Our take on the situation at Ukraine.
“As a global company since day 1, Speechify is deeply saddened by the events unfolding in Ukraine right now. Several of our team members call Ukraine home and we’re doing all we can to support them throughout this situation. Speechify is providing financial support to ensure they and their families have a safe place to go, and the resources they need to survive there. We’re in close contact with them daily and will be responding to any additional needs as they arise.We stand with the people of Ukraine and send love, strength, and courage to all Ukranians everywhere.”
Speechify is a text to speech (tts) screen reader that can read any text, PDF, document, book, email, file, or article online out loud on your phone.
Choose from over 30 different AI-engineered voices and 20 different languages including popular languages such as Spanish, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Portuguese.
How does it work?
Use Speechify to scan any printed text on a page or in a book, upload any PDF, or copy and paste any text from anywhere on your phone. Then sit back and listen as your chosen AI narrator reads the information out loud to you.
Speechify is an intelligent text to speech audio reader that turns your reading material into interactive audiobooks so that you can save time, retain more information, and stay focused. It’s like having your own personal reading assistant and narrator right in your pocket. Speechify can read books, documents, and articles — while you cook, work out, commute, or any other activity you can think of.
📚Reading is hard 🎧 Listening is easy
⭐Get the #1 text to speech AI reading assistant ⭐
Perfect for school, work, and casual reading
Listen to Gmail, Google Docs, Wikipedia, blogs, news articles, online courses, PDFs, textbooks, novels, + more. Speechify is your ideal tts and screen reader
LISTENING WITH SPEECHIFY HELPS YOU
SAVE MORE TIME
Get through more reading in less time. Listening to text can be 2-3x faster than reading it.
DO MORE AT ONCE
Listen on your commute, at the gym, or while you do the dishes.
LEARN + REMEMBER MORE
Listen and take notes for deeper learning. Understand and retain more of what you’ve heard.
✨ FEATURES ✨
SCAN BOOKS + TEXT
Use your camera to scan any physical text and listen to it right away. Or save scanned pages to your Speechify library and listen to it later.
HUMAN-LIKE READING VOICES
Listen to the most natural sounding voices available in speech-to-text AI technology. Better listening voices make it easy to stay focused and connected to what you’re hearing.
FASTER SPEEDS + MORE LANGUAGE SUPPORT
Customize your Speechify experience. Listen at up to 9x the average reading speed and in over 20 different languages.
A WORD FROM OUR FOUNDER
We created Speechify so that reading is never a barrier for anyone again. Designed to help people with dyslexia, ADHD, Low vision acuity, concussions, and other reading disabilities, Speechify helps hundreds of thousands of people to consume their reading content with ease.
From those with reading disabilities to auditory learners, productivity fanatics, second language learners, hobbyists, and more, we love all of our users and strive every day to create a reading assistant that empowers them to read more and succeed in life.
We can’t wait for you to join the family 🙂
Happy listening & much love from
Cliff Weitzman and the Speechify Team
Privacy Policy: https://speechify.com/privacy/
Terms of Service: https://speechify.com/terms/
The speech technology is fairly human-like but the app itself is quite frustrating to use. It constantly stops or buffers for no reason. Sometimes it alternates between voices. It cannot always remember where it last left off. It also randomly erased all of my edits that took weeks to incorporate into the text in the app. The ability to add longer speech breaks would be useful. While I think the technology is cool the app is just too buggy.
Does not work! App keeps crashing and when it does work it reads for a few minutes and stops. And you 100% cannot use anything more than 5k words, it won’t even be able to make the audio, it will just continually crash. Fiddled with it for over an hour and it was such a waste of time. Don’t bother, even for a free app this would be shite much less for how damn expensive it is
My favorite reading app, and I really enjoy some of the premium voices. But I think I’m staying away from getting premium because the app has a tendency to crash while reading…like A Lot! I mean at first I thought it was the premium voices. Those tend to crash and then do this weird thing like it deleted your book but it’s still there. Give it time or switch to the free voices and it’s all good. I got more issues, but I can’t fit it in here.
In my experience, the app seems really buggy. It repeated parts unexpectedly, automatically scrolled the text such that the part being read was off-screen, and stopped playing with some loss of progress and a long buffering period when not in the foreground. In addition, there is a limited number of “premium voice” words, after which you’re stuck with some pretty bad voices. Overall, I can’t recommend this app for the use case of narrating books.
Its a mixed bag, I like the tech but the free version is just designed to annoy you and they only let you pay annually. For instance the free version locks you at “1.0 or 200 words per minute”. the problem being, that it adjusts how fast the narrator speaks words and also adjusts how fast it moves to the next sentence. So not only does it sound like the bot is in slow motion, there are .5 to 1.5 seconds breaks between the sentences depending on how many words have been spoken.
Developer/s please work on this app and fix the bugs. I paid for a year subscription. When it works it’s great, but when it doesn’t it’s just buffering and literally never reads. Lately I haven’t been able to listen to anything, but when I do it just stops reading randomly, like after 10 minutes or sometimes after a few sentences…. I like this app and don’t want to give up on it but it’s been pretty frustrating lately. …
It’s honestly extremely helpful using the free version when it comes to doing assignments at college while doing other tasks. I do find it annoying though every once in a while it will give you randomly a free auto trial of the paid for version and attempt to ring up at the end very persistently. I will admit that the paid for version from the random annoying experiences is more effective when it doesn’t auto speed up a little to much.
I’ve used it for a while. At first it was OK and I like that you can have multiple documents saved to listen to. But with every update it gets worse, more crashing, the voice has slowed to a frustratingly slow pace for the free version, etc. I’m also not willing to pay for such a basic, unpredictable app.
Solid app. Expensive for the amount of bugs. I like the voice options. And solid interface to get what I want read. However, most of what I listen to is pasted web links – NY times isn’t seamless. This sucks I find myself restarting the app about 30% of the time because my links won’t load until restarted. For the 70 or 80 bucks this cost… fix it.
My only complaints are the amount times the app crashes or needs to buffer (with wifi or 4g doesn’t seem to matter) and when I paste a link the app messes up the arrangement of text that causes awkward gaps in speach. I use it for hours almost every day though and I was extremely excited this exists I can’t wait to see how much better it gets with time. Lastly the amount of different voices you can use is amazing. I’m partial to Harry. 🙂
This is a ripoff! Though the list of wpm and text scanner is great, it doesn’t have an offline/audio downloader. With no subscription you only get 3 basic voices, but after testing, even the premium voices sound unrealistic. All that for 6 dollars a month? You should try Narrator Voice by Esohla, it has over 100 voices all for free, some of which sound ungodly realistic like the ‘Justin’ voice (speaking as someone who uses the latter app for yt videos, and wanted to see if anything could top it)
Before updating on 11/10 app works relatively well, no serious issues aside from buffering when restarting a file. Since updating, I have had to deal with repeated crashing and long buffering times. I’ve forced stop and cleared the cash to get it to start over and the issue is not resolved. Uninstall and reinstall. Didn’t see significant changes either.
The app works well when it reads the pdfs correctly. Trying this app out on my programming textbook. Is very helpful, however it sometimes recognizes large portions of the text as footnoted and skips over it. Sometimes reads page numbers. Have only tried pdfs as all my textbooks are in this format. I have the three day trial, may hold off on the subscriptions until a few more bugs are worked out.
I’ve had the premium version of Speechify for about 6months. When it works its great. But so many web pages don’t work with the Chrome extension and it really stuggles with PDFs. Microsoft edge has a free extension called Read Out Loud which works can read all the files Speechify can’t. So I would recommend using that rather than paying for this which rarely works.
DON’T GET THIS APP! It’s super expensive and NOT worth the money! I got this to help me with my ADD and teaching. This app would never scan my book right and would read only sections of the scan it had taken. This, only after having to email somebody to complain that my phone kept crashing whenever I would open the app. They also renewed my subscription without letting me know that they would, and now I can’t get them to reach back out to me so I can get my money back. STAY AWAY! Half star!
This app is awesome! Love Olivia/Isla-Ausie voice. The app crashes alot while running at 2.5x+ speeds, so it gets 4 stars + it causes phone to get super hott. 150k HD words is not enough! Went through it in 6 days! However their support is great and helped with that! Hopefully they’ll unlock unlimited HD words soon! It runs better on PC w/ their Chrome extension app. I wish it can pull directly from google docs instead of copy pasting the link every time I made a doc. Happy I found the app 🙂
I loved this app I was easily able to copy urls for stories and long news articles to listen to while I work. After last update app crashes constantly, takes a long pauses to continue to next sentance or paragraph if it continues at all without me closing and reopening the app, will not continue audio if I lock my screen and has trouble loading in new urls. Will check back after next update with fingers crossed it works again.
I gave two stars because when the app actually works correctly, it’s great. But it doesn’t work correctly most of the time. I have ADHD, so reading comprehension is challenging for me. I was really excited to use this app to help me read textbooks more easily. But it’s so glitchy, the app crashes constantly, it takes FOREVER to upload a PDF, not matter what device or connection I’m using. It reads elements of pages completely out of order. There are a host of other issues too.
A great concept that still requires lots of improvement to run smoothly. I’m using it to listen to a textbook on MacBook. The first few pages went great, but then speechify really started to struggle. I thought maybe it’s the voice I chose, so tried a couple different ones, didn’t help. The scroll and highlight features were also glitching, going to random pages and the voice seems like it’s buffering. I am on the premium plan, but this app struggles more then I do when reading.
Edited- they have fixed the issues i was having for a few weeks. Pretty quick issue resolution so i am very happy with it again. Great for long work documents or fanfic. Previous review: Having issues with paid premium features- it keeps telling me to upgrade to increase the speed despite being already logged into an account that is definitely paid for. Frustrating
This app is great for many things. It’s great for reading, memorization and productivity. I do however notice that there is a bit of an issue with rendering text from the copy paste function. Sometimes I copy my notes over and they have bullet points, but all of the bullet points end up on one line and all of the spacing that was in my notes ends up as one giant paragraph. It then gets read in a very jumbled up manner. I would like to see this fixed. Great app overall.
It would be super helpful if you figured out the bugs before releasing a new feature… Listening to a text and suddenly realizing it’s reading the previous page after reading half of the current page is more of a headache than it’s worth. I’d rather put up with robot voices on an app that isn’t so buggy it increases my study time. Also the claim of “read any web page” is a joke. With premium paid for a year it still can’t read any of my online textbooks after 3 semesters of use.
the app has so much potential. I use it quite frequently but I find that it crashes alot. and when you try to copy a whole book into a new file even going chapter by chapter you have to save and then scroll for ages to add the next chapter because if you copy the whole book at once and paste it the file crashes and you have to redo it all. it’s a huge pain. But it does the job 90% of the time.
Love it but it’s frustrating. I have been enjoying it to listen to my favorite Web/Light Novels or articles. By pasting the web link or compiling all the chapters in a volume to a word document then adding to my list for hours of listening time. I can switch devices between on pc or mobile. Recently the app will randomly crashes on mobile and not remembering my subscription. Update: With the recent updates, majority of issues are gone but crashes once an hour. It remembers my subscription.
When it comes to articles or text books, this app is complete trash!! I didn’t even make it passed the first day of the trial before deciding this. I tried loading an article via pdf and the app wouldn’t read it then i went took pictures of the entire article and even cropped the photos and it jumbled up the paragraphs. i had to constantly go back to the book and physically read the book to figure out where i was at. Never using and the only recommendation this app gets is don’t waste your time
sometimes it doesn’t integrate properly. and the voice is read a little faster than I prefer. but all in all I would still purchase this app again it’s helped me immensely in college. that way I’m not spending hours upon hours reading and rereading subject matters. I tend to learn by doing things and learn better when things are explained or read too me audibly.
I really want to love this app. I really do. However, I got this app, so I could scan pages in from my grad school textbooks. With the normal textbooks, it reads the paragraphs all out of order. I tried my other book, which is set up like a normal book. It somehow keeps mixing up sentences. It will start a sentence, then jump down to the next one, then go back to the previous sentence. It’s very confusing. I only had a 3 day trial, so I thought I’d love it, but it’s really disappointing me.
Do not pay for this service. Can say nothing of the desktop version, but this is far too expensive a service to not work well on all platforms. App did not load all pages of imported file. App likes to start on texts that I was not last reading from. App amazingly stopped working decently about a week after you’re not able to get your money back, list goes on. List goes on. Save your money and just figure out another way, wish I could get my money back tbh. Would not recommend.
Please do not buy this app if you are trying to read textbooks for school or learning. This app is unable to understand pauses in textbooks that may not be in normal books, (especially line breaks in new chapters, and each chapter section). It sounds like a giant run on sentence. They charged me 135 for a year automatically after a 3 day trial, and I spent a month trying to fix it. I will not be using this app, and “support” is not helpful at all.
It is the best app I have ever used for dyslexia. I wish it would be more helpful offline is it is online and more easier for its audience especially when it is using it for spouses couples or single especially when we’re trying to learn how dyslexia works I wish they could make it more teaching us on our abilities on dyslexia sometimes I get lost in the oven I’m thankful to love it. I wish you would just be easier sometimes to organize stuff label stuff and make the app very personal to you.🤔
I literally wouldn’t be getting through college without this. Anyone who’s ADHD and also cries trying to force yourself to read a textbook absolutely needs this. I am very grateful for the different voices because the default ones are a bit hard for me to listen to (for sensory reasons). Something that would normally take me a week to read I just finished in 20 minutes. I seriously can not reccomend this enough for anyone who is neurodivergent. Worth every penny for the subscription.
The best text to speech app for book lovers like me, but its too expensive for a yearly subscription. I hope the app will have a monthly subscription so that its not too heavy in the pocket and a cheaper alternative for people who can’t afford the yearly subscription but really needs the app. Definetly worth a 5 star if that happens.
Great app if you have dyslexia or ADHD. I started using this and It really helped me. When I have dense reading and alot of it I really Struggle with paying attention and remembering what I read. The highlighted parts you can click through which is also VERY helpful. Overall recommend. They have great costumer support. The only thing that was a bummer was uploading certain documents. I would have to upload each page at a time but overall about 90% of docs I uploaded were easy and fast
Ok but not great. I have been using speechify now for several months and can see they are working on making improvements on the browser platform so decided to try the mobile app again because when I first tried it things were so bad I just removed it from my phone. I have a full account but the app doesn’t care to ask, rather it runs you through around a 2-3 minute forced introduction. This really needs removed! At the very least only do this for people creating an account through the mobile app
Too buggy for the money. The scan feature turns text into gibberish, even with good lighting and the phone on a tripod. Trying to read a web page, it often tells you there is no recognizable text when there is lots. Other times it changes voices on its own to one that’s really annoying. To top it off, after spending $139, you will get a message saying: “Certain voices are costly to provide, so they are capped at 450k words per month.” I’m certain I didn’t use that much.
terrible, I thought it would make this process faster and easier, nope. The scanning is stupid because you have to sit there for like thrity minutes just trying to get the cropping thing to work, and you think that you have to put your phone so far back to get all of the page into the screen, but nope, it just makes it look like that… then when the pictures actually shows up, its way zoomed out with tiny letters
It works, it does. The fact it just keeps moving on its own, repeats words, or just outright no longer lets you edit. I could look over many things but after that last one, I was done, I write and listen to it back to hear flaws. Can’t do that if I can’t edit.. thanks for everything before now, it was a great app.
Works great on the desktop. App still needs work. Readers cannot process hyphenated word properly and indented work leads to awkward pauses in the middle of sentences. Also, I found that words at the end of a line were often cut off. This led to having to follow along with the reader. Having someone read to me was rather helpful though. just disappointed given the price of the subscription.
Tried this out a couple of times. It’s a good idea but not very considerate of customers to only offer a yearly subscription option. I don’t have a need for a full year subscription as I use it only during school. A monthly option would be very easy and might even get you more customers but $70 upfront for basically 6 months that I would be using it, it’s a waste. I’ll be going with the more expensive option because at least they offer a monthly subscription.
Poor stability – crashes more than any app I’ve ever used. Constantly trying to buffer due to the apps inability to download the document or connect to the server. App doesn’t remember your last spot after crashing. Website is fine, but the app is horrible. I considered purchasing the program but with such poor stability and subpar performance the cost isn’t even close to worth it.