[4] A pilot program for ReadCube Access was launched at the University of Utah in September 2012, followed by a public release in Nature Publishing Group journals in November 2012.

[6] In April 2014, Labtiva released ReadCube Pro: a product similar to Web Reader with cloud sync capability[7] and enhanced notation and viewing features.

On 2 December 2014, Nature announced that it would allow its subscribers and a group of selected media outlets to distribute links that provided limited "free" access to journal articles through ReadCube Web Reader.

While it does provide some free articles, it is not a completely open access scheme due to restrictions on the users' ability to download, copy, print, or distribute the content.

An on-site announcement stated: "ReadCube will be the brand dedicated to our enterprise clients, and Papers will be focused solely on students, independent researchers, and academia.