What is the best English text to speech software for free, paid and commercial use?

Welcome to Ondoku website.

Text-to-speech software is being developed by various companies these days.

Of course, the accuracy has improved year by year, and now it is great that it is hard to tell whether a human or a software is talking.

Large companies developing English text-to-speech software are

• Amazon
• IBM
• Google, etc.

Of course, various venture companies and individuals are also actively developing.

What is text-to-speech software?

Software that converts text to audio.

Text-to-speech software is very convenient to use, and it will become one of the essential technologies for your future life.

In this article, we will introduce 5 recommended sentence reading softwares that are popular in English-speaking countries .

We will  also introduce five sentence read aloud softwares for commercial use.

Recommended text reading softwares popular in English-speaking countries

• Ondoku
• Amazon Polly
• Natural Reader
• Watson
• oddcast

Ondoku

Ondoku official website

Ondoku is a relatively new text-to-speech software that started service in May 2020.

Although it is called software, it is not a download version, and it is SaaS that can be used on the website.

The price plan is easy to understand.

• 5,000 characters/ a month: Free
• 200,000 characters/ a month: 9.99 USD
• 450,000 characters/ a month: 19.99 USD
• 1,000,000 characters/ a month: 29.99 USD

It is a service that allows even free members to download audio and has a wide range of use.

Feature

• Commercial use is possible even for free use
• You can read texts for free
• There are abundant speakers
• You can read  aloud on the web
• You can download in mp3
• UI is easy to understand and easy to use
• It supports not only English but also 33 languages around the world

Amazon Polly

Amazon Polly official HP

Amazon's text-to-speech service called Amazon Polly started in December 2016.

It covers more than 24 languages, 44 speakers.

It can be incorporated into various softwares and services by using API.

However, people who do not use API can not  use Amazon Polly services thoroughly.

You can listen to the demo audio on the home page, but API is mandatory to read aloud texts and incorporate it into the service.

Feature

• Commacail use is available
• API is required
• There are abundant speakers
• It supports not only English but also 24 languages around the world

Natural Reader

Official HP of Natural Reader

Natural Reader is a tool developed for those who are not good at reading texts and those who cannot read texts due to disabilities.

It is a SaaS that can be used on a web browser immediately without downloading.

There are three types of the plans.

• Free
• Premium
• Plus

The type of the voice,  downloading restrictions, and available time will change.

Free users can use unlimited "Free Voice" and "Premium Voice" for 20 minutes a day.

Feature

• It is not available for commercial use with regular license
• There is a license for commercial use
• It is available for commercial use even in 7-days free trial
• There are abundant speakers
• It can be read aloud on the Web
• It can be downloaded as mp3 (paid version only)
• UI is easy to understand and easy to use
• It supports not only English but more than 17 languages around the world

Watson

Watson official website

Watson is a text-to-speech system developed and provided by IBM.

As same with Amazon, API usage is mandatory.

However, Watson is not for commercial use as long as you read the terms of use. It seems that it is for personal use only, so please use it with caution.

https://text-to-speech-demo.ng.bluemix.net/

Feature

• You can not use  for commercial use
• API is required
• There are abundant speakers

oddcast

official website of oddcast

oddcast is a unique sentence reading site.

Up to 600 characters can be read aloud, and the appearance of people and animals is projected on the right half of the screen.

It is a bit scary for some characters, but it is a unique service like no other.

Feature

• There is no commercial use notation
• There are abundant speakers
• There is a character projection function

This time, we introduced 5 popular text-to-speech services.

The world is big and if you look for it, there are several other text-reading softwares and sites. We will introduce them another time.

But I would personally recommend Ondoku.

It is very important that you can easily see the website and understand how to use it.

I hope you can consider Ondoku as one of your options.

I look forward to seeing you.

■ AI voice synthesis software "Ondoku"

"Ondoku" is an online text-to-speech tool that can be used with no initial costs.

• Supports approximately 50 languages, including Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, French, and German
• Available from both PC and smartphone
• Suitable for business, education, entertainment, etc.
• No installation required, can be used immediately from your browser
• Supports reading from images

To use it, simply enter text or upload a file on the site. A natural-sounding audio file will be generated within seconds. You can use voice synthesis up to 5,000 characters for free, so please give it a try.

Text-to-speech software "Ondoku" can read out 5000 characters every month with AI voice for free. You can easily download MP3s and commercial use is also possible. If you sign up for free, you can convert up to 5,000 characters per month for free from text to speech. Try Ondoku now.

HP: ondoku3.com
Email: ondoku3.com@gmail.com