Comparison

Speechify vs VDScan

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Speechify

This app transforms text into spoken word with lifelike voices, reads documents, images, and articles aloud, and offers voice typing. It also features an AI assistant for summarizing and quizzing, and allows for AI podcast creation.

Highlights
  • Reads text aloud from various sources
  • Voice typing for faster input
  • AI assistant for summarization and quizzes
  • Customizable listening speeds
  • Human-like voices
  • Cross-device syncing
  • AI podcast creation
Features
Read full description

Text to speech from Speechify lets you listen to docs, articles, PDFs, email, and various other formats — anything you read. With 50M+ users, it is the top rated TTS app in the AppStore. Sir Richard Branson Loves Speechify. It helps him read with Dyslexia ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Speechify is brilliant. I’m so glad to have it today.” – Sir Richard Branson ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our users have listened to 6.5 billion words. FEATURES YOU'LL LOVE • Listen at Any Speed Our high-quality AI voices can read 4.5x faster than the average reading speed, so you can learn even more in less time. Ease into 300 words per minute & slowly increase the speed to as fast as you need it to be. • Natural-sounding Human Voices Our text to speech voices sound more fluid & human-like than any other AI reader. • Active Text Highlighting The text is highlighted and perfectly synced, word for word, with the voice reader to help you read along. Reading & listening helps you retain more. • Listen to Any Book on Your Shelf Use the app to snap a pic of a page in any book or printed material and hear it read out loud to you. Your favorite book sitting on your bookshelf? Turn it into an audiobook. • Screenshot Image to Audio Find an image with text on it, no matter the length, with one click, you can easily take a screenshot and sync it to your cloud. Speechify will read the text out loud. Letters from loved ones? Scan them and turn them into audible notes. • Desktop or Mobile Anything you’ve saved to your Speechify library instantly syncs across devices so you can listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. * Hundreds of Timeless Books Titles you get with Speechify: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Moby Dick by Herman Melville; A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens; Ulysses by James Joyce; War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald; Great Expectations by Charles Dickens; Beowulf; Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy; The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne; Les Misérables by Victor Hugo; Walden by Henry David Thoreau; Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Gwyneth Paltrow Uses Speechify to Listen to Scripts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Speechify lets me listen to Goop blog posts out loud in the car and gets my friends through grad school. It's amazing for scripts." – Gwyneth Paltrow ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other Features • Note taking tools • Save audio bookmarks • Floating widget • Exemplary customer experience • Inline player seamlessly integrates into all your websites • Get hundreds of timeless audiobooks for free • Cloud sync makes for a seamless listening experience across all your devices We created Speechify so that reading is never a barrier for anyone again. Designed to help people with dyslexia, ADHD, low vision acuity, concussions, and other reading disabilities. Speechify now helps hundreds of thousands of people to consume their reading content with ease. From those with reading disabilities to auditory learners, productivity fanatics, second language learners, hobbyists, and more, we love all of our users and strive every day to create a reading assistant that empowers them to read more and succeed in life. We can't wait for you to join the family :) Install Speechify today, for free! Privacy Policy: https://speechify.com/privacy/ Terms of Service: https://speechify.com/terms/

About

VDScan

Capture text from documents, labels, and signs using your camera and have it read aloud with text-to-speech. This app offers fast, accurate, and private on-device OCR with support for numerous languages. Save, export, and enhance your scanned documents with intelligent features.

Highlights
  • On-device OCR and text recognition
  • Text-to-speech with 61 voices
  • ScanTone real-time text detection
  • Batch scanning mode
  • Export as plain text or PDF
  • Offline functionality
Features
Read full description

Scan paper documents, labels, signs with the camera and recognize text. Listen using built-in text-to-speech. Save and export. Unlimited use: no subscriptions or additional charges. State-of-the-art A.I. for OCR and text recognition: Fast and accurate, even in poor lighting conditions. Works entirely on device: No need for internet and your data stays private. Recognizes text in the following languages: Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish. ScanTone, a sound that represents the amount of recognizable text in the camera's field of view in real time. It uses artificial intelligence to analyze the live feed from the camera for text, angle, rotation, and document edges. Exports scans as plain text or accessible PDF with embedded text. Detailed Feature List Scanning - ScanTone - Live edges/crop detection - Flashlight - Batch mode for scanning multiple pages quickly - Intelligent auto capture Image - Automatic edge detection for stretching and cropping - Manually cropping - Automatic orientation detection and rotation - Manual image rotation - Automatic image enhancement OCR - Fast: about a second on the latest iPhone - Offline: does not require Internet connection - Private: image and text stay on device - Automatic language detection - Option to see image or recognized text Text To Speech - Choose from 61 voices - Premium voices in Voice Dream Reader available - Change speech rate - Option to start reading as soon as OCR is complete - Spoken word is highlighted in the text or the image - Rewind and fast forward by text section (VoiceOver users only) - Double tap on text to start reading from there Import and Export - Load from Photo Library - Share extension for sending images to Scanner from another app - Export plain text - Export PDF with text layer under the image so that it's accessible, searchable and selectable - Export to Voice Dream Reader

Screenshots

Speechify4 screens
VDScan4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Speechify at Free against VDScan's $14.99. Speechify also leads on ratings volume (524K vs 575) and rating (4.7 vs 4.5). VDScan's advantage is review sentiment (72% vs 35%) and in-app purchases (none vs 17). On device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Speechify is free to download; VDScan costs $14.99 up front. Speechify sells 14 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per 7 days. VDScan asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Speechify holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Speechify has 524K ratings behind it against 575, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 35% of Speechify's written reviews are positive against 72% of VDScan's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Speechify ships an update weekly, VDScan fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard9 real differences · 2 level
Speechify versus VDScan: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpeechifyVDScan
PriceFree — better$14.99
Rating4.7 (524K ratings) — better4.5 (575 ratings)
Positive reviews35.3% of reviews71.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings524K — better575
Update frequencyWeekly — betterFortnightly
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#8 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size557 MB1.2 GB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSpeechify Inc.Opus Noma LLC

Customer experience

Speechify

All ratings524,410 ratings
Positive91.8%
Neutral3.4%
Negative4.7%
Written reviews5,850 reviews
Positive35.3%
Neutral8.1%
Negative56.6%

VDScan

All ratings575 ratings
Positive86.3%
Neutral7.5%
Negative6.3%
Written reviews193 reviews
Positive71.5%
Neutral10.9%
Negative17.6%

User reviews

Speechify

From 524K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Efficient text-to-speech
  • 👍 Diverse voice options
  • 🤖 Realistic AI narration
  • 💡 Helpful for dyslexic/ADHD users
  • 🤓 Improved reading comprehension

Room to improve

  • 💰 Expensive subscription
  • 🔇 Inconsistent voice quality
  • 🐛 Frequent bugs and glitches
  • 🔀 Unreliable page navigation
  • 🚫 Restrictive word limits on premium voices

VDScan

From 575 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast and accurate OCR
  • 👍 Easy to use interface
  • 💡 Integrates well with VoiceDream Reader
  • 🚀 Impressive scanning speed
  • 👍 Helpful audio cues for scanning

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and loses scanned data
  • 🐛 Struggles with curved/angled pages
  • 🐛 Inconsistent performance on different surfaces
  • 🐛 Difficulty scanning multi-column documents

Bugs and requests

Speechify

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Frequent app crashes
  • Text syncing issues
  • Incorrect word pronunciations
  • Inconsistent highlighting/pacing
  • Unexpected voice switches

Requested features

6 requests
  • Ability to edit/annotate text
  • Improved PDF/document handling
  • More affordable subscription options
  • Seamless integration with ebooks/websites
  • Automatic removal of citations/formatting
Show 1 more
  • Expanded language support

VDScan

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Crashes when scanning too many pages
  • Loses scanned data after app restarts

Requested features

4 requests
  • Batch import of photos for OCR
  • Option to edit/correct OCR results
  • Support for scanning book pages and flattening
  • Ability to save scans directly to cloud storage

In-app purchases

14 purchases

Speechify

Subscriptions12
  • $160 Donation No HD voices$9.997 Days
  • Premium Monthly$11.991 Month
  • Premium Monthly$24.991 Month
Show 9 more
  • Dyslexia Donation3 Days trial$29.991 Year
  • Premium$55.991 Year
  • Premium3 Days trial$79.991 Year
  • Premium Yearly$99.991 Year
  • Premium3 Days trial2 variants$139.991 Year
  • Premium1 Month trial$139.991 Year
  • Speechify Premium7 Days trial$139.991 Year
  • Speechify Premium3 Days trial$159.991 Year
  • Audiobooks + Speechify TTS3 Days trial$249.991 Year
One-time2
  • Speechify Library$14.99
  • Speechify Library$24.99
None

VDScan

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Speechify free?
Speechify is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is VDScan free?
VDScan costs $14.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Speechify or VDScan?
Speechify is rated higher. Speechify averages 4.7 out of 5 from 524K ratings, while VDScan averages 4.5 from 575 ratings.
Do Speechify or VDScan have ads?
Speechify shows ads; VDScan does not.
Which is updated more often, Speechify or VDScan?
Speechify ships an update weekly, and VDScan fortnightly. Most recently, Speechify was updated on September 25, 2026 and VDScan on September 24, 2026.

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