Speechify

What is Speechify?

Speechify is a text-to-speech reader, available for use on desktop or mobile, that will read any text out loud in a natural-sounding voice. Speechify can take the text in any form and turn it into speech with help of high-quality AI voices.

You can use Speechify on most platforms with most document types. Android and iOS apps give mobile devices native access to the app, while desktops and laptops have access to a Chrome extension, Safari extension or web app. All of the platforms offer a comparable experience tailored to their devices.

Does Speechify have a free trial?

Yes! Speechify offers a 3-day free trial when you subscribe to their yearly plan.

Is there a free version of Speechify?

How much does Speechify cost?

Speechify has a pricing plan for all budgets. Speechify premium costs $139 annually. 

What is included with the free version vs. paid?

When you upgrade to Speechify’s premium account, as used in this review, you’ll gain many extra features that make accessing text in an audible format more convenient and valuable. 

Speechify’s premium account enables the option for multiple listening speeds, different languages and accents, an improved random access experience so that you can jump around the text, the photo-to-speech feature, highlighting and notetaking.

Speechify Review: What are the Main Features?

Speechify reads out text in one of many selectable voices. The app can access this text by importing documents such as PDFs and Google Doc files or photographing a page (or multiple pages) of text. The app performs the conversion without the user intervening or guiding it.

You might expect a protected store like the Kindle Store wouldn’t be accessible to Speechify, but it is. You can link your Kindle account to Speechify, and it will then be able to read your Kindle books—it even comes with a few public domain classics as standard.

There are many reasons why anyone might want to turn text into speech, and this app makes doing so easy.

Special Educational Needs - anyone with difficulty in taking meaning from text or who has dyslexia will appreciate Speechify’s features.

Convenience - Turning a document into speech lets you access it while doing something else, such as walking, doing housework, or engaging in a hobby.

Improved experience - Some people suffer travel sickness if reading while on a bus or train. Speechify lets them still use the time for productive learning.

A feature-limited free account lets you use Speechify’s core functionality. This review of Speechify used the premium version of the service across different devices and platforms.

What we love about Speechify

You might expect the computer-read speech to sound stilted and robotic if you have not used it in a while. Improvements in technology and artificial intelligence have allowed computer speech to become much more natural.

It might not match a human’s intonation perfectly all the time, but the alien-sounding distraction of old-fashioned speech synthesis is gone. In its place is a selection of human-like voices, which you can switch between until you find one you enjoy hearing.

In the free version, you have the choice of ten voices, but the premium option increases your options substantially. The premium English Narrator voice was impressive for its warm and natural sound, although US-based listeners might prefer Gwyneth Paltrow’s premium voice.

While a little dependent on the source file’s structure, the conversion process does a great job of keeping the text in a format close to the original. Crucially, for learners, this includes pictures and diagrams appearing in the proper place.

As learners follow along with the reading, they’ll be able to see any corresponding images called out in the text.

What skills does it teach?

Speechify is a tool that helps its users access text on any subject. Students and teachers of any subject could find a use for this app, and anyone who thinks the ability to listen to printed text would be helpful should also look at the app.

What age is it appropriate for?

There is no inappropriate content in Speechify, as the user provides this. If a child can understand how to use the app, they can use it to access their texts.

Is Speechify easy to use?

Speechify has a well-made introductory experience that sets the app up for you in response to a few questions about how you expect to use the app.  

Once you start to import files, texts, books and other documents, you could end up with a full library in Speechify. Fortunately, Speechify has useful filtering and sorting tools to help you find the texts you need.

How will students benefit?

Learning takes up a lot of time, so being able to complete studies in different places can be very beneficial to students. Hearing their notes or class texts when they need to use their eyes for navigation or are not in an environment conducive to reading lets learners multitask and put aside other time for relaxation and entertainment.

Further time savings can be had by using what the app terms speed listening. This feature lets listeners choose the words per minute that the app reads. The ideal speed between comprehension and time saving will likely differ for each user, but the app lets you set it on a sliding scale.

Reading skills can also hold kids back in subjects they would otherwise excel at. Kids with a keen scientific mind or mathematical interest but held back by reading difficulties can access learning material better. The result will be that when their reading improves, they will not have fallen behind in other subjects.

How will parents benefit?

When parents see their kids struggling with reading, they want a long-term solution to overcome the problem and a short-term fix so that their kids’ education is not harmed in the meantime.

Speechify provides immediate help to let kids access the educational material they need. It may also contribute to long-term improvement because it prevents students’ confidence from being damaged. Reading skills can improve while kids delve into other subjects using Speechify, and as they use the word highlighting feature, they’ll be building their word recognition skills.

In addition, parents may also find Speechify saves them some time on their reading for work—time they can invest in helping their kids.

How will teachers benefit?

Helping kids who struggle with reading can be difficult for teachers in a classroom. The difficulty is especially pronounced when the lesson is not related to reading, as teachers often need to support multiple individuals as they learn the subject, including those who don’t have reading difficulties.

Offering kids the choice of using Speechify will mean that teachers can focus on helping students with the lesson’s topic rather than neglecting this while helping some students access the text.

Speechify supports the popular cloud storage services, which makes distributing and accessing documents to be read easy.

Good to know

We can’t expect any app to exceed the current level of technology. The AI behind Speechify does a fantastic job of putting pauses and inflections in the right place, especially with the premium voices, but it isn’t always perfect.

The text reader does not have a human insight into any document’s purpose or meaning, so we can’t expect it to adjust to the mood of the piece or add what a talented human narrator might.

This is not a criticism of the app; it remains easy to listen to and still offers many benefits to its users. However, do approach it with realistic expectations. 

For documents and academic texts, this limitation will be barely noticeable. It does respect the pacing indicated by different punctuation marks, which is a big part of keeping spoken text understandable. 

Parents should ensure that Speechify is not used to replace reading or reduce kids’ efforts towards improving their literacy. The app is invaluable for those who genuinely need it and offers increased convenience and flexibility for others, but reading remains a crucial skill.

Is Speechify safe to use?

Speechify’s content is in the user’s hands. To remain within the app’s privacy policy terms, kids under 18 may only use Speechify within an account created by the parent or guardian. 

If you wish to have your Kindle Library accessible by the app, you will have to enter your Kindle account details within the app. 

What can Speechify improve on?

The onboarding experience of Speechify is good but could be improved by extending the reading-aloud functionality to the options. The app now reads out the questions, such as “what do you want to read using Speechify ?” but not the various options the user can select. 

As a user may be employing Speechify because they struggle with reading, stopping short of reading the response could cause them difficulties.

Increasing the app’s awareness of the context would help make texts with dates a little easier to hear. For example, the year 1905 would be read as “0ne thousand nine hundred five”. An option to detect dates, such as if the number is next to a month or follows the preposition ‘in’ and then read it as the more conventional, ‘nineteen hundred and five’, would improve the naturalness of the narration.

It is always frustrating when searching for answers on an app’s support pages only to find that the page you need is a broken link. This was the case with Speechify’s pricing page.

Bottomline

You might think that a text-to-speech reader is only for people who find reading difficult, but this is not true. Speechify is undoubtedly a boon for anyone with vision problems, dyslexia, or anyone who struggles to extract meaning from the written word. It is a great tool for teachers to have to hand in their classroom.

However, anyone can benefit from the option of being able to hear their texts. Multitasking becomes possible, and sometimes you might want to carry on reading but rest your eyes, especially from screens. 

Speechify is easy to use, very flexible, effective, and suitable for anyone, which is why we’ve awarded it five stars. If unsure, try its free options and see how it fits into your life. 

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