Speechify Alternatives: Read-Aloud and Voiceover Tools

The best Speechify alternative depends on whether you want to listen to text or produce audio. To listen, compare ElevenReader, NaturalReader, Voice Dream and the free readers built into Edge and iPhone. To create voiceovers, compare Speechify Studio with ElevenLabs, Murf, WellSaid and OndaLabs, and check commercial rights before you publish.

Speechify sells three separate products, and most comparison pages blur them together. This guide treats them separately. Prices are as of 2026-10-17, taken from each vendor's own pages. Where a price could not be verified from a primary source, this post leaves it out.

What Speechify costs in October 2026

Speechify's reader app, its Studio product and its developer API each have their own pricing and their own balance. A subscription to one does not give you the others.

| Product | Free tier | Paid price | Best for | Commercial voiceover use | |---|---|---|---|---| | Speechify Reader | Free, with 10 basic voices and up to 1.5x speed | Premium at $29 a month, or about $139 a year when billed yearly | Listening to documents | Not addressed on the Reader pricing page | | Speechify Studio | 600 credits, no commercial usage rights | Starter at $100 a year, Creator at $300 a year | Voiceovers and dubbing | Yes, on paid plans | | SpeechifyAI API | Free monthly USD balance that cannot be topped up | Starter at $10 a month, Pro at $99 a month, Scale at $499 a month | Developers | Not stated for Free |

Speechify Reader's Premium plan adds more than 1,000 voices, up to 5x speed, Scan and Listen, AI summaries and chats, and cloud storage integrations with Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive. Its pricing page lists 60+ languages for Premium. Speechify Studio's voiceover FAQ lists 20 voiceover languages, so use each language count only with its own product. The Speechify Reader pricing page and the Speechify Studio pricing page are the sources for these figures.

The developer API is billed separately from the Reader app, and a Reader subscription does not include API usage. Speechify's API pricing page lists voice cloning on paid plans only.

Speechify alternatives for listening to documents

If you want to hear articles, PDFs or books, the reader apps are the right category. Each of the options below is a listening tool, not a voiceover studio.

ElevenReader: The free plan includes 10 hours of text to audio a month, and the allowance resets each month. The Ultra plan is about $8.25 a month billed annually, and the annual plan has a 3-day free trial. Ultra covers up to 24 hours of generated audio per day for your imports, plus offline downloads, custom voices and smart file imports. ElevenReader's comparison with Speechify is marketing from ElevenLabs, so we do not rely on it.
NaturalReader: It offers a free forever plan, with Personal, Commercial and EDU tiers. Its web app, iOS and Android apps include an offline mode and a Chrome extension. It reads PDF, Word, ePub and web pages, and its mobile app includes a camera scanner with OCR. Its AI voices cover over 90 languages. We did not verify its paid prices, so check the NaturalReader site before you pay.
Voice Dream: Voice Dream is for iPhone, iPad and Mac. It is free to download, but a subscription is required to use the app, and new users get a free trial. It includes 36 built-in iOS voices in 27 languages at no cost, and premium voices in 30 languages. It handles PDF, Word, PowerPoint, DRM-free ePub and web articles, and it has an on-device scanner. The App Store listing shows several subscription options, so we did not state a price.
Microsoft Edge Read Aloud: Read Aloud is built into Edge on desktop and mobile. It uses natural voices when online and only a few voices offline, and it is part of Reading mode.
Apple Spoken Content: On iPhone, Speak Selection and Speak Screen sit under Settings, then Accessibility, then Spoken Content. They work with VoiceOver turned off, and you can change the speaking rate, the voice and the dialect.

For the built-in options, we describe features at summary level, because the detailed support pages did not load in our checks.

Speechify alternatives compared

This table puts the listening apps and the voiceover tools side by side. Read the "Commercial voiceover use" column with care, because a reader app is designed for listening.

| Tool | Free tier | Paid price | Best for | Commercial voiceover use | |---|---|---|---|---| | Speechify Reader | Free, 10 basic voices, 1.5x speed | Premium at $29 a month or about $139 a year | Listening to documents | Not addressed on the Reader page | | ElevenReader | 10 hours of text to audio a month | Ultra at about $8.25 a month billed annually | Listening and audiobooks | Not verified | | NaturalReader | Free forever plan | Not verified | Listening, with a Commercial tier | Commercial tier | | Voice Dream | Free download with a trial | Subscription required; price not verified | Reading on iOS and Mac | Not addressed | | Edge Read Aloud and Apple Spoken Content | Built in, free | Not applicable | Quick listening | Not applicable | | Speechify Studio | 600 credits, no commercial rights | $100 or $300 a year | Voiceovers and dubbing | Yes, on paid plans | | OndaLabs | 2,000 credits a month | From $9 a month | Narration and dialogue | From Starter |

Free ways to listen without a subscription

If you only need to listen occasionally, you may not need a paid app at all. These options are free to start, but each has limits.

Edge Read Aloud, built into Microsoft Edge on desktop and mobile.
Apple Spoken Content, under Accessibility settings on iPhone.
ElevenReader's free plan, with 10 hours of text to audio a month.
NaturalReader's free forever plan, within the limits shown on its site.

Free does not mean unlimited. Check each app's current allowance before you rely on it for daily reading.

Speechify alternatives for creating voiceovers

If you need to produce audio files, the reader apps above will not do the job. Compare these tools instead:

ElevenLabs: The Starter plan costs $6 a month and includes a commercial license. Creator adds Professional Voice Cloning. Eleven v4 supports 90+ languages. See the ElevenLabs pricing page.
Murf: The Creator plan is from $19 a month billed annually, with 24 hours of voice generation a year. Its free plan has no commercial license.
WellSaid: The Starter plan costs $10 a month billed annually, or $120 a year, and includes full commercial rights on paid plans. Its English voices are available on Starter and Pro.
OndaLabs: The tool offers text to speech with 30 prebuilt voices usable in every supported language, two-speaker dialogue and speech to text. The Free plan includes 2,000 credits a month, and commercial use starts on Starter at $9 a month.
Speechify Studio: Paid Studio plans include commercial rights, dubbing and a voice changer. The free tier does not include commercial usage rights.

Our Murf AI alternatives guide goes deeper on voiceover tools, and our ElevenLabs alternatives guide compares the developer and creator options in more detail.

How to choose: five questions

Use these questions to narrow the list before you test anything:

Do you listen or create? Reader apps are for listening. Studio and voiceover tools are for producing audio files.
Which file types do you read? PDF, Word, ePub and web pages are supported unevenly across apps, so check your formats.
Do you need offline use? Offline support varies by app, and the free tiers may not include it.
Which voices and languages do you need? Speechify's counts differ by product, so match each count to the product you are considering.
Will you publish the audio? Reader apps are for personal listening. We did not verify commercial redistribution terms for them, so do not assume you can publish their audio.

Where OndaLabs fits

OndaLabs is an AI voice studio for creating audio from text. It is not a document reader. This post does not claim reading features for OndaLabs, such as PDF import, a browser extension or offline apps. If your goal is to produce narration or dialogue, OndaLabs covers text to speech in 37 languages with dedicated pages, two-speaker dialogue, custom voices and speech to text. Speech to text costs 50 credits per minute.

The Free plan includes 2,000 credits a month, about 2 minutes, with the Onda Lite model. Commercial use starts on the Starter plan at $9 a month, which includes 170,000 credits, about 189 minutes. You can test text to speech in the app, or check the pricing page before you subscribe.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best alternative to Speechify?

It depends on the job. For listening to documents, ElevenReader, NaturalReader, Voice Dream and built-in readers in Edge and iPhone are the main options. For creating voiceovers, compare Speechify Studio, ElevenLabs, Murf, WellSaid and OndaLabs on commercial terms and credits.

Is there a free alternative to Speechify?

Yes. Edge Read Aloud and Apple Spoken Content are free and built in. ElevenReader has a free plan with 10 hours of text to audio a month, and NaturalReader has a free forever plan. Each free tier has limits, so check them before relying on one daily.

How much does Speechify cost?

Speechify Reader Premium costs $29 a month or about $139 a year when billed yearly, according to Speechify's pricing page. Speechify Studio costs $100 a year for Starter and $300 a year for Creator. The developer API is billed separately, starting at $10 a month.

What is the difference between Speechify Reader and Speechify Studio?

Speechify Reader is a listening app for documents and articles. Speechify Studio is a separate subscription for voiceovers and dubbing, and its paid plans include commercial rights. The two products have separate credits and separate pricing.

Can I use Speechify voices for commercial voiceovers?

Speechify Studio's paid plans include commercial usage rights, according to Speechify's Studio pricing page. The free Studio tier does not. Speechify's Reader pricing page does not address commercial use, so check the terms before publishing any audio from the reader apps.