A Text-to-Speech App Without a Subscription

Try every available voice for your first 8 hours of listening. Afterwards, keep a free English voice selection and unlimited book listening. No LoudReader account or word quota. The eight hours are cumulative listening time, not eight hours after you install the app. They are also not an eight-hour cap on book listening. After the allowance, supported devices keep Bella alongside your choice of Stella or Rio; older devices have the eligible lighter voice choice.

Ordinary book imports and whole-book listening remain unrestricted. Free playback runs at normal speed. Do not confuse those features with every optional workflow: article saving and bulk-import usage have their own limits, and additional controls are part of Premium.

Premium includes the full narrator selection available to your device, adjustable speed from 0.3× to 3.0×, a sleep timer, soundscapes and unlimited article saving. Voice Studio also has a trial creation allowance; Premium removes that creation quota. Notes and normal word highlighting are not Premium-only.

The lifetime option is a one-time Premium purchase. It is not ownership of the app's source code, a promise about future hardware support, or a purchase of the ebooks you import. The separate Loudkit framework is open-source developer software; it is a different product.

At the US storefront prices checked on 28 September 2026, Premium is US$7.99/month, US$49.99/year, or US$199.99 one-time (lifetime). Prices and available offers vary by storefront. The purchase sheet in the app gives the current price and terms for your account.

A subscription introductory offer, where available, is separate from the eight-hour voice allowance. Read what renews, when it renews and at what price. No LoudReader account is required, but App Store purchases use your Apple Account.

Use the billing option you would otherwise choose as the comparison. At those US prices, $199.99 is a little more than 25 payments of $7.99, or about four payments of $49.99. That arithmetic describes payments avoided; it does not predict how long you will use an app.

If the free voice selection already suits you, the cost of staying free is zero. If you are unsure about the Premium voices, file import or Mac compatibility, try those first. Paying once only helps when the product remains useful to you.

• Does “free” mean a permanent tier, a timed trial, or a monthly allowance?
• Which voices and languages remain available after the introductory period?
• Does the one-time purchase cover the features and devices you need?
• Are there separate charges or limits for characters, exports or other services?
• Can you restore the purchase using the same store account?

Compare the actual terms instead of assuming every competing app uses the same subscription model. For a broader route through the options, see our free-app guide. The LoudReader home page shows the reader itself so you can judge the workflow as well as the billing.