10 Best Audiobook Services
If you’re looking for a convenient way to fit more books into your busy life, audiobooks are a great option. You can listen to them on your way to work, relaxing on vacation, or doing boring chores around the house.
One of the best ways to get the most out of your listening experience is to subscribe to a service that gives you access to multiple books at once—and we’ve got you covered with the best audiobook subscription services—both paid and free—for your bibliophile needs.
In this guide, we’ll look at our favorite audiobook platforms and highlight the pros and cons of each. Grab your headphones and get ready to hear a good book.
Sound
While you may have concerns about Amazon , Audible’s parent company, there is no doubt that this audiobook service is one of the best. It has tons of titles—hundreds of thousands, in fact—that you can buy, rent, stream, and listen to offline using the official apps for Android , iOS , Windows , and Amazon devices (naturally). You can also play audiobooks through your Sonos speaker through the Audible or Sonos app.
Your progress in listening to an audiobook is saved wherever you listen to it: for example, on the Internet, in an app, or in the car. And this is good; you don’t want a service that makes it difficult to pick up where you left off.
Audible offers a free trial that gets you a 30-day membership and a free book. After that, the service will cost $15 per month per credit (good for one audiobook), but you’ll be able to keep all of your purchased books if you ever cancel your subscription. (You’ll also have unlimited access to select titles in the Audible catalog – called Audible Plus Listens – to stream or download, but only as long as you remain a paid member.) At the time of writing, Amazon is also offering 4 months priced at $5.95 per month for new listeners who sign up by December 31, 2023.
You don’t have to be an Audible member to buy audiobooks, but if you are, you’ll get 30 percent off any purchase. These books are available to listen to anytime, even offline, and the service integrates with your Amazon account so your discount will also show up when you view books on Amazon.
Depending on how much you read, Audible’s selection and credit system makes it very valuable. (No, you won’t get a special bonus discount when you buy a physical copy of the book and then buy the audiobook, but you’ll often save a bit if you buy the Kindle version of the book first and add it to an Audible track. – go figure.)
Sound Pros:
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Huge catalog of audiobooks, podcasts and original titles.
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The books will remain with you after the end of your subscription.
Voiced disadvantages:
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From your point of view, it’s part of Amazon.
Audiobooks.com
If you just can’t bring yourself to use Audible, Audiobooks.com has over 425,000 audiobooks for $15 a month. You can start with a 30-day free trial that includes three free books. Audiobooks.com creates listening lists and bonus books every month as part of its VIP Rewards program (free to all members). If you have multiple book lovers at home, there is a family plan that allows you to share books and each user can save their own bookmarks without interfering with others’ listening. The service has apps for iOS and Android , which have useful features such as offline listening and a sleep timer.
Pros of Audiobooks.com
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30-day free trial includes 3 books
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Family plan for multiple listeners
Cons of Audiobooks.com
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Access to VIP content ends upon cancellation
Audiobooks B&N
Barnes & Noble also has a service similar to Audible for the same price ($15 per month for 1 credit after a 30-day free trial) with access to more than 300,000 audiobooks. However, this service is not as flexible as similar alternatives as there is only one plan with no option to add credits, and credits expire 30 days after your subscription ends. Listen on the B&N Nook app on iOS or Android . The app also fetches other content purchased from B&N and syncs it across devices.
Pros of B&N audiobooks:
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The Nook app combines audiobooks with e-books and other digital content
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Discounts on the purchase of audiobooks with a subscription.
Cons of B&N audiobooks:
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Limited subscription options compared to other services
Libro.fm
If you want to support your local independent bookstore rather than a huge corporation, Libro.fm gives you access to over 150,000 titles for $15 a month, a portion of which goes to the bookstore of your choice. Choose from over 2,500 booksellers when you sign up and receive one credit (equal to one book) per month, plus 30% off select audiobook purchases with your membership. Libro.fm has apps for iOS and Android with features such as a sleep timer and automatic syncing of bookmarks and listening progress across devices.
Pros of Libro.fm
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Subscriptions support independent bookstores.
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Curated playlists and bookseller recommendations
Cons of Libro.fm
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No free trial (offered free book when signing up for membership instead)
Everand
Everand is an audiobook service from Scribd that still houses a wide variety of documents uploaded by the community, from lawsuits to research papers. The platform has audiobooks, eBooks, podcasts, magazines, and articles that you can view and stream, making the service a low monthly fee ($11.99 with an initial 30-day free trial that also includes access to Scribd) a relatively good deal.
Everand apps for iOS , Android , and Amazon devices make it easy to search, stream, and download audiobooks for offline listening. And the sleep timer automatically turns off your audiobook after a set amount of time (so you don’t stay up late before bed reading, well, listening to everything).
While Everand’s audiobook offerings aren’t as comprehensive as Audible’s, you get a wider selection of services for a lower monthly fee—ideal for those who also like to read their favorite monthly magazines after listening to a book or two on the way to work.
Everand’s advantages:
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Multiple content types included in monthly fee
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Helpful features like offline reading and sleep timer.
Cons of Everand:
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Monthly reading limits
Spotify
Spotify has been offering audiobooks available for purchase on its platform for about a year now, but the service recently introduced a feature that gives Premium users 15 hours of free listening per month with access to more than 200,000 titles. Once you reach this limit, you will be disconnected unless you purchase a book or top up your account for 10 hours (note that the hours do not carry over from month to month).
A Spotify Premium subscription costs $10.99 per month after a 1-month free trial ($14.99 per month and $16.99 per month for Duo and Family plans, respectively). With Duo and Family plans, only the primary subscriber can access audiobooks. If you’re already a Premium user, this is a nice extra feature, but it’s probably not worth subscribing if you just want to listen to books.
Spotify Pros:
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Listen to music, podcasts and audiobooks in one app.
Cons of Spotify:
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Limits on listening time, not per book
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Not available for Duo or Family plan members.
Libby
More than 45,000 libraries support OverDrive , a service that makes it easy and free to get audiobooks and e-books directly from your smartphone or tablet. All you need is your library card and a library in your area that supports the service. (Chances are good you’ll find at least one.) Libby is an Overdrive library reader app available for iOS , Android , and Amazon , as well as on the web .
The service is completely free if you have a library card for the library (or libraries) you want to use. Yes, your choices may vary from library to library, but the Overdrive website does a great job of showing you other places you can find a book you might want to read (or listen to).
You can read eBooks and listen to audiobooks offline, and pick up where you left off no matter how you listen to your content. Your location, bookmarks and notes are synced across your devices. Both the number of books you can borrow at one time and the period of borrowing are determined by your local library, and you may have to wait a while to get popular titles.
Pros of Libby:
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Free to use
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Offline access and device synchronization
Cons of Libby:
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The choice depends on your local library’s catalogue.
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Waitlists for popular games
hype
Like OverDrive, Hoopla allows you to pull different types of media from different libraries; the list of content includes audiobooks, e-books and music, as well as TV shows and movies. You confirm your library membership by entering the number on the back of your card (digital or physical) that gives you access to your library’s digital offerings.
You can view your content on the Hoopla website or through the app for iOS , Android and Amazon devices. As with Overdrive, you’re allowed to check out a certain amount of content at once across different media categories, but you can easily return the material back when you’re done listening/reading/viewing it (or when your “borrowing” period expires). , just like a real library!).
Hoopla is completely free, which is a great benefit, and its online eBook reader has all the settings you’re likely to want: font sizes, background colors, text margins, line height, etc. Its content is limited in that your library offers. , giving you an incentive to hop in the car and take a membership trip to a few local libraries the next time you have a free weekend.
Pros of Hupla:
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Free to use
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Multiple media categories including audiobooks and e-books.
Cons of hype:
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The choice is limited to your library’s catalog.
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Must be returned at the end of the loan term
This story originally appeared in March 2015 and was updated in June 2018 with additional reporting by David Murphy, Emily Long in May 2020 and again on November 11, 2023 to include the following: replaced screenshots, added and updated information about recommended services. .