Skip to content
effecthub

Speechify vs Typecast

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. Speechify starts at $29, Typecast at $5. Both have a free tier. Both ship a public API.

SpeechifyReads PDFs, web pages and email out loudTypecastText-to-speech with 700+ voices, emotion and pace controls, voice cloning and video export

Side by side

FactSpeechifyTypecast
CategoryText-to-SpeechText-to-Speech
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$29 month$5 month
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsiOS, Android, Chrome Ext, Web, macOS, APIWeb, iOS, Android, API
CompanySpeechify Inc.Neosapience, Inc.
Launched2017—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

Speechify

The most complete listen-to-anything reader on a phone, but the $29 monthly sticker is a trap — the same thing is $139 a year, and the free tier is deliberately unpleasant.

Pros

  • Handles almost any input, including scanned pages captured through the camera
  • Voices stay intelligible all the way up to 5x playback
  • One library syncs between phone, browser extension and Mac

Cons

  • Monthly billing costs about 2.5x the annual rate for the same features
  • Free tier is held to 10 robotic voices and 1.5x speed
  • Studio and the developer API are separate products on a separate domain
  • API pricing is unpublished and gated behind a sales conversation

Typecast

One of the few text-to-speech tools where the emotional delivery is a real control surface rather than a preset, and it exports finished video rather than just audio. Pricing is honest about being metered, but the controls that make it interesting are gated to the $29 Pro tier, and everything is denominated in credits rather than minutes.

Pros

  • 700+ voices across 35+ languages with adjustable emotion, speed and dynamics
  • Both instant and higher-quality voice cloning, with slot counts by tier
  • Exports video up to 4K, not only audio files
  • Mobile apps on iOS and Android plus a separately priced API
  • Entry paid plan is $5 a month, low for the category

Cons

  • Emotion controls only appear on the $29 Pro tier and above
  • Free tier is 3,000 lifetime credits — around five minutes — and requires attribution
  • Everything is billed in credits, so minutes are an estimate rather than a guarantee
  • Watermark-free export starts at the $19 Plus tier

Which one fits

Choose Speechify if you need

  • Students and professionals working through long PDFs and articles by ear
  • Readers with dyslexia or low vision who need OCR capture plus playback
  • Developers who want the Simba voices without building a reader app

Choose Typecast if you need

  • Narration where delivery and emotion matter more than raw voice count
  • Creators who want the voiceover and the video export in one tool
  • Teams producing multi-language versions of the same script

More comparisons

Browse all Text-to-Speech →