ElevenReader
Shares rank 13 of 18 text-to-speech models by recommenders
Recommended for turning web novels, essays and text into narrated audio, with a useful free tier. Critics say its voices trail NotebookLM and it lacks interactivity.
Recommended for turning web novels, essays and text into narrated audio, with a useful free tier. Critics say its voices trail NotebookLM and it lacks interactivity.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 70%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 2.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Works well for long-form listening
“I listen to web novels with Elevenlabs reader all the time (The 11 dollar a month unlimited plan). I love it.”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “TTS still sucks” “I copy in essays or whatever text I want to listen to and it works decently well.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “OpenAI set to discontinue Sora video platform” “ElevenReader is $11 a month for unlimited personal long-form content.”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “TTS still sucks” - Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “How I'm Productive with Claude Code”
Good free plan
“ElevenReader works well and has a pretty good free plan”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Why Audio Is the One Area Small Labs Are Winning” “their free tier has been plenty for me”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “Gemini 3.8 text-to-speech”
Other text-to-speech models people recommend
The four most recommended other text-to-speech models, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs | 59 | 20 | 75% | 13 | — | Approved |
| Kokoro TTS | 59 | 9 | 87% | 11 | 1 mo3 owners | Approved |
| Pocket TTS | 41 | 16 | 72% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Qwen3-TTS | 41 | 13 | 76% | 7 | — | Approved |
| ElevenReaderThis page | 7 | 3 | 70% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
All 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“ElevenReader charges $12 per month for read aloud.”
“their free tier has been plenty for me”
“I found NotebookLM podcast voices better than ElevenReader's”
“It's been much better for self therapy vs talking to an LLM.”
“I copy in essays or whatever text I want to listen to and it works decently well.”
“I tend to listen to these reports while walking or doing the dishes”
“ElevenReader works well and has a pretty good free plan”
“they're missing the interactive piece entirely”
“I listen to web novels with Elevenlabs reader all the time (The 11 dollar a month unlimited plan). I love it.”
“ElevenReader is $11 a month for unlimited personal long-form content.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.