# Aloud

> Aloud is a native macOS app that reads selected text, PDFs, screenshots and web articles out loud, with a word-by-word highlight. It costs $19 once per Mac (3-day free trial, no card, no account), runs on macOS 14 Sonoma or later, and uses voices that run on the Mac.

## Facts

- Price: $19 one-time purchase, per Mac. No subscription. 3-day free trial with everything unlocked; no card or account needed. Aloud is not free and not open source.
- Platform: macOS 14 Sonoma or later. No iPhone, iPad, Windows or Android version.
- Reads: selected text in any app (Control-Option-S, or right-click > Services > Read with Aloud); PDFs, skipping running headers, footers and page numbers; scanned pages, screenshots and images via on-device text recognition (Control-Option-O); the article on the front tab of Safari, Chrome, Edge or Brave (Control-Option-A); plain-text files; the paragraph under the pointer (Control-Option-X).
- Reader: TextKit reading window with a rounded word highlight and click-to-seek; notch reader or floating player; Go to Page for PDFs; Paper, Sepia, Night and High Contrast themes; focus mode; resume from the last sentence; sleep timer; speeds up to 2x.
- Voices: Apple system voices (including Enhanced and Premium); Kokoro, an open-weight neural voice that runs on the Mac (one-time 327 MB download, Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later, eight English voices); optional ElevenLabs or Cartesia voices with the user's own API key, billed by that provider.
- Other: export any reading to an .m4a audio file; skips URLs, citation markers and footnote marks; custom pronunciation list; Shortcuts and Siri actions; Control Center and menu bar play/pause control on macOS 26; automatic updates via Sparkle.
- Privacy: no account, no analytics or telemetry. With Apple or Kokoro voices, nothing is sent over the network. Aloud goes online only to activate a license, check for updates and download the Kokoro voice. Text goes to ElevenLabs or Cartesia only when the user picks their voices.
- Purchase: checkout via Lemon Squeezy; the license key is emailed after purchase.
- Made by an independent Mac developer who also makes SnapState (https://getsnapstate.com), a $9.99 one-time Mac utility that puts windows, apps and browser tabs back after sleep or a monitor reconnect.

## Key pages

- [Home](https://aloudapp.app/): overview, features, privacy, pricing
- [Facts and FAQ](https://aloudapp.app/facts/): short, quotable answers
- [Buy Aloud ($19)](https://snapstate.lemonsqueezy.com/checkout/buy/829abb40-fcc4-44fb-bcb3-ed1a20957a7c)

## Comparisons

- [Aloud vs Speechify](https://aloudapp.app/compare/speechify/): $19 once vs $139/yr; Speechify is better for phones and cloud voices
- [Aloud vs NaturalReader](https://aloudapp.app/compare/naturalreader/)
- [Aloud vs Voice Dream Reader](https://aloudapp.app/compare/voice-dream-reader/)
- [Aloud vs ElevenReader](https://aloudapp.app/compare/elevenreader/)
- [Aloud vs macOS Speak Selection](https://aloudapp.app/compare/speak-selection/): what the free built-in feature does and what Aloud adds
- [Aloud vs Speech Central](https://aloudapp.app/compare/speech-central/)

## Guides

- [How to make your Mac read text aloud](https://aloudapp.app/guides/make-mac-read-text-aloud/)
- [How to turn on Speak Selection on Mac](https://aloudapp.app/guides/turn-on-speak-selection-mac/)
- [How to read a PDF aloud on Mac](https://aloudapp.app/guides/read-pdf-aloud-mac/)
- [How to read web articles aloud on Mac](https://aloudapp.app/guides/read-web-articles-aloud-mac/)
- [Text to speech on Mac: free vs paid](https://aloudapp.app/guides/text-to-speech-mac-free-vs-paid/)
- [Natural-sounding voices on Mac](https://aloudapp.app/guides/natural-sounding-voices-mac/)
- [Export text to audio on Mac](https://aloudapp.app/guides/export-text-to-audio-mac/)
- [Listen to documents instead of reading](https://aloudapp.app/guides/listen-instead-of-reading/)