Top 10 Free Text to Speech Software & Apps for 2024 

We have come a long way from the days of robotic-sounding text to speech readers. From making its first appearance in Bell Labs singing Daisy Bell to one of the earliest models being used for renowned scientist, Stephen Hawking. The text to speech reader technology allowed Mr. Hawking to “speak” with other people after he lost that ability to a disease. Voice synthesis technology, more commonly known as text to speech, has evolved rapidly over the years. The integration of Artificial Intelligence in Text to Speech technology has ushered in a new era of innovation and accessibility. Whether you currently use text to speech tools to listen to books, study, or proofread your own written work, there’s no doubt that text to speech services have made life easier for people in a variety of professions.

Text to Speech is now no longer limited to traditional voiceover applications but has found its way into gaming, branding, animation, voice assistant development, audiobooks, and more. 

8 Must-Haves in the Best TTS App & Software

It can be tough to pin down exactly what makes a good text-to-speech app, but as human beings with the ability to be a better judge of things, when we hear it we automatically know it to be good or bad. A  high-quality text to speech app offers human like voices with life like inflection and tone. Selecting a TTS tool pivots on various factors such as voice quality, flexibility, and the degree of customization available, including the ability to emulate celebrity voices for a more personalized touch.

Let’s explore the features, capabilities, and impact of the best text to speech app or software across various industries and applications.

Voice Quality and Naturalness - Real Voices, No Robot Vibes

To ensure that the voice quality of a text to speech tool should be good is like talking about breathing and ensuring that oxygen is sufficient. It is the absolute and most essential quality to look for when seeking out a good text to a speech synthesis tool. Another primary aspect that one should be on the lookout for in any text to speech tool is the naturalness of the generated voices. The text to speech tool should also be able to replicate the pause and breathe in all the right places and change the emotion or style. There should be a bevy of options for both female and male voices, making it easy for users to customize their voiceover experience.

Language and Accent - Mastering Every Accent, From Boston to Bangalore

When it comes to the core functionalities of a text to speech software, the ability to convert content in different languages and accents tops the list. A fantastic TTS tool should allow users to convert their content into different languages and accents, expanding their reach worldwide and overcoming language barriers. This will also unlock tremendous potential for business growth as customers with a global footprint can create a consistent user experience across languages and regions. 

Customization Features - Personalize Every Voice 

A text to speech voice without customization is just an unnatural robotic voice. The TTS app should be able to adjust pitch, tone, rate, and other settings to achieve the perfect custom voiceover, depending on your project.

Any good text to speech software should enable users to tweak the voiceover of their text to speech online, to project specific to use cases. While some would require a low-pitched voice that delivers the right balance of intelligence, authority, and clarity, others would need a peppy and exciting voice. This is where voice customization features play their part in helping a user achieve the perfect custom voiceover.

Ease of Use - Transform Text to Speech in Just a Few Clicks

Using a good text to speech software should not feel like performing a heart surgery. Any voiceover using a good text to speech app should be done in just three simple clicks.

Step 1: pasting your script

Step 2: choosing a voice

Step 3: generating a high-quality voiceover and voila! 

Prioritize tools that are easy to navigate and have a straightforward interface.

Cost and Licensing - Premium Voices Without Going Broke

While a lot of the best text to speech apps offer free versions, they come with limitations. To unlock the full power of the tool, you’ll have to either pay a monthly subscription or make a one-time purchase. There may be a budget limit or a specific goal for the return on investment. There may also be the factors of different needs and expectations for the quality, quantity, or frequency of the TTS output. To evaluate the cost and value of a TTS provider, one can compare their pricing plans, features, limitations, or discounts.

Security and Privacy - Protect your Voice and your Data

While choosing your next or your first text to speech app you need to consider how secure and private the data and content are when using the service. One may have sensitive or confidential information that you do not want to expose or share with anyone. There may also be legal or ethical obligations to protect the privacy and rights of the users or customers. To evaluate the security and privacy of a TTS app, do check their policies, certifications, or encryption.

Support and Documentation - With you in Every Step of the Way

While using the app there may be a chance to encounter technical issues, bugs, or errors that affect the performance or quality of the output. You may also have suggestions, complaints, or compliments that you want to share with the provider. To evaluate the support and feedback of a TTS provider look for available customer support, tutorials, and documentation to help with troubleshooting and maximizing the tool’s capabilities for a better and more sophisticated output.

Offline Capability - Unplug and Create

Some apps and software allow offline usage, which is beneficial if the application in which you integrate the text to speech file needs to function without an internet connection.

Best Text to Speech Apps & Software

Now that we have, in great detail spelled out all the essential elements that need to be found in the best text to speech online tools and software, let’s look at some of them keeping in mind the said elements. 

Murf - Redefining Realistic Voices for All

Murf AI is a comprehensive text to speech (TTS) platform that excels in offering high-quality, natural-sounding voices with customizable options. The platform prioritizes voice quality and naturalness, providing a range of lifelike voices that can be adjusted for emotion, pitch, and style. Murf AI allows users to create expressive voiceovers that replicate human speech patterns, including pauses and intonation changes.

One of Murf’s standout features is its multilingual and multi-accent support, which caters to users aiming to reach a global audience. With multiple languages and regional accents available, the platform is versatile for content creators, marketers, and businesses seeking to expand their reach internationally.

Customization is another key strength of Murf AI. Users can fine-tune pitch, tone, speed, and more to achieve the perfect voice for their projects. This flexibility allows for the creation of both professional and creative voiceovers, depending on the use case. The platform is user-friendly, with a streamlined interface that makes it easy to generate high-quality voiceovers in just a few steps. The simple workflow involves uploading a script, selecting a voice, and adjusting settings as needed.

In terms of cost, Murf AI offers flexible pricing plans suitable for individual users, small businesses, and enterprises, along with commercial licensing options. The platform is designed to handle both small and large projects efficiently, offering fast processing times and scalability.

Murf AI also emphasizes security, providing data protection and privacy for users. While it primarily operates as an online platform, it offers strong support and documentation, ensuring users can easily navigate the tool and resolve issues. Users can also experiment with the ability to add media such as images, videos, and presentations and sync them with the voiceover with Murf's free plan. While users cannot download the generated voiceover, they can upload and share the link for the final audio or video output. Murf's free plan is limited to a single user. Overall, Murf AI is a versatile and reliable TTS solution for diverse voiceover needs.

Elevenlabs - Elevating AI Speech to the Next Level

ElevenLabs offers an advanced text-to-speech (TTS) platform with features that meet industry needs for voice quality, customization, and scalability. Its text to speech voices are remarkably natural, delivering lifelike output that captures different emotions and tones, vital for engaging audiences. The platform supports 29 languages and various accents, enabling global reach for businesses aiming to communicate across regions.

Customization is a strong suit, allowing users to tweak pitch, tone, and style or even clone voices. The extensive voice library and voice cloning options help users achieve specific voice profiles, whether for audiobooks, videos, or other media. Despite these capabilities, the interface remains intuitive and user-friendly, making voice generation accessible even for beginners.

ElevenLabs offers a range of pricing plans, from free options for casual users to comprehensive packages for enterprises, ensuring scalability according to project demands. The platform is also optimized for speed, with low latency and robust API support, ideal for real-time applications. Security is prioritized with GDPR compliance and encryption, crucial for handling sensitive data.

However, the lack of offline capability might be a drawback for some users. Overall, ElevenLabs excels in providing customizable, high-quality AI voices, making it a strong contender in the TTS market​.

TTSReader -Read it Aloud, On-the-Go

Another lightweight, simple, and functional free text to speech app that works right out of the box is TTSReader. This software offers more than 30 AI male and female voices across 15+ languages. However, the audio files genrated are robotic and sound less realistic. TTSReader has a 'speech tracking word' feature that highlights the words being read aloud. A notable aspect of the application is that it lets the text to speech reader set the speed, import webpages, and add pauses, among other features. The software requires no installation, downloads, or login, and it works on any browser and device.

Furthermore, TTS Reader also remembers its last text and position. Hence, users can always continue playing right where they left it. You can also manually set the caret position and tap 'Play,' TTSReader will play from the newly selected position. All of this is totally free. 

Play.ht - AI voices Breaking Boundaries

Play.ht offers several features that align with essential criteria for a high-quality text-to-speech (TTS) app. It delivers natural, expressive voices with realistic intonations and emotions, enhancing content across various industries. Users can choose from a wide selection of male and female voices in different languages and accents, making the platform ideal for businesses with global reach. Play.ht supports over 147 languages and accents, which ensures content can be tailored to diverse audiences.

Customization options are robust, allowing users to adjust pitch, tone, speed, and more, ensuring the perfect voice for different contexts. Whether you need a formal narration or an energetic advertisement, Play.ht’s range of voices and editing options allows for precise voiceover control.

The platform is user-friendly, offering a straightforward process to easily convert text back into voice in just a few clicks. Play.ht also provides flexible pricing plans, from a free trial to more advanced paid plans, catering to various needs from small content creators to large enterprises.

All in all, Play.ht combines voice quality, extensive language support, and ease of use, making it a versatile TTS software for different applications.​

Lovo - AI voices Crafted for Creators

This text to speech tool offers a free version that lets users instantly create natural-sounding voiceovers in three simple steps. Pick your favorite voice from Lovo's library of 180+ voices in 33 different languages that best fits your unique content type and tone. Enter your script in the application's workspace, use the software's customization features to fine-tune the voiceover, and render. In minutes, create high quality voiceovers for any type of content. 

With Lovo's free plan, users get access to unlimited conversions and videos they can listen to as well as share content. Lovo AI allows up to three downloads per month and three-day access to premium voices. Content generated using the free plan can only be used for personal use, not commercial use.

Other Popular Text to Speech Apps & Software

While there are many players in the text to speech market, we decided to review a few more websites that help its users gain the most out of their choice of TTS applications. 

Natural Reader - Convert Text to Speech, Simply and Effortlessly

Among the voice generators that offer lifelike AI voices, Natural Reader's free plan gives users a choice of different synthetic voices in eight different languages. The application converts text from documents of almost all formats, be it TXT, DOC, or EPUB. Additionally, it uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to let users scan any text and turn it into speech. This is especially beneficial when using the app as a grammar assistant.

Users can also interact with the application's reading speed and slider to choose their desired reading speed. It also highlights the words being read aloud in real-time. That said, Natural Reader's TTS service is available for iOS and Android users. This AI voice generator tool can be used for free, and all the features.

Speechify - Turn Reading into Listening in Minutes

Speechify is a feature-rich text-to-speech (TTS) app that excels in several key areas. It offers high-quality, natural-sounding voices that simulate human intonation, pauses, and emotions, providing a lifelike listening experience. Users can select from 100+ AI-generated voices in more than 30 languages, allowing customization based on accent, tone, and style. The app is designed for ease of use with a simple interface, enabling quick voiceover generation ideal for both tech-savvy users and beginners​ .

Customization is one of Speechify’s strengths, letting users adjust pitch, speed, and voice settings for tailored output depending on their project’s needs. This flexibility makes it versatile, catering to professionals, students, and individuals with reading challenges like dyslexia​. In addition to its customization, Speechify also supports syncing across devices, letting users access their content via both desktop and mobile platforms, which enhances convenience and productivity​.

While Speechify offers a free version with basic features, the premium plan priced at around $139 annually unlocks advanced voices, faster processing speeds, and multilingual support, making it a comprehensive tool for various use cases​. Overall, Speechify’s combination of natural voice quality, extensive customization, and user-friendly design.

TTS Maker - A Text to Voice Basic

TTS Maker is a versatile text to speech software that caters to text to speech voices for a range of users with varying needs. One of the tool’s standout features is its ease of use. Generating a voiceover involves a simple three-step process: paste your script, select a voice, and generate high-quality audio within seconds. The interface of TTS Maker is user-friendly, making it accessible for beginners with minimal technical know-how.

In terms of voice quality and naturalness, TTS Maker provides a range of voices that are relatively clear and pleasant to listen to. However, the naturalness of the speech still has a lot of room for improvement, especially when it comes to replicating natural pauses, breathing, and emotional nuances. The app does offer a fair variety of male and female voices, although the options could be more diverse.

TTS Maker does provide customization features, allowing users to tweak the pitch, tone, and speed to suit different projects. While these features enhance flexibility, the overall customization options are somewhat limited compared to more premium TTS apps available on the market.

When it comes to native language, and accent options, TTS Maker provides decent coverage, supporting multiple languages and accents, which is beneficial for those with global content needs. However, more advanced users may find the range of accents limited.

In terms of cost, TTS Maker offers a free version with limitations, and paid plans that unlock additional features, making it a budget-friendly option. However, its security, privacy, and support options could be better, with limited documentation and customer assistance. Overall, TTS Maker is a good starting point for basic text to speech needs.

WellSaid Labs - One-Stop Solution for Voiceovers

This extremely powerful text to speech software's free plan packs a punch. Users can use the Studio for free for up to seven days by simply signing up with their work email IDs. It's important to note that WellSaid labs doesn't allow users to sign up with their personal email IDs. 

With the WellSaid Labs free plan, you can create only one project but can access about 53 voice avatars, create up to 50 audio files, and explore all the functionalities of the Studio.

Balabolka - Your Personal Reader in your Pocket

A free text to speech software, Balabolka uses various versions of the Microsoft Speech API to alter voice parameters such as rate and pitch. While Balabolka doesn't offer AI voices of its own, all computer voices installed on a system are available to Balabolka and can be used for text to speech conversion. Balabolka can work only on Windows devices.

Balabolka provides a range of different configuration options that allow you to change various settings, including the type of voice, articulation, rate, quality, file size, etc. With Balabolka, you can save the audio file in different formats like MP3, WAV, WMA, OGG, and MP4. For lengthier articles, you can also add bookmarks to make it easy to return to read text at a certain point. There are also great features available to assist you in personalizing the pronunciation of words to your preference

Murf's Premium Service: Unlock the Full Power of AI Voices

While Murf's free version offers a wide range of features and enables users to explore most things the software offers, the premium version takes creating voiceovers a level up. And like everything in the world, Murf AI is ever-evolving. The Murf Gen 2 is not just a text to speech synthesis app it is an AI generator that creates realistic and authentic voiceovers. The advanced customization features help you harness the full potential of AI, allowing you to mould and modify voiceovers the way you want. Some of the other features available in the Murf premium services are:

Voice cloning - Say it My Way

The voice cloning feature can transform a single recording into infinite script performances. Customize the AI voice clone to exhibit different emotions depending on the use case be it advertisements, IVR, or character voices in games and animation. With the introduction of the Murf Gen 2 feature known as the ‘Say it My Way’ is the ultimate customization feature that enhances the voice cloning capabilities of the app.  

Voice over video - Script to Screen Made Easy

You use a robust and one of the best text to speech apps for generating top notch quality audio files. The voices used are very natural sounding, you can convert from written text to voice seamlessly. Now, you are ready to upload your premium voice to the video, but what happens when the synchronization of your video is not as perfect or not as seamless as your voice generation process?      

One of the most important abilities for any text to speech app is to be able to add images and videos. Murf goes beyond merely converting text to speech. Murf gives you all the tools you need to go from start to a finished video in a few simple steps. With Murf, you can overlay voiceovers with background music to keep things interesting. Do you need an intro music added to your video before introducing a new product feature? With Murf, you can consider this done. As our clients like to say, "If you can imagine it, you can Murf it." 

Voice changer - From Raw Audio to Polished Perfection

Did you record your voice in a noisy place, or did you simply not like the sound of your voice or did you not like the speaking rate and volume of your audio file? Murf has got you covered. 'Voice Changer' on the menu is a game changer. You can  change your voice in 5 simple steps. Murf’s AI voice changer allows you to convert your recorded audio file into an editable script. You can also enter your own script. Remove or add pauses, delete extraneous words, and arrange the sequences just like editing a word document.

AI Translation - Break Language Barriers

Translate your script, text file or uploaded voice recording to any language of your liking with just a click of a button. With Murf AI Translate all your translation projects can benefit from the wide range of language options available. You will find all the major languages such as French, Arabic, Italian, Japanese, English (Australian, American, British, and Indian accents), and Indonesian among the 20+ languages that Murf supports.

FAQs

What is the best free text to speech tools?

Murf, Speechify, TTS Reader, and Voice Dream Reader are among the best free TTS tools.

Do I need a text to speech subscription?

If you want to explore the premium features of a text to speech software, you must get a subscription to one of the application's paid versions. 

What are the limitations of free TTS software?

There are several limitations to free TTS software: fewer voice options and languages supported, API, chrome extension, access to premium features, lack of voice quality and variety, and more. Check out the list of best text to speech softwares.