Trial length, whether you need a card, what you actually get, whether you can download the audio, and what happens on the last day. Twelve text to speech tools that are live in 2026, side by side.
Want longer text, more voices, or PDF support? Open the main FreeTTS tool or try PDF to Audiobook.
Read from each provider's pricing page, help centre or terms on September 14, 2026.
2,000 chars/day with no account, 15,000/month free account, 50,000 on the trial
Trial becomes PRO $19/mo unless cancelled
Premium features; free plan keeps 10 voices up to 1.5x
Converts to paid, $29/mo monthly
20 min of generation, then 5 min/month on Free
Drops to the Free plan
Premium voices 20 min/day (personal); 10,000 chars/day sampling (commercial)
Premium from $20.90/mo
10,000 credits/month
Starter $6/mo for 30,000 credits
10 min of voice generation, 2 projects
Paid from $19/mo
3 download minutes/month
Starter $19/mo ($10/mo yearly)
60 media min/month, 100 AI credits one time
Hobbyist $16/mo
Up to 1,000 characters per file, all voices, MP3 or WAV
$6 for 30 min, credits never expire
1M Neural chars/month for 12 months, 5M Standard; up to $200 credits for new accounts
Pay per character
4M Standard, 1M WaveNet chars/month
Pay per character
0.5M neural chars/month
Pay per character
Trial terms change often. Every figure links to its source below; if one is out of date, tell us.
Ordered by how much a typical person can get done before the trial or free allowance runs out.
Best for: a trial you can walk away from with real files.
This is our site, so weigh that. The case for it on a trial page is simple: you do not need the trial to judge the voices. The free plan works with no account (2,000 characters a day) and a free account raises that to 5,000 a day and 15,000 a month, with MP3 downloads. When you want the HD voices and longer files, the 3-day PRO trial gives you 50,000 characters with no audio tag. It asks for a card because it turns into PRO at $19 a month; cancel before day 3 and you pay nothing.
Best for: listening to documents on your phone.
Speechify's 3-day Premium trial unlocks its full voice set and faster reading speeds in the app. Its terms are clear that the trial converts to a paid subscription at the then-current price and charges the card you gave at sign-up, unless you cancel first. The monthly plan is $29 on its pricing page, with a discount for yearly. It is built for listening, not for producing audio files.
Best for: the longest trial without a card.
New Genny accounts get 14 days of the Pro plan with no payment details. You get 20 minutes of generation during those two weeks, then 5 minutes a month once you drop to Free. The catch is downloads: you cannot download projects during the trial. You can share a link, and that playback carries a LOVO watermark.
Best for: readers who want premium voices a little every day.
NaturalReader's personal free plan lets you sample premium voices for 20 minutes a day, which resets daily rather than expiring. Its commercial product has a limited 7-day trial and allows 10,000 characters a day of sampling for free users. Premium personal plans are listed at $20.90 billed monthly.
Best for: testing top-end voice realism with no card.
ElevenLabs does not run a timed trial. Its free plan gives 10,000 credits a month with no card, which is enough for a few minutes of speech. Free output is not for commercial use. The paid ladder starts at Starter, $6 a month for 30,000 credits, and Creator at $22 a month, with the first month discounted.
Best for: previewing a voiceover studio.
Murf's free plan includes 10 minutes of voice generation and 2 projects, with no card. You can build and play a project, but downloads are not included on the free plan, so nothing leaves the studio. Paid plans run from $19 to $130 a month, and a one-time pack covers 30 minutes valid for 30 days.
Best for: corporate narration with a tiny free allowance.
WellSaid now offers a free plan with no time limit and no card: 3 download minutes a month, without commercial rights. Starter is $19 a month, or $10 a month billed $120 yearly. The voices lean toward training and explainer narration.
Best for: developers who need volume for a year.
Polly's free tier is the biggest by characters: 5 million Standard characters a month, plus 1 million Neural, 500,000 Long-Form and 100,000 Generative characters a month for the first 12 months. AWS accounts opened since July 15, 2025 also get up to $200 in credits. It is an API, not an app, so you need an AWS account and some code.
A trial clock is short. Use it on the parts of speech that break cheap voices.
Use 80 to 120 words from your actual script, with a number, a name and a question in it. Demo sentences hide problems.
Choose two voices in the same language and accent so you are comparing voices, not accents.
How does each voice read "$1,250", a brand name, and the rising tone of a question? That is where voices differ.
Play the file on a phone speaker. If the trial won't let you download, you can't do this step, which tells you something.
Not sure how long your script runs? Use our words to minutes calculator before you spend trial minutes.
ElevenLabs, WellSaid and Murf state no commercial rights on free. Treat free-plan audio as a test, not a deliverable.
A trial of a paid plan normally carries that plan's terms while it runs, but read the plan page; some limit trial use.
Polly, Google Cloud and Azure let you use generated speech in your own apps under their service terms, free tier included.
Full breakdown by provider: text to speech commercial use matrix. Price per million characters: TTS API pricing.
Every trial length, allowance and card rule came from the provider's own pricing page, help centre or terms, checked on September 14, 2026.
We left out tools that no longer run. PlayHT was acquired by Meta and closed on December 31, 2025.
Discount codes and seasonal offers change weekly, so we list the standing terms. Where a page is silent, the table says "Not stated".
FreeTTS publishes this page and is listed first. We ranked the rest on what you can get done, with no affiliate links.
Speechify terms and pricing; LOVO free trial help article; NaturalReader personal plans and commercial plans.
ElevenLabs pricing; Murf pricing; WellSaid pricing; Descript pricing; Narakeet pricing.
Plan limits from our pricing page: free 5,000 characters a day and 15,000 a month on a free account, PRO $19/month for 1,000,000 characters, 3-day trial capped at 50,000 characters.
Hear 2,250+ voices free, no signup, and download the MP3. Start the PRO trial only when you need it.