10 Best Audiobook Services in 2024
Audiobooks are the simplest ways to cultivate the consistent reading habit. Talking about me, I really love reading, but due to family and work, I struggle hard to find any time to catch with my reading activity. For this reason, I choose audiobooks as the best thing. One can listen to the audiobooks anywhere they want, whether it is on the commute, on vacation, or in shower. Audiobooks offer you an opportunity of productively and fully managing each second of our day.
Coming back to audiobooks, they very simple to listen, you just need subscription to the audiobook platform or software that can give you an access to some of the top audiobooks available in the market. There are many audiobook services today and all of them have got their pros and cons that makes selecting the right one a daunting task. Looking at this, I have come with the list of best audiobook services that can help you to make this choice simple.
10 Best Audiobook Services
1. Audible
The Amazon owned Audible, is one of the top audiobook service that you will get. Whereas it is the most expensive websites, but, it offers the largest range of books, and it includes many new releases too. You will have to sign up for 30-day trial for free, and you will get the reminder email when the trial will expire, and you can choose it accordingly.
To listen to your favorite books, you will have to pay around $14.95 monthly for their service, and this gets you a free book, and many podcasts to download. You will get an access to discounts, which change each month, so you can discover something that you would like to read. At present, Prime Members will get 2 books free for signing up that is the best deal if you are paying for the Prime membership already.
2. Scribd
Scribd is the best subscription service, which genuinely provides unlimited reading across various books, magazines, audiobooks, and papers. For just $8.99 monthly charge you get an access to the good number of audiobooks. The best thing is you can take as many you want, at your pace. But, there is one downside that you cannot keep them when your subscription with Scribd expires, so you are just renting the content from the website.
3. Audiobooks
Next in my list is Audiobooks.com and this was launched in 2011. The software is quite similar to Audible, but I think that it has got its own benefits and features. Its service will be used through the web browser or app on many different devices. Audiobooks has the wide range of library, as large as Audible.
4. OverDrive
OverDrive is the best idea for people who want to listen audiobooks on budget. It is the media platform, which allows you rent different media from the local library on the Internet. This has some good benefits to the old school library. It is available 24 by 7 and you can do this from your home, and does not cost you anything. The app finally allows you to leverage the library card that you have not used for years.
5. Librivox
Suppose you do not want to pay hefty fee with the monthly audiobook subscription, then LibriVox is the best site for you. Unlike other audiobook solutions mentioned, it is one place where you will find totally free audiobooks that you can download & listen. LibriVox provides public domain titles that are generally based on the novels and non-fiction works that are written years ago, and long enough for the copyright protection to get expired.
6. Playster
Playster is another amazing platform to stream audiobooks or other media such as movies, games, and television shows. It’s referred as “Netflix for Everything”. Suppose you’re looking for the platform that can give you the unlimited access to the media at low rate, then Playster will be an ideal choice for you. The unlimited plans are unlimited and Playster has got a good collection of more than 100,000 audiobooks and when you pay $14,95 subscription fee, you will stream and download any audiobook you want choice.
7. Kobo
Kobo is the Toronto-based firm known to produce many e-readers. Just like Amazon, Rakuten Kobo is competing with Amazon’s Audible while it comes about audiobooks. The best part about Kobo is you can buy standalone titles from the store. While buying without any membership, Kobo will be much affordable.
8. Downpour
If you feel you can listen to just one audiobook every month, then Downpour is the best option for you. For $12.99 monthly fee you are awarded one credit every month that will be used to buy any audiobook from the Downpour’s store. Credits do not expire for 12months, and just roll over, thus, if you do not read or listen regularly, you may save up the credits whenever you are going to read more (long journeys, vacations, public holidays and more).
9. Google Play Books
Google is everywhere and even in audiobooks, they have recently added to this impressive list of features. It is one of the best platform for regular reading & audiobook listening. The platform many audiobooks and regular books. In addition, Google Play makes use of super basic model and you just have to buy a book & it will be yours to read and listen without any subscription options. This app allows you to preview the audiobooks before buying and this works with iOS and web (Linux, Windows, Mac). You get the offline support & night mode in case you want.
10. MediaMonkey
MediaMonkey is one amazing music player that has an ability to play many other kinds of media. You may watch the video content, listen podcasts and audiobooks. This is not like Kobo and Amazon so you cannot buy and download audiobooks with the app. But, you will be able to listen to the audiobooks you downloaded. This app includes total support for the Android Auto & includes good playback controls. The user interface is very simple to use and premium version is not expensive.
Summing Up
Here are the top 10 most dedicated apps that you would like to try out. For people that don’t, you can play audiobooks as the mp3/4 files, through whatever media player that your phone uses. It needs more work & technical knowledge on your side, but it is not very difficult.