Is there an ElevenReader alternative without listening limits on iPhone?

Yes. We make TTS Reader, a free iPhone app with no hour limit and no account, and its voices work offline from the first launch. ElevenReader sounds more natural and has far more voices, but its free plan gives 10 hours of text to audio a month and no offline downloads.

Updated 2026-10-31

We make TTS Reader, so this is a comparison by one side. ElevenReader is made by ElevenLabs; we are not affiliated with it. ElevenReader facts come from its pricing page, the ElevenLabs help center and its US App Store listing, checked on 31 October 2026. Prices and limits change, so check them before you buy. TTS Reader here means our iPhone app, not the ttsreader.com web service.

How do TTS Reader and ElevenReader compare on iPhone?

How do ElevenReader’s free hours work?

ElevenReader’s free plan includes 10 hours of text to audio every month. ElevenReader’s pricing page says “Free plans get 10 hours that expire and reset every month”, so unused free hours do not carry over to the next month. The same page puts 10 hours at “about a 400-page book every month”.

According to the ElevenLabs help article “How do ElevenReader hours work?”:

• hours are used only when imported text (an article, PDF or EPUB) is converted into audio for the first time; listening to it again is free;
• books and feeds in the Explore library do not use hours;
• hours are an estimate based on the amount of text converted and your listening speed: plan hours assume normal 1.0× speed, and listening faster uses them more quickly;
• you can buy hour packs without a subscription, and they add to the hours you have; in the US App Store a 10 Hour Pack costs $5 and a 20 Hour Pack $10;
• purchased hours, from packs or a subscription, expire 12 months after they are issued, and subscription hours are used before pack hours.

Some older reviews describe a different free limit. The figures above are ElevenReader’s own as of 31 October 2026.

TTS Reader has no hours to count. Every voice and feature is free, with no account and no limit on how much you listen, because the speech is made on the iPhone rather than on a paid server.

What does ElevenReader Ultra cost and include?

Ultra is ElevenReader’s paid plan for unlimited listening. On ElevenReader’s pricing page on 31 October 2026 it cost $11 a month, or $8.25 a month billed annually, which ElevenReader says saves $33 a year; the US App Store lists Ultra Annual at $99. Ultra includes, according to the pricing page:

• unlimited text to audio for your imports, “24 hours per day”;
• downloads for offline listening: 150 hours a month and up to 20 hours a day;
• 20 hours a month of premium audiobooks from a catalog of 200K+ titles;
• custom voices;
• “smart file imports” that skip headers, footers and filler text;
• priority support.

ElevenReader’s FAQ says that if you downgrade, you lose paid features such as offline downloads and extended listening hours. The US App Store also lists a Plus plan at $10 a month or $96 a year; the pricing page does not describe Plus, so we cannot say what it includes.

Can you listen offline in each app?

TTS Reader reads offline on the free app; ElevenReader’s offline downloads are an Ultra feature.

TTS Reader. All voices run on the iPhone. Ten multilingual voices are part of the app and read 31 languages offline from the first launch. Fifteen English voices, US and UK, work offline after a one-time download of about 190 MB. A connection is needed only to download a book from the free catalog, import a web article from a link, or download the optional English voices. Details: how offline text to speech works.

ElevenReader. ElevenReader’s pricing page lists “Download for offline listening” under Ultra, not under the free plan. Ultra subscribers get 150 hours of offline downloads a month, up to 20 hours a day, and can buy one-time extra hours for more.

Voice quality: where is ElevenReader better?

If voice quality matters most to you, choose ElevenReader. Its voices are cloud voices from ElevenLabs, and in our view they sound more natural than TTS Reader’s. It also offers far more choice: 1,000+ voices, according to its pricing page and App Store listing, and custom voices on Ultra. The App Store listing says 30+ languages; ElevenLabs' help center says more than 90.

TTS Reader has 25 neural voices that run on the iPhone: 10 built-in multilingual voices and 15 optional English voices. They sound natural, but there are fewer of them, and there are no celebrity, custom or cloned voices. The trade is deliberate: voices on the device cost nothing per hour, need no connection and never see your text.

ElevenReader is also the stronger choice if you:

• want premium audiobooks in addition to your own documents;
• listen faster than 3×; ElevenReader goes up to 4.0×;
• use the web as well as the iPhone and want your library synced between them;
• have an iPhone that cannot run iOS 26; ElevenReader needs iOS 18 or later.

Which formats does each app read?

Both apps read PDF, EPUB, Word documents, web links, pasted text and camera scans. ElevenReader’s help center lists five file types for upload: .epub, .pdf, .txt, .html and .docx, plus typed or pasted text, links and a “Scan text” camera option.

TTS Reader opens PDF, EPUB, Word (DOCX), ODT, RTF, HTML, plain text and Markdown files, pasted text, web articles from a link, photos and camera scans, with text recognised on the iPhone. PDFs are read in their original page layout with the current sentence and word highlighted, and running headers and page numbers are skipped for free; in ElevenReader, skipping headers and footers is part of Ultra’s “smart file imports”. See how TTS Reader reads a PDF aloud.

For free books, ElevenReader’s Explore library has thousands of free titles that do not use hours. TTS Reader includes about 70,000 free public-domain books from Project Gutenberg. TTS Reader does not read Kindle books or other DRM-protected ebooks. ElevenReader’s help center lists Kindle ebooks among what it can read, but its file upload accepts .epub, .pdf, .txt, .html and .docx.

What happens to your documents in each app?

In TTS Reader, documents stay on the iPhone; in ElevenReader, the text you import is turned into audio by ElevenLabs.

TTS Reader has no server, no account, no analytics and no tracking. The voices run on the device, so files, scans and pasted text are never uploaded to be read aloud. The app goes online only when you ask: for a catalog book, a web link or the optional voice download. Details are in our privacy policy.

ElevenReader’s pricing FAQ describes your articles, PDFs and EPUB files as content “you upload” when it explains how hours are used. Its US App Store privacy label lists identifiers as data used to track you, and contact info (email address and name), identifiers, usage data and diagnostics as data linked to you.

Which one should you choose?

Choose TTS Reader if you want to listen to your own documents and books on an iPhone without counting hours, paying or signing up, read offline without a subscription, or prefer that your text never leaves the phone. Choose ElevenReader if the most natural voices, a large voice choice, premium audiobooks or web access are worth $11 a month to you, or if 10 free hours a month are enough for what you read.

Sources

• ElevenReader pricing and FAQ: Free plan with 10 hours a month (“about a 400-page book”), 1,000+ voices, up to 4.0× speed, sync between web and mobile; Ultra at $11 a month or $8.25 a month billed annually, “Save $33/year”, unlimited text to audio 24 hours per day, 150 offline hours a month and 20 a day, 20 premium hours a month from 200K+ titles, smart file imports; free hours expire and reset every month; downgrading removes offline downloads; Explore library does not use hours; hours used on articles, PDFs or ePub files “you upload”. Checked 31 October 2026.
• ElevenLabs help center: How do ElevenReader hours work?: hours used only on first conversion, estimated from the amount of text and listening speed (plan hours assume 1.0× speed; “The faster you listen, the quicker hours will be used”), 10 free hours a month, hour packs without a subscription, purchased hours expire after 12 months, subscription hours used first. Checked 31 October 2026.
• ElevenLabs help center: What is ElevenReader?: works on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web; supports more than 90 languages; list of what it can read aloud includes Kindle ebooks. Checked 31 October 2026.
• ElevenLabs help center: How do I add content to ElevenReader?: write text, scan text, paste a link, upload .epub, .pdf, .txt, .html and .docx. Checked 31 October 2026.
• ElevenReader, US App Store listing (ElevenLabs, Inc.): in-app purchases (Ultra $11.00 monthly and $99.00 annual, Plus $10.00 monthly and $96.00 annual, 10 Hour Pack $5.00, 20 Hour Pack $10.00), 1,000+ voices in 30+ languages, iOS 18.0 or later, privacy label, rating 4.7 from 11K ratings. Checked 31 October 2026.

More

• All text to speech apps for iPhone compared
• TTS Reader vs Speechify
• How offline text to speech works