diff --git a/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx b/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
index 16ab73735..fdce7e9fa 100644
--- a/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
+++ b/spacy/matcher/matcher.pyx
@@ -203,13 +203,16 @@ cdef class Matcher:
                 else:
                     yield doc
 
-    def __call__(self, object doclike):
+    def __call__(self, object doclike, as_spans=False):
         """Find all token sequences matching the supplied pattern.
 
         doclike (Doc or Span): The document to match over.
-        RETURNS (list): A list of `(key, start, end)` tuples,
+        as_spans (bool): Return Span objects with labels instead of (match_id,
+            start, end) tuples.
+        RETURNS (list): A list of `(match_id, start, end)` tuples,
             describing the matches. A match tuple describes a span
-            `doc[start:end]`. The `label_id` and `key` are both integers.
+            `doc[start:end]`. The `match_id` is an integer. If as_spans is set
+            to True, a list of Span objects is returned.
         """
         if isinstance(doclike, Doc):
             doc = doclike
@@ -262,7 +265,10 @@ cdef class Matcher:
             on_match = self._callbacks.get(key, None)
             if on_match is not None:
                 on_match(self, doc, i, final_matches)
-        return final_matches
+        if as_spans:
+            return [Span(doc, start, end, label=key) for key, start, end in final_matches]
+        else:
+            return final_matches
 
     def _normalize_key(self, key):
         if isinstance(key, basestring):
diff --git a/spacy/matcher/phrasematcher.pyx b/spacy/matcher/phrasematcher.pyx
index 060c4d37f..6658c713e 100644
--- a/spacy/matcher/phrasematcher.pyx
+++ b/spacy/matcher/phrasematcher.pyx
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ import warnings
 from ..attrs cimport ORTH, POS, TAG, DEP, LEMMA
 from ..structs cimport TokenC
 from ..tokens.token cimport Token
+from ..tokens.span cimport Span
 from ..typedefs cimport attr_t
 
 from ..schemas import TokenPattern
@@ -216,13 +217,16 @@ cdef class PhraseMatcher:
                 result = internal_node
             map_set(self.mem, <MapStruct*>result, self.vocab.strings[key], NULL)
 
-    def __call__(self, doc):
+    def __call__(self, doc, as_spans=False):
         """Find all sequences matching the supplied patterns on the `Doc`.
 
         doc (Doc): The document to match over.
-        RETURNS (list): A list of `(key, start, end)` tuples,
+        as_spans (bool): Return Span objects with labels instead of (match_id,
+            start, end) tuples.
+        RETURNS (list): A list of `(match_id, start, end)` tuples,
             describing the matches. A match tuple describes a span
-            `doc[start:end]`. The `label_id` and `key` are both integers.
+            `doc[start:end]`. The `match_id` is an integer. If as_spans is set
+            to True, a list of Span objects is returned.
 
         DOCS: https://spacy.io/api/phrasematcher#call
         """
@@ -239,7 +243,10 @@ cdef class PhraseMatcher:
             on_match = self._callbacks.get(self.vocab.strings[ent_id])
             if on_match is not None:
                 on_match(self, doc, i, matches)
-        return matches
+        if as_spans:
+            return [Span(doc, start, end, label=key) for key, start, end in matches]
+        else:
+            return matches
 
     cdef void find_matches(self, Doc doc, vector[SpanC] *matches) nogil:
         cdef MapStruct* current_node = self.c_map
diff --git a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py
index bcb224bd3..aeac509b5 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_matcher_api.py
@@ -2,7 +2,8 @@ import pytest
 import re
 from mock import Mock
 from spacy.matcher import Matcher, DependencyMatcher
-from spacy.tokens import Doc, Token
+from spacy.tokens import Doc, Token, Span
+
 from ..doc.test_underscore import clean_underscore  # noqa: F401
 
 
@@ -469,3 +470,17 @@ def test_matcher_span(matcher):
     assert len(matcher(doc)) == 2
     assert len(matcher(span_js)) == 1
     assert len(matcher(span_java)) == 1
+
+
+def test_matcher_as_spans(matcher):
+    """Test the new as_spans=True API."""
+    text = "JavaScript is good but Java is better"
+    doc = Doc(matcher.vocab, words=text.split())
+    matches = matcher(doc, as_spans=True)
+    assert len(matches) == 2
+    assert isinstance(matches[0], Span)
+    assert matches[0].text == "JavaScript"
+    assert matches[0].label_ == "JS"
+    assert isinstance(matches[1], Span)
+    assert matches[1].text == "Java"
+    assert matches[1].label_ == "Java"
diff --git a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_phrase_matcher.py b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_phrase_matcher.py
index 2a3c7d693..edffaa900 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/matcher/test_phrase_matcher.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/matcher/test_phrase_matcher.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ import pytest
 import srsly
 from mock import Mock
 from spacy.matcher import PhraseMatcher
-from spacy.tokens import Doc
+from spacy.tokens import Doc, Span
 from ..util import get_doc
 
 
@@ -287,3 +287,19 @@ def test_phrase_matcher_pickle(en_vocab):
     # clunky way to vaguely check that callback is unpickled
     (vocab, docs, callbacks, attr) = matcher_unpickled.__reduce__()[1]
     assert isinstance(callbacks.get("TEST2"), Mock)
+
+
+def test_phrase_matcher_as_spans(en_vocab):
+    """Test the new as_spans=True API."""
+    matcher = PhraseMatcher(en_vocab)
+    matcher.add("A", [Doc(en_vocab, words=["hello", "world"])])
+    matcher.add("B", [Doc(en_vocab, words=["test"])])
+    doc = Doc(en_vocab, words=["...", "hello", "world", "this", "is", "a", "test"])
+    matches = matcher(doc, as_spans=True)
+    assert len(matches) == 2
+    assert isinstance(matches[0], Span)
+    assert matches[0].text == "hello world"
+    assert matches[0].label_ == "A"
+    assert isinstance(matches[1], Span)
+    assert matches[1].text == "test"
+    assert matches[1].label_ == "B"