Voice vs Speechify
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Voice
This app uses advanced OCR technology to read text aloud from documents, photos, and even handwritten notes. It offers real-time scanning, voice control, and batch processing for efficient document reading. Supports numerous languages and voices for a personalized experience.
- Advanced OCR for text recognition
- Real-time and standard photo scanning
- Voice control for hands-free operation
- Batch mode for multiple page scanning
- Scan Tone for document corner detection
- Supports 47 languages and 180 reading voices
- Offline mode for privacy and accessibility
Read full descriptionHide full description
Hi! This is Shalin Shah — creator of Voice. I’m a senior studying computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. Voice has been a project of mine since I was in high school, and I’ve been working hard to make it better over the last 6 years. Voice was hand-crafted for people like you. It can help you quickly read items like product labels and magazine pages in your day-to-day. But you can also use it for more advanced reading like mail or books. My goal with Voice was to create the most simple and intuitive interface to help you read things. Here are some features that I hope are helpful. OCR: Voice’s OCR engine is perhaps one of the best in the world. You no longer need to worry about low lighting and bad focus, Voice corrects it automatically and gives you pixel-perfect accuracy every time. Voice can even read scribbles and handwritten text with incredible accuracy. Standard Photo Capture: The most basic way to use Voice is by simply tapping the button labeled by VoiceOver as “Camera. Button” This will take a picture. Then simply tap the button labeled “Next. Button” and Voice will perform OCR on your image and read it aloud. Voice Control: Alternatively, you can control the app using your voice if you find that tapping buttons shake your camera. Simply say “capture” to snap a picture, and “read” to start processing the image. Batch Mode: Batch mode is enabled by default. To read more than one page, just keep taking photos using the “Camera. Button” or by saying the word “capture” many times. Voice will read all the documents one after another. Scan Tone: Good OCR detection does not depend on the corners of a document to be visible. But if corner detection is important to you, Scan Tone plays a tone when it sees all 4 corners visible. The tone gets louder or softer depending on the placement, tilt, and orientation of your phone relative to your document. A louder scan tone means better visibility of your document. Real-Time Mode: Voice also supports real-time scanning. Toggle this on, then simply hold your phone in front of any document with text and Voice will read it out loud in real-time. Voice also automatically turns on flash when it detects sub-par lighting and turns it off for objects that would glare. Reading Voices & Languages: Voice supports 47 languages and offers 180 reading voices. 52 voices are the standard iOS voices, and 128 of them are premium AI-generated voices with extremely fluent intonations. You can adjust your language, reading voice, and speaking rate in Settings. Photo Library: The photo library picker lets you pick multiple images at a time from any of your albums. Offline Mode: Voice now fully works without wifi. If privacy is a concern or you don’t care for that extra bit of OCR quality, then feel free to use Voice in offline mode. You can turn it on in settings. Saving & Exporting: Once your document has been scanned, it takes one tap to copy your detected OCR text to your clipboard, export it as an accessible PDF, export it as a Plain Text file, or simply export all the images you captured. Importing: Voice allows you to import both images and PDFs from other apps. It automatically detects the document format and performs OCR. VoiceOver" The entire app was crafted with VoiceOver in mind, so everything is fully accessible. App Size: Voice has only a 6.9-megabyte app size. Pricing: You get 20 free scans per month. You can use those scans in either Short Text Mode or Standard Capture Mode. Once those 20 scans are up, you must purchase the Elite plan for $9.99 per month or the Believer plan for $99.99 per year. You save $20 a year, or 17%, by upgrading to the Believer plan. We are committed to keeping Voice OCR open for scholars and others lacking financial stability. Fill out this short form to tell us about your situation at http://bit.ly/VoiceOCR. Further Help: Feel free to reach out to my personal email, shalinvs@gmail.com, for any feedback.
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.
- 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
Read full descriptionHide 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/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Speechify at 4.7 against Voice's 3.5. Speechify also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (524K vs 15). Voice's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (48% vs 35%). On price, in-app purchases, 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
Both are free to download. Voice sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Speechify sells 14 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Speechify holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Speechify has 524K ratings behind it against 15, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 48% of Voice's written reviews are positive against 35% of Speechify's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Voice ships an update every 2 months, Speechify weekly. The most recent releases landed on June 10, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Voice | Speechify |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (15 ratings) | 4.7 (524K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 48.4% of reviews — better | 35.3% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 15 | 524K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | — | #8 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 557 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shalin Shah | Speechify Inc. |
Customer experience
Voice
Speechify
User reviews
Voice
From 15 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👁️ Highly accurate OCR recognition
- 🎤 Voice-activated hands-free operation
- ♿ Excellent accessibility for blind/visually impaired users
- 🆓 Generous free tier with 100 scans/month
- 🌍 Multilingual support
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent app crashes during image processing
- 🌐 Requires internet connection (no offline mode)
- 💸 Expensive subscription pricing
- 🔧 Inconsistent performance across devices
- ⚠️ Settings don't persist between sessions
Speechify
From 524K App Store ratingsWhat 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
Bugs and requests
Voice
Reported bugs
17 issues- App crashes after taking picture
- App crashes during image processing
- App crashes when selecting photos from library
- App crashes when granting camera/microphone permissions
- App freezes on intro screen
Show 12 moreShow fewer
- VoiceOver compatibility broken on iPhone 7+
- Spanish voice stopped working after update
- App stuck on single page
- Flash setting reverts to incorrect state
- Premature photo capture in low light
- No audio tones despite app info claiming them
- Text not reading in sequence/skipping content
- Incorrect text recognition (reads wrong content)
- App force closes after processing
- Settings reset after each use
- Auto mode detects non-existent corners
- Poor image quality from camera
Requested features
15 requests- Turkish language support
- French language interface
- German language support
- Offline processing capability
- Multi-page document scanning and saving
Show 10 moreShow fewer
- PDF file support
- Instant/real-time text reading
- Manual button controls alongside voice commands
- Adjustable reading speed options
- Text highlighting and editing features
- Share and export functionality improvements
- Continuous reading without retaking photos
- Bluetooth support
- Clickable links in scanned documents
- Better contrast on action buttons
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 moreShow fewer
- Expanded language support
In-app purchases
Voice
- Elite$9.991 Month
- Believer$99.991 Year
Speechify
- $160 Donation No HD voices$9.997 Days
- Premium Monthly$11.991 Month
- Premium Monthly$24.991 Month
Show 9 moreShow fewer
- 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
- Speechify Library$14.99
- Speechify Library$24.99









