What does a full audiobook cost to generate?

Rates are per 1,000 characters and render live beside each pick. A typical 80,000-word novel is about 450,000 characters, so multiply a pick's rate by 450; regenerating a single chapter costs only that chapter.

Can I keep one voice across every chapter?

Yes. Voices are picked by id from the voice catalog, so the same voice reads chapter one and chapter forty; generated audio lands in Drive per chapter for assembly.

Can I direct the performance?

On the instructable models, yes: describe pace, warmth, and tone in plain language. Regenerate one chapter with adjusted direction without touching the rest.

All roundups

Best of

Narration that lasts a whole book.

TTS picks judged on hours-long stability, with live per-1,000-character rates you can multiply out to book scale.

Last reviewed July 16, 2026

Try idapt free Browse all models

Audiobook narration is the hardest text-to-speech job: hours of audio where prosody drift, flat emphasis, or a mispronounced name gets noticed by chapter three. The picks below are judged on exactly that, and the economics are simple to check: a typical 80,000-word novel runs about 450,000 characters, so multiply the live per-1,000-character rate beside each pick by 450 for the whole-book number.

How we pickedPicks come from extended-listening runs on multi-chapter scripts, judged on prosody drift, pacing, breath placement, and pronunciation consistency. Per-1,000-character rates render live from the audio catalog, and generated chapters land in Drive, so an A-B test on your own manuscript is one prompt per model.

The picks

1Gemini 3.1 Flash TTSThe narration default.

$0.034 per 1k characters

The natural-prosody leader holds pacing and emphasis across whole chapters and takes steering instructions, which is what long-form narration lives on.

Best for: Full-book narration, fiction or nonfiction.

2MiniMax Speech 2.8 HDThe expressive premium read.

$0.1 per 1k characters

The most expressive delivery in the catalog with a wide voice library: dialogue, character color, and emotional range that flat narration engines miss.

Best for: Character-heavy fiction worth the premium rate.

3GPT-4o Mini TTSThe directed budget narrator.

$0.017 per 1k characters

Takes natural-language direction ('slower, warmer, like a documentary') and holds it chapter after chapter, at one of the lowest rates in the catalog.

Best for: Nonfiction at scale on a budget.

4TTS-1 HDThe steady dependable.

$0.03 per 1k characters

Consistent chapter-to-chapter delivery from a small, well-known voice set: fewer surprises across a long production run.

Best for: Uniform delivery across a series.

Frequently asked

Run them in one workspace

Audio Generation

Dozens of voices for text to speech, plus fast accurate transcription: in every chat.

Drive

Folders, previews, and lightweight versioning for AI work.

Keep comparing

Voices you can ship.Text to moving picture, compared.

Judge them on your own prompt

Every pick on this page runs in one idapt chat. Start free with a daily allowance, no credit card.

Try idapt free