Audible vs Spotify Audiobooks – Be Clever With Your Cash 

Which audiobook service is greatest?

In October 2023 Spotify added audiobooks to its providing, now pitting itself towards Audible, Amazon’s devoted audiobook listening platform. Now, it’s lastly added the choice for extra plan members to entry the characteristic, however at a value.

Subscribers of each platforms might probably avoid wasting cash by dropping one — I delve into what this meant for me afterward. Even avid audiobook listeners who might wish to stay subscribed to each might get monetary savings – right here’s every part you’ll want to know!

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What’s Spotify Audiobooks?

The just lately launched audiobook class is out there for Spotify Premium members. This allows you to stream to as much as 15 hours of audiobooks each month, as a part of your plan. 

How does Spotify Audiobooks work?

Spotify Audiobooks comes included with Spotify Premium. It’s been robotically added to the app, so you must have the ability to see audiobooks out there in your library already.

You’ll see “Included with Premium” subsequent to any books which you could entry along with your account.

As you take heed to audiobooks, Spotify will clock your hours. When you hit 15 hours, you gained’t have the ability to take heed to any extra audiobooks till your month renews otherwise you buy further hours.

If I’ve a Duo or Household plan, will everybody get entry?

Not without cost – this can be a enormous disadvantage of Spotify Audiobooks. We’ve talked earlier than about these plans being a great way to save money on Spotify. You beforehand didn’t get any further perks with both choice. Nevertheless, there’s now a draw back to picking this methodology — solely the plan supervisor can get free entry to audiobooks.

You might decide to be strategic with who the plan supervisor is, by ensuring it’s somebody who will really use the characteristic. 

For extra plan members, the plan supervisor can add audiobooks to particular person member plans for a further £8.99 monthly.

What should you run out of hours: are you able to prime up?

Fortunately, you possibly can prime up your listening hours. That is £8.99 per 15 hours, which is a few ebook (you’d count on a ebook to be between 10 and 15 hours, usually). Compared, Audible books price £7.99 for members, so this can be a bit steep. 

That is particularly the case for books which are for much longer – the newest Robert Galbraith novel is 34 hours lengthy. That’d set you again a further £17.98 should you attempt to pay attention inside a month.

Keep away from Stephen King, JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith and JRR Tolkien and also you’re in all probability good to go.

Is there an excellent vary of audiobooks?

From what we will inform, the vary appears to be fairly good. We checked out Waterstones’ newest releases checklist and it appears to have most of them.

Some titles aren’t out there to stream with Spotify and as an alternative are solely out there to buy. I got here throughout a latest launch known as The Different Half by Charlotte Vassell, which has a lock image on the play button – once I tried to play it it got here up with a notification to move to Spotify to buy the title (with no value). 

Upon additional investigation, it prices £25.90 for the title, however would then be mine to maintain. The identical ebook would price £7.99 to maintain with Audible. 

Advantages of Spotify Audiobooks

• All of your listening in a single place
• 15 hours included along with your subscription – should you’re paying for it anyway, you may contemplate it free
• It’s very easy to search out books to take heed to – I’ve at all times discovered Audible to be fairly tough to browse with
• Pay attention with any system that works with Spotify

Drawbacks of Spotify Audiobooks

• You get a set variety of hours, not books. No person needs to be caught on a cliffhanger, and positively not mid-chapter
• Further plan members in Duo and Household accounts price an additional £8.99 monthly
• You don’t personal the books that you just learn – not an enormous challenge, however generally you may prefer to re-listen to the odd novel

How does Spotify Audiobooks evaluate to Audible?

Gentle listeners who subscribe to Audible might decide to cancel their subscription and pay attention with Spotify as an alternative. Those that buy further credit in Audible may have the ability to cut up their listening between the platforms to avoid wasting themselves as much as £7.99 per pay attention. 

In case you’re not a Spotify Premium member and have little interest in the music and podcasts that Spotify provides, it’s not value signing up for Spotify for the sake of the audiobooks, follow Audible.

Audible vs Spotify Audiobooks: which is cheaper?

In brief, the cheaper choice should you simply need audiobooks is Audible, however by way of the vary of different content material out there, Spotify provides the perfect worth, particularly should you already subscribe to it. 

Large audiobook followers will doubtless discover Audible to be the higher choice. That is particularly the case should you learn with a Kindle and use WhisperSync (which is the place your audiobook and Kindle copy sync robotically).

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Audible vs Spotify: which is the higher choice?

The gist is that should you pay attention to at least one ebook monthly and already pay for a music streaming service, you possibly can in all probability ditch Audible for Spotify Premium. In case you pay attention to at least one ebook monthly and don’t use any music streaming service, follow Audible. 

In case you take heed to a number of books monthly, you would use each in tandem, however hold the longer listens for Audible. 

Those that might wish to revisit a ebook they’ve already listened to would “spend” the time twice with Spotify. In the meantime, should you’ve used a credit score for it with Audible, it’s yours. 

In case you’re a “attempt before you purchase” person, Audible additionally allows you to return a ebook with no questions requested. You possibly can dislike the narrator or the storyline, even a few hours in. With Spotify, this time is wasted, sadly.  

As Amazon now owns Goodreads, the place readers can log the books they’ve learn and share their ideas with pals, your studying progress and critiques are robotically up to date with Audible. You’d need to manually add these with Spotify.

May I get monetary savings with Spotify Audiobooks?

To work out if this might save anybody any cash, I appeared again at my very own listening historical past.

In September 2023, I listened to roughly 5 books, with a complete listening time of about 58 hours. Three of those books both price me Audible credit or I purchased them, coming in at £7.99 every. Two have been within the Plus catalogue, that are free you probably have an energetic Audible subscription. 

Sooner or later, I can hack my listening by utilizing each subscription platforms in tandem. Right here’s how I might have gotten my price down from £23.97 within the month to £15.98.

Books	Spotify Audiobooks	Audible	Hack
Confessions of a Forty-One thing F**ok Up by Alexandra Potter	12 hours	1 credit score	Use credit score on Audible (£7.99)
Extra Confessions of a Forty-One thing F**ok Up by Alexandra Potter	12 hours	£7.99	Pay attention on Spotify (Free, as I have already got a subscription)
The Paris Condo by Lucy Foley	12 ½ hours	£7.99	Purchase E book on Audible (£7.99)
The Marriage Pact by Michelle Richmond	13 hours	Free (in Plus catalogue)	Pay attention on Audible (Free)
The Housemaid by Sarah A. Denzil	9 hours	Free (in Plus catalogue)	Pay attention on Audible (Free)
Complete price	58.5 hours in whole £26.97	3 x £7.99 = £23.97	2 x £7.99 = £15.98

Audible doesn’t have any guidelines on password sharing, so you would share your password with somebody who’s received the same style in books and so they can take heed to the books you’ve already learn. You’ll wish to talk which books you’re studying, and the particular person you’re sharing with may have full entry to your Amazon account. This wouldn’t work with Spotify as you’ll burn up the hours out there to pay attention, so you possibly can’t take heed to books twice.  

You will get it even cheaper by making use of your library and BBC Sounds, which each have audiobooks without cost. 

Different methods to get free audiobooks

You don’t need to have a subscription to both platform should you’re on the lookout for audiobooks – you possibly can nab some free listens with an internet library or with BBC Sounds.   

Libraries

Many libraries supply audiobooks by way of an internet streaming service or app. You’re solely borrowing the books, so you need to wait till different folks have completed, as you’ll at a library. On-line libraries have improved through the years, so you may get entry to new releases fairly rapidly. 

BBC Sounds

As well as, BBC Sounds has a variety of audiobooks out there. You wouldn’t count on to see any widespread new releases, however you may get entry to a variety of genres out there to take heed to anytime.