What Is A Text-To-Speech App?

Text-to-speech apps are also known as “read aloud apps.” They work based on an assistive technology that converts plain text into audio format. Basically, a computer-generated voice is produced as audio from the text for simple understanding.

Recent Developments In TTS Apps

Over the last decade, Text-to-Speech applications have been under development. The application’s constant improvement is being made with artificial intelligence and machine learning advancements.

Current developments in TTS apps allow us to customize the speed, pronunciation, and pitch of the voice being produced. And most importantly, to make the voice sound natural and human-like in nature.

Best Text-to-Speech Apps In 2022

Converting simple texts into audio has never been easier before. Whether for personal use or business needs, a suitable text-to-speech app can make your life much more convenient and save you some serious bucks.

We have gone through the trouble of finding out the best TTS tools out there in the market and have curated the extensive list of such best ones in this article

Animaker Voice

Animaker Voice is a DIY online text-to-speech app that allows you to create human-like voices from the text instantly without much hassle. You can simply create a free account with Animaker Voice and start making your voice overs right away. Animaker Voice comes loaded with about 200+ human-like voices in 50 global languages.

The Animaker Voice app includes a voice setting which allows you to change the speed of the pronunciation, alter the pitch of the voice, and you can even introduce pauses in between words and add breathing effects to the voices. And to top it off, the Auto-enhance feature of the app automatically fine tunes the voice with a simple toggle button. In a simple three step process, you can create ultra realistic voiceovers.

Key Features:

• More than 50 global languages and 200 different voices available to choose from
• Free plan only gives access to almost all the features within the app to create a perfect voice over from text
• Auto-enhance feature to make the voice sound ultra-realistic
• 5 free voice downloads per month
• Share option to collaborate with team members

Pricing:

Animaker Voice comes in three plans. Under the yearly subscription,

• Free plan – $0 with five voice downloads per month
• Voice Pro – $19 per month with 100 voice downloads per month
• Animaker Pro – $49 per month with everything included in Voice Pro plus the full animation suite
• Enterprise – Custom pricing available depending on the team size and organization’s requirements. One thousand voice downloads per month, including everything in Animaker Pro and access to unlimited resources.

The pricing varies under the monthly subscription – Voice Pro at $35 and Animaker Pro at $79 when billed monthly, but the rest of the features included remain the same as the yearly subscription.

NaturalReader

NaturalReader Commercial is a voiceover software that helps you convert text to speech quickly and download them as audio files. They use synthesized AI voices to bring you the highest quality natural-sounding voices available in the market today. Studio editor option allows you to customize your voices and the Pronunciation editor helps to further fine tune your voices by pre-configuring how certain words should be pronounced. The languages available within the app covers almost all the major global languages. 

Key Features:

• 176 voices from 27 different languages
• Studio Editor to customize your voice
• Pronunciation Editor to improve the pronunciation of a given word or phrase.
• SSML tags available

Pricing:

Pricing of the NaturalReader Commericial lies on the expensive side compared to the market standards. The commercial subscriptions available under the monthly subscription are,

• Free Plan – $0 per month with 0 zero downloads available
• Single plan – $99 per month 
• Team Plan – $204 per month for four members

The yearly subscriptions for the Single Plan starts at $49 and Team Plan starts at $79 (for a four-member team).

Murf.ai

Murf is an AI text to speech platform where users can generate synthetic speech from text and add it to their videos and presentations. AI voice synthesis technology is used to create realistic voice overs for various purposes, including e-learning, business presentations, gaming, and more. Murf provides a wide range of 100% natural-sounding AI voices in 20 languages for professional voice over projects and presentations. Most languages have voices accessible for quality testing, even in the free plan. In addition, some languages, such as English, Spanish, and Portuguese, accommodate various accents.

Key Features:

• A total of 120 voice overs in 19 languages
• Murf Studio helps to add voice to videos or presentations
• Grammar assistant helps to write immaculate scripts for your voice overs
• Punctuation checker is also available
• Inbuilt royalty-free audio tracks for your projects

Pricing:

Murf.ai is available with a free plan and three paid pricing plans. Under the yearly subscription, 

• Basic – $13 per month with 10 mins of voice generation and 10 mins of transcription. However, you have no downloads in the free plan.
• Pro – $26 per month supports 3 users with 96 hours of voice generation/year and 48 hours of transcription/year.
• Enterprise – $83 onwards per month with Commercial Usage rights and Priority Support.

Wideo

Wideo comes as a video creation suite, and along with it is the text-to-speech tool. It traditionally a video-making app known for creating promotional films, explainer videos, demo videos, and presentations. Wideo also provides a text-to-speech tool that uses the Google text-to-speech API. Wideo’s Text to Speech Software (TTS) is a quick and straightforward approach to converting text to audio to make your message more memorable and inclusive to the audience. Wideo TTS offers to convert 2000 characters per day under the free version only. 

Key Features:

• Offers more than 40 global languages
• You can customize the pronunciation speed of the text
• User-friendly interface
• Pro plan is economical compared to the market standards
• Free user plan is available

Pricing:

• Basic plan –  $59 per month
• Pro plan – $99 per month
• Pro+ plan – $199 per month. Unlimited characters limit is included in these two plans for the text to speech conversion. 

Play.ht

Play.ht is an Al voice synthesis software. With Play.ht you can instantly convert text into natural-sounding speech and download them as audio files in MP3 and WAV formats. The app allows you to quickly pick the correct voice from an extensive library of 570 Al voices in 60+ languages and generate natural-sounding voices in no time. Play.ht voice over software gives the users basically two options, 1. Create audio from text 2. Source from an article URL. You can enter the text or fetch content from a URL, convert it to audio, and download it as MP3 or WAV files. 

Key Features:

• Offers 570+ AI Voices and 60+ Languages
• Includes a WordPress Plugin
• Medium extension –  easily add audio to your Medium stories by installing and using the available Medium Chrome Extension. 
• Api access incorporate text-to-speech conversions into your softwares
• Podcast Hosting –  you can get the RSS feed of the created audio files and distribute them to powerful podcasting platforms such as iTunes and Spotify.

Pricing:

Play.ht offers four paid plans to the users under the yearly subscription

• Personal– $14.25 per month –  apt for school projects and proofreading content. The commercial rights for reuse and podcast hosting is also not included.

• Professional – $29.25 per month – Premium voices are the key added advantage in this plan.

• Growth– $74.25 per month – you get a pronunciation library and an automatic audio creation feature along with it.

• Business – $149.25 per month – priority technical support is offered. Teams’ access to the project for possible collaboration is also included.

Speechelo 

Speechelo is a modern text-to-speech app to create breathtaking human sounding voiceovers. The key selling point is that with only 3 clicks you can create the voiceover without any hassle.

Speechelo guarantees that no one will be able to identify that the voiceovers are A.I. generated, as they sound so realistic. If you create a voice-over using Speechelo and you can tell it’s not a HUMAN speaking, you can claim for a refund of all your money and let you keep all the voiceovers that you had created. All the voices have elements that make a voice sound real and have all the expressions to sound professional and to make people engaged with the content at the same time. 

Key Features:

• 23 Global Languages (Arabic, Mandarin, Danish, Dutch, English, French,German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Welsh)
• 30 human-sounding voices
• 3 ways to read the text – normal tone, joyful tone, serious tone
• One Text Editor – A.I. the engine will check your text and will add all the punctuation marks needed to make the speech sound natural.
• Possible to add inflections to the voices
• Lifetime app updates and support included.

Pricing:

Unlike the previous TTS apps, there is no monthly subscription fee for Speechelo. Presently it’s only a one time investment of $47 (founders special offer) for full access to the app.Once the launch special ends,  Speechelo will only be offered for $100 one time and $67 a month. Also, they provide a 60 days risk free money back guarantee as well. 

Listnr.tech

Listnr tech is a speech synthesis tool to create amazing audio experiences. You can create realistic AI voiceovers within seconds. It’s trusted by over 15,000+ users around the world. Generating high quality text to speech voices from some of the best cloud providers in the world like Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft has become easier with Listnr 2.0. You create and export your high-quality AI audio in less than a minute by simply entering the text, clicking on convert, and downloading the voice as an audio file. Also, Listnr allows you to embed your audio anywhere using audio player widgets. 

Key Features:

• 570+ Voices in over 75+ Languages
• Canva Integration (Design your Podcast Cover Art in Canva without leaving Listnr
• Podcast Hosting
• RSS Feed and Podcast Distribution
• Unlimited Audio Conversions
• Embeddable Audio Player
• Podcast and Audio Share Page

Pricing:

Listnr comes in three plans – 

• Solo at $15 per month – 30,000 words/month, unlimited audio embeddings and 50GB Storage
• Startup at 30$ per month – suitable for startups with 100,000 words/month, Unlimited Audio embeddings and 100GB Storage.
• Agency at $75 per month with 300,000 words/month, Unlimited Audio Embeddings, access to all 570+ voices. 

There’s also an option to start for free for up to 500 word conversions per month after that it costs $15/month for the Solo plan and $30/month and $75/month for other subsequent plans.

Final Two Cents

The above-listed text-to-speech tools are the best ones in the market currently. Each one has its own pros and cons. It narrows down to your use-case and budget in hand to pick one from them. Check them out and suggest any other good TTS tools that neatly got your work done.