By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
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If you want to read more books but don’t have the time to actually sit down and stare at a page of text, audiobooks are a great alternative. You can listen to them on your commute, while you’re lounging around on vacation, or while you’re completing boring tasks around the house.
Audiobooks used to be expensive and cumbersome, but digital subscription services has made them all too easy. A subscription to one of them is among the best ways to maximize your listening experience, as they’ll give you access to a ton of books at once. Amazon-owned Audible is unquestionably the leader in this space, but they are far from your only choice.
In 2025, there are many audiobook subscription services—paid and free—for your bibliophile needs. In this guide, I’ll cover the best audiobook platforms, and note the pros and cons of each. Grab your headphones and get ready to hear a good book.
Audible
Credit: Audible
Though you might have misgivings about Amazon, Audible’s parent company, there’s no question that this audiobook service is one of the very best around. It has plenty of titles—hundreds of thousands, in fact—that you can buy, rent, stream, and listen to offline using its official apps for Android, iOS, Windows, and Amazon devices (naturally). You can also play audiobooks through your Sonos speaker via your Audible or Sonos app.
Your progress through an audiobook is stored wherever you listen to it: on the web, on an app, or in your car, for example. And that’s good; you don’t want a service that makes it hard to pick up where you left off.
Audible offers a free trial which gives you 30 days of membership and a free book. After that, the Premium Plus plan costs $15/month for one credit (good for one audiobook), but you get to keep any books you’ve bought if you ever cancel. A Plus membership ($8/month after the free trial) gives you unlimited access to select titles in the Audible catalogue—called Audible Plus Listens—to listen to via streaming or download, but only as long as you remain a paying member. Audible Plus Listens is also included for Premium Plus subscribers along with the option to add more credits to your plan.
You don’t have to be an Audible member to buy audiobooks, but if you are, you get a 30 percent discount on any purchases. Those books are available for you to listen to any time, even offline, and the service integrates with your Amazon account so your discount will also appear when you browse for books on Amazon.
Depending on how much you read, Audible’s selection and credit system makes it a great value. (No, you won’t get a special bonus discount for buying the physical copy of a book and then buying the audiobook, but you do often save a little bit if you buy the Kindle version of a book first and add on the Audible track—go figure.)
Audible pros:
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Huge catalog of audiobooks, podcasts, and original titles
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Books are yours to keep after subscription ends
Audible cons:
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Depending on your perspective, it’s part of Amazon
Audiobooks.com
Credit: Audiobooks.com
If you just can’t bring yourself to use Audible, Audiobooks.com has more than 500,000 audiobooks to choose from. You can start with a 30-day free trial, which comes with three free books. After that, $15 a month gets you one book credit plus a bonus book from Audiobooks.com‘s VIP program (free for all members). The service also has curated listening lists—and if you have multiple book lovers in your home, there’s a family plan that allows you to share books, and each user can save their own bookmarks without interfering with others’ listening. The service has apps for iOS and Android, which have helpful features like offline listening and a sleep timer.
Audiobooks.com pros
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30-day free trial includes 3 books
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Family plan for multiple listeners
Audiobooks.com cons
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Access to VIP content ends upon cancellation
B&N Audiobooks
Credit: Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble also has an Audible-like service at the same price point ($15 per month for 1 credit after a 30-day free trial) with access to more than 300,000 audiobooks. However, the service is not quite as flexible as similar alternatives, as there’s only one plan with no option to add credits, and credits expire 30 days after your subscription ends. Listen on the B&N Nook app on iOS or Android. The app also pulls in other content purchased from B&N and syncs across devices.
B&N Audiobooks pros:
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Nook app combines audiobooks with ebooks and other digital content
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Discounts on audiobook purchases with subscription
B&N Audiobooks cons:
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Limited subscription options compared to other services
Libro.fm
Credit: Libro.fm
If you want to support your local independent bookstore instead of a huge corporation, Libro.fm gives you access to more than 500,000 titles for $15 a month, a percentage of which goes to the bookshop of your choice. Select one of more than 3,000 booksellers when you sign up, and get one credit (equal to one book) per month as well as 30% off individual audiobook purchases with your membership. Credits never expire, even if you pause or cancel your account.
Libro.fm has apps for iOS and Android with features like a sleep timer and automatic syncing of bookmarks and listening progress across devices.
Libro.fm pros
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Subscription supports independent bookstores
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Curated bookseller playlists and recommendations
Libro.fm cons
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No free trial (offers free book with membership signup instead)
Everand
Credit: Everand
Everand is the audiobook service from Scribd, which still houses community-uploaded documents of all kinds, from court filings to research papers. The platform has audiobooks, ebooks, podcasts, magazines, and articles for you to peruse and stream, which makes the service’s low monthly fee—$12 for one credit with an initial 30-day free trial that also includes Scribd access—a relative bargain. The $17-per-month Plus plan comes with three credits.
Everand’s apps for iOS, Android, and Amazon devices make it easy to find, stream, and download audiobooks for offline listening. And the sleep timer automatically turns off your audiobook after a set time (so you don’t stay up past your bedtime reading, er, listening to all the things).
Although Everand’s audiobook offerings aren’t quite as comprehensive as Audible’s, you get a wider selection of services for your lower monthly fee—ideal for those who also like reading their favorite monthly magazines after listening to a book or two on their commutes.
Everand pros:
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Multiple content types included in monthly fee
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Helpful features like offline reading and sleep timer
Everand cons:
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Monthly reading limits
Spotify
Credit: Spotify
Spotify has audiobooks available for purchase on its platform, and Premium subscribers also get 15 hours of free listening time per month with access to more than 250,000 titles. Once you hit that limit, you’re cut off unless you purchase the book or a 10-hour top-up (note that hours don’t roll over month to month).
A Spotify Premium subscription costs $12 per month after a 2-month free trial ($17 per month and $20 per month for Duo and Family plans, respectively). On Duo and Family plans, only the primary subscriber can access the audiobook benefit. If you’re already a Premium user, this is a nice extra feature, but it’s likely not worth subscribing if you simply want to listen to books.
Spotify also has an Audiobooks Access plan for non-subscribers, which gives you 15 hours of listening for $10 per month.
Spotify pros:
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Listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks all in one app
Spotify cons:
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Limits on listening time rather than per book
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Not available to Duo and Family plan members
Libby
Credit: Libby
More than 90% of libraries in North America support OverDrive, a service that makes it easy to check out audiobooks and ebooks—for free—right from your smartphone or tablet. All you need is your library card and a library in your community that supports the service. (Odds are great you’ll find at least one.) Libby is Overdrive’s library reading app available for iOS, Android, and Amazon as well as on the web.
The service is completely free as long as you have a library card for whichever library (or libraries) you want to use. Yes, your selection may vary by library, but Overdrive’s website does a great job of showing you other locations where you’ll be able to find a book you might want to read (or listen to).
You can read ebooks and listen to audiobooks offline, and you can pick up where you left off no matter how you’re listening to your content. Your position, bookmarks, and notes are all synchronized between your devices. Both the number of books you can check out at once and the borrowing term are set by your local library—and you may have to wait a while for popular titles.
Libby pros:
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Free to use
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Offline access and device syncing
Libby cons:
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Selection varies by local library catalog
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Waitlists for popular titles
Hoopla
Credit: Hoopla
Much like OverDrive, Hoopla allows you to check out various types of media from different libraries; the content list includes audiobooks, ebooks, and music, as well as TV shows and movies. You authenticate your library membership by providing the number on the back of your card (digital or physical), which gives you access to your library’s digital offerings.
You can view your content on Hoopla’s website or via its app for iOS, Android, and Amazon devices. Like Overdrive, you are allowed to check a certain amount of content at once in various categories of media, but it’s easy to check stuff back in once you’re done listening to/reading/viewing it (or once your “borrowing” period expires, just like a real library!).
Hoopla is completely free, which is a great selling point, and its online reader for ebooks has all the settings you probably care about: font sizes, background colors, text margins, line height, etc. Its content is limited to what your library offers, which will give you all the incentive to hop in the car and make a membership run to a few of your local libraries the next time you have a free weekend.
Hoopla pros:
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Free to use
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Multiple media categories, including audiobooks and ebooks
Hoopla cons:
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Selection is limited by your library’s catalog
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Must return at end of borrowing term
Chirp
Credit: Chirp
Chirp is an audiobook store that gives you access to thousands of books at a discount. Instead of a subscription with credits, you get limited-time deals (under $5) on the purchase of select titles, with personalized recommendations as well as the option to buy and download popular titles at full price. There’s no commitment or monthly fee, which means books are yours to keep once you purchase them. This is a solid option if you find discounted titles you like or don’t want to be locked into a monthly subscription.
Chirp has apps for iOS and Android with features like a sleep timer, bookmarking, and offline listening.
Chirp pros:
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No commitment
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Significant discounts on select books
Chirp cons:
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Popular titles cost more to purchase than monthly credits on other services
This story was previously published and has been updated to include current pricing and additional services.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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