after new sales stop. Tapas is taking the shelf with it. Six months left of reading time is the window, and then the unlocks are gone.
Creators get a longer runway than the currency does. Titles stay up through the end of service unless a creator pulls them earlier. New uploads are still allowed, with no immediate plan to freeze publishing. Readers can still see fresh chapters during the remaining months. What happens to a series after March 31 depends on that creator's contract and whatever publishing deal comes next. Exclusivity clauses will be reviewed one agreement at a time. There is no blanket migration onto another Kakao app.
A creator who wants a title down before the shutdown can file through the Tapas Creator Inquiry Form. Questions about contracts go to creator support. Readers who want a copy of account and personal data can ask the company. The FAQ said it will keep getting updates, which is a polite way of saying some answers are still blank.
Kakao spent about 1.1 trillion won, roughly $780 million, in 2021 to buy Tapas and the webnovel app Radish. Tapas was valued around $510 million. Radish was valued around $440 million. The two brands merged into Tapas Entertainment in 2022. Radish shut down in 2025 so Kakao could focus the North American story business on Tapas. That focus lasted about a year.
At home, Kakao is folding Kakao WEBTOON into Kakao Page by the end of 2026, stacking content, user data, and about 16,000 original IPs on one Korean platform. Piccoma in Japan is the overseas piece the company has kept talking about. Direct English apps are the piece it is dropping. Parent company Kakao has been lining up a 2027 split into Kakao AI and Kakao X, with Entertainment on the X side.
Tapas started in 2012 as Comic Panda, then Tapastic, built by Chang Kim and Young-Jun Jang as an English home for vertical comics. By the time Kakao bought it, the pitch was a storefront for Korean IP plus original English series. It never caught WEBTOON. It still carried books people actually opened: Solo Leveling, Overgeared, Villains Are Destined to Die, Tomb Raider King, SSS-Class Revival Hunter. Independent hits lived there too, including Leeanne M. Krecic's Let's Play and Turtleme's The Beginning After the End.
Print is the copy that does not vanish with the login. Several of those series already have paper editions through Yen Press and its Ize Press imprint, plus other houses. A physical volume does not need Ink, and it does not expire on March 31. A Tapas-only original does not have that backup unless the creator lands somewhere else.
The practical list for readers is short. Spend the Ink you already have before March 31 if you want the chapters while they are still readable. Do not buy more, because the app will not sell it. Do not expect a refund. Do not expect Kakao Page to inherit the library. Screenshot reading lists now if a series only updates on Tapas, and watch whether the creator posts a new home.
It's no surprise the wallet closes before the site does. Stopping Ink sales on day one of the FAQ keeps Kakao from taking money for a library it has already said will disappear. The readers who paid last year are the ones holding the empty shelf.
Will you burn your remaining Ink before March 31, or are you done with Tapas as of today? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.