Paper2Audio is a text-to-speech tool available on the web, iOS and Android that accurately converts academic papers, ebooks, web articles and other text into high-quality audio so you can listen on the go. Paper2Audio has both free and paid versions.
Just upload your document, pick an audio type (Full Text, Long Summary, or Short Summary) and an optional context level, then our AI will read the paper to you.
Paper2Audio is for everyone, but is especially useful for university professors, industry researchers, doctors, lawyers, students, people with accessibility needs, or anyone who prefers listening to dense technical content, articles or ebooks rather than reading it.
Yes. Creating a free account prevents abuse, syncs your library across web and mobile apps, and lets you resume listening anywhere.
It's purpose-built for research papers, ebooks and web articles. For papers, it is better at handling equations, references, tables, figures, and domain-specific jargon. For ebooks, it is better at detecting chapters accurately and skipping extra content. For web articles, it does a better job skipping extraneous content and summarizing visual elements. Its summaries are not simulated podcasts—they're more information-dense and optimized for learning.
• Full Text – Reads the entire text, summarising visuals such as tables and figures.
• Long Summary – Offers a detailed summary.
• Short Summary – Gives a concise overview ideal for quick listening.
It adds helpful background and definitions. In Full Text mode, we include 1–3 paragraphs of background below the abstract and define key terms before they're first mentioned. In summary modes, we add similar background before the summary and make the summary more accessible. This mode is only available for research papers currently.
We use state-of-the-art AI voices optimized for clarity and pronunciation accuracy. They have a moderate amount of energy to keep listening interesting but not exhausting. We use three separate voices for: the text of the document, generated summary content, and generated additional context. More voice options (including different accents and reading styles) are in development.
Processing time depends on length: 1-3 mins for web articles, 2-10 mins for research papers and 1-60 mins for books. Short Summary is fastest, followed by Long Summary, with Full Text taking the longest.
Yes. Download the paywalled document from your source (library portal, journal site, etc.) and upload it. Or use our browser extensions.
Text typed or copy-pasted into the text box of the "add your document" tool is processed exactly as you enter it into the box. It does not go through our AI pipeline to remove junk text and no items are summarized.
We support English, French, Italian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese currently. French, Italian, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese are in beta. We are working on adding support for more languages.
To keep a free plan available, we set limits that help keep our AI and server costs sustainable. These limits are higher than other premium text-to-speech services and all generated audio uses our high quality voices. The higher limits in the Plus plan are the highest limits we currently can confidently support without potential processing issues on either our servers or in your web browser or mobile apps. We'll be working on increasing these maximum limits.
Paper2Audio supports practically unlimited text-to-speech audio generation for personal use: 56 hours of generated audio output per week for the Free plan and 168 hours per week for the Plus plan (measured at 1x listening speed). That enables listening at 1x speed for 8 hours a day, every day for the Free plan and 24 hours a day for the Plus plan.
Usage limits reset weekly (after 7 days). The exact date and time varies depending on when you initially set up your account, so visit your account settings page to see your hours remaining and when they will reset.
When you upload a document, we calculate the audio length at 1x playback speed. The audio length may vary slightly depending on which voice you have selected, the number of tables and figures, language, etc.
At 1x reading speed, Paper2Audio reads roughly:
Pages:
Words: about 9,000–10,000 words per hour
Characters: about 50,000–60,000 characters per hour
These are estimates and will vary based on format (dense papers vs. simple articles), language, and narration voice. Paper2Audio also skips things like boilerplate and reference lists, but adds summaries of visual content like tables, so pages read per hour may be higher or lower than the raw page count of the document would suggest. These estimates are designed to help you predict how much of your weekly usage you may use for any given document you upload.
Yes, you get a private link to share for any audio you generate. You can get this link in our web and mobile apps, or from the email you receive when we are done generating audio for any of your documents (unless you turn these emails off from settings). Just make sure you have the legal right to share the underlying text (e.g., your own writing, public-domain works, etc.). See our Terms of Service for more information.
Our mobile apps automatically download all audio files for offline playback without an internet connection. If you are a Plus subscriber, you can download your audio files generated by Paper2Audio using our web and mobile apps.
Yes, if you are a Plus user, you can download and share the audio you create. As some examples, you could post an audio of your lecture notes to your class website or embed an audio file of a research paper you wrote on your professional website. Just make sure you have the legal right to share the underlying text (e.g., your own writing, public-domain works, etc.). See our Terms of Service for more information.
No, each account is for a single user. We do not have family or group accounts at this time.
Yes. To use Paper2Audio with your car, connect via Bluetooth. CarPlay and Android Auto are not needed or currently supported.
Paper2Audio is free for individual personal use. A paid subscription (the 'Plus' plan) is required to use Paper2Audio for professional purposes. See the Pricing page for more information about the Free and the Plus plans.
The Plus plan is our paid plan for professional users. It includes higher usage and file size limits than the Free plan, as well as some additional features described in detail on the Pricing page.
To upgrade to Plus, visit the Pricing page and select the Plus plan, then checkout. You can also upgrade to Plus in the 'Manage Subscription' section of your account settings page (web only).
The differences between the two plans are described in detail on the Pricing page and mostly come down to different usage limits, and priority processing and support for the Plus plan.
Yes, Plus subscriptions automatically renew. For monthly subscriptions, the plan renews on the same day of the month you originally subscribed (or the last day of the month for months missing your day of the month). Annual subscriptions renew on the same day of the year you originally subscribed. You can cancel your subscription at any time.
You can cancel your subscription at any time. To cancel, visit the Pricing page and select the Free plan, which will bring you to the billing management page so that you can cancel your subscription. You can also cancel by clicking the 'Manage Subscription' link in your account settings page (web only outside of USA). Subscriptions are non-refundable after 14 days of your initial subscription date.
You will maintain access to all Plus benefits until the end of your current billing cycle. Your weekly quota will reset to the Free plan limits at the start of the first week following the end date of your subscription. All documents that have completed processing will remain available in your account (usage limits are based on audio generated, not the amount of time you spend listening). You will no longer get the benefits of the Plus plan, including the ability to download documents for use outside of our mobile apps.
If you aren't satisfied with your subscription, you can cancel within 14 days of your initial subscription date for a full refund. Please email us at contact@paper2audio.com to request a refund. Refunds will take 5-10 days to appear on your bank statement. Paper2Audio does not offer partial refunds or refunds after 14 days of your initial subscription date.
Paper2Audio uses Stripe (a U.S. based payment processing company) for all subscription charges. We do not see or store your payment information.
Yes, always! We're constantly working on additional functionality. Got a suggestion? We'd love to hear it, so please email us at contact@paper2audio.com.
Yes, obsessively! We are passionate about continually improving Paper2Audio.
Paper2Audio does not sell any of your data. If you are a Free plan user, we may use your uploaded material to help improve the models we use to understand documents and convert them to audio. The models do not reproduce your content or share it with third parties. Plus user uploaded documents are only used to create audio for you and are not used to improve Paper2Audio's models. For details about the information we collect and how we use it, please see our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service.