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Text to speech

How to choose a text-to-speech app: what to look for

Read-aloud apps look alike from the outside, but they're built in two different ways, and that changes what you pay, what you need an account for and where your text goes. Here's what to look for, so you can choose with clear eyes.

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Two ways to make a voice

Many text-to-speech apps generate their audio on their servers. That's how they can offer big catalogs of voices and languages and keep your library in sync across your phone, your browser and your computer through an account. The cost of those servers usually shows up as credits, word limits or a subscription.

Other apps run the voice model on the phone itself. The catalog is smaller, but there's nothing to count: no account, no credits, and your text never leaves the device.

What to look for

  • Account and sync. Do you need one library across several devices, or just your phone?
  • Credits and word limits. Is listening capped on the free plan, or only some features?
  • Offline. Can you listen on a plane or in the subway?
  • Where your text goes. Is it sent to a server, or does it stay on your phone?
  • Voices and languages. Do you need many languages, or a good voice in the ones you read?
  • Listening tools. A queue, playlists, lock screen controls, a sleep timer and remembering where you stopped.

When a cloud service fits better

  • You read on several devices and want one library synced between your computer and your phone.
  • You need many languages or a specific voice from a big catalog.
  • You live in the browser and want an extension.

When Leola fits

Leola is a text-to-speech app for iPhone and Android, built like a music player. The voice model runs on the phone itself:

  • No cloud, no account, no credits. Your text never leaves your iPhone.
  • No word limits, on the free plan too.
  • Works in airplane mode once the voice model has been downloaded.
  • A queue and playlists, lock screen controls, a sleep timer, and it remembers the sentence where you stopped in every document.

The other side: Leola has fewer voices than a big cloud catalog, and for now it reads English, Spanish and Portuguese (Brazil). The voice is machine-generated, and it sounds like one at times. We explain why on-device voices need no credits in text to speech with no credits.

How to start listening in Leola

  1. 1

    Gather the files you listen to most

    Put the PDFs and documents you care about in the Files app on your iPhone.

  2. 2

    Import or paste them

    In Leola, tap Add › Import a PDF (Leola Plus) or paste the text. Leola skips page numbers and footnotes: see how to read a PDF aloud on iPhone.

  3. 3

    Share articles from Safari

    Open an article, tap Share, then Leola. The text is saved in your library, ready to play.

  4. 4

    Line them up

    Add them to the queue or a playlist, like songs, and press play.

Try a voice that runs on your phone

Download Leola free for iPhone or Android.

Download on theApp StoreGET IT ONGoogle Play

Questions

Is Leola free?

Listening is free, with no credits and no word limits: one voice per language, articles, pasted text and notes. Leola Plus adds PDFs, audio downloads and every voice, and it has a free trial.

Does Leola work on a Mac or in Chrome?

No: Leola is a phone app, not a browser extension or a computer app. If you need one library across a computer and a phone, a cloud service fits that need.

Is Leola's voice AI?

Yes: a neural text-to-speech model (Supertonic 3, by Supertone) that runs on your iPhone. That's why there are no AI token costs.

Can I import my library from another app?

No. Add documents one at a time by importing a PDF, pasting text or sharing from Safari.