RadSounds Cause/Effect vs GoTalk® NOW
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
RadSounds Cause/Effect
This music program allows users to create custom playlists by recording, importing, or using provided songs. It offers multiple playback modes and is switch-friendly for individuals with physical challenges.
- Customizable music playlists
- Record or import audio
- Momentary playback mode
- Timed playback mode
- Advanced playlist cycling
- Switch-friendly access
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RadSounds is the world's greatest cause/effect music program for special needs learners. You can customize your playlist by recording or singing new music to your iPad, importing from your iPad's music library, or use the many great songs that we provide, from many types. There is Momentary mode, where the music plays for only the time you hold your finger on the iPad, Timed mode, where the music plays for a specified number of seconds upon each activation, or an advanced mode where the user chooses songs by cycling through their playlist. RadSounds is *switch-friendly*, that is, for those with physical challenges, a switch (or button) can be plugged into our iPad Switch Interface for cordless access to switch-friendly apps.
GoTalk® NOW
This powerful app provides flexible and easy-to-use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools for individuals with speech difficulties. It offers customizable page layouts, various communication styles, and rich media integration to support diverse communication needs.
- Adjustable page layouts
- Customizable navigation
- Recorded and text-to-speech capabilities
- Standard, Express, and Scene communication pages
- Visual Scene Displays
- In-app image search and import
- Video and music integration
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Attainment has been making augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools for 25 years. Our experience is front and center in GoTalk NOW, a flexible, easy-to-use, yet powerful app for people who have difficulty speaking. NOW combines the simplicity of GoTalks (Attainment’s popular original AAC device) with the dynamic capabilities of an iPad. GoTalk NOW has all the essentials of an effective AAC app, like adjustable page layouts, customizable navigation, recorded and text-to-speech capabilities, and an included symbol set. But we sweated the details to create unique and compelling features that clearly separate NOW from other AAC apps. The new NOW offers three styles of communication pages: Standard, Express, and Scenes. In Standard pages, the action occurs when the location is pressed. In Express pages, recorded or text-to-speech messages build in a speech bar and play in sequence when the bar is pressed. Scene pages are built around a single photo or image. When you arrange invisible hotspots over people or objects in the photo, the hotspots play speech, music, or videos! Feel free to mix and match pages within a communication book. Create as many communication books as you need, each with unique settings and unlimited pages. Then share these books with other users via WiFi, and back them up for safekeeping via Dropbox or any Mac/PC. Envision the impact of blending video, music, and jump to actions among your pages. How cool is it to have your own private online galley to store and save your templates (up to five communication pages) for free, and to email these templates to parents and colleagues! Plus, GoTalk NOW is a full-feature scanning app! Features: • Choose 1, 2, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, or 49 locations per page. • Use Visual Scene Displays to communicate using familiar images & contexts. • Hybrid Scene Pages combine the best of both button & VSD pages. • Import images from your iPad camera, photo library, or the included Imagine Symbol set. • Search the Internet in-app for the perfect image or icon. • Purchase SymbolStix, PCS, or Widgit Symbols libraries in-app. • Crop, scale, or rotate an image using your fingers. • Combine multiple images in a single communication location. • Color pages, borders, and text with any hue. • Move and size text with your fingers so it feels just right. • Record your voice or use free, built-in text-to-speech voices. • Buy higher quality voices starting at 99 cents each, available in over 20 languages. • Add spoken labels (auditory cues) to any button. Great for scanning, guiding visually impaired users, and identifying any new or difficult vocabulary. • Trim videos in-app, and play them from any communication location. • Select our alternate video interface to pause or exit the video easily. • Link songs from your playlist to any communication location and control them with Pause/Play, Next, and Previous. • Include a core vocabulary button for extra quick access to important messages. • Create multimedia social stories and step-by-step instruction layouts by linking pages with an after action. • Share complete communication books via WiFi with any iPad user who has NOW. • Back up communication books via Dropbox or to any Mac or PC for safekeeping. • Store and share interactive templates (each including speech, video, text, and jump to links) on our online gallery for free. • Download and edit premade templates from Attainment’s collection on the public gallery, also free. • Email links to your templates to parents and colleagues, who can open the template on their iPad by tapping on the link. • Print and save communication book layouts via PDFs. • Access Now with single or two-switch scanning. GoTalk NOW participates in Apple's Volume Purchasing Program for Education in the United States. Attainment is well known for top-notch customer service. Email us with questions or comments and check our website for free webinars. And yes, we're happy to talk to you on the telephone!
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: RadSounds Cause/Effect at $1.99 against GoTalk® NOW's $59.99. RadSounds Cause/Effect also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 10) and review sentiment (78% vs 61%). GoTalk® NOW's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.5) and update cadence (every 5 weeks vs every 11 months). On ratings volume, ads, monetization model and device support 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
RadSounds Cause/Effect costs $1.99 and GoTalk® NOW $59.99 up front. GoTalk® NOW sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. RadSounds Cause/Effect asks for nothing beyond the download.
GoTalk® NOW holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 2 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 78% of RadSounds Cause/Effect's written reviews are positive against 61% of GoTalk® NOW's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
RadSounds Cause/Effect ships an update every 11 months, GoTalk® NOW every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | RadSounds Cause/Effect | GoTalk® NOW |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 — better | $59.99 |
| Rating | 4.5 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 77.8% of reviews — better | 60.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 11 months | Every 5 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 121 MB | 235 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | RJ Cooper & Associates, Inc. | Attainment Company |
Customer experience
RadSounds Cause/Effect
GoTalk® NOW
In-app purchases
RadSounds Cause/Effect
No in-app purchases
GoTalk® NOW
- Kenny$0.99
- Nelly$0.99
- Ryan$0.99
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- Tracy$0.99
- Will$0.99
- Ella$11.99
- Josh$11.99
- Ready-Set-Communicate$19.99
- SymbolStix$49.99
- English (US) Keywords$59.99
Questions
Is RadSounds Cause/Effect free?
Is GoTalk® NOW free?
Which has better reviews, RadSounds Cause/Effect or GoTalk® NOW?
Do RadSounds Cause/Effect or GoTalk® NOW have ads?
Which is updated more often, RadSounds Cause/Effect or GoTalk® NOW?
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