Play.ht

Pros

One of the best parts of this tool is the massive selection of voices, accents and emotions which lets me customize any text to speech project exactly the way I need. On top of that after generating the audio, I could either download it or share it right away. Even better, all of this was possible using the free version which I absolutely loved.

Cons

The only thing I would have preferred is being able to work on a project without extra windows opening during the process.

Pros

After testing three other AI voice tools that didn't really meet my needs, I bought this over six months ago. I started with one stack and ended up adding five more about two months later. That gave me the flexibility to work with longer text, including book chapters for our podcasts which was a big reason I kept expanding my plan. The voices I had purchased before were much more limited when it came to how much text they could handle. For me, voice quality was also a major factor especially with the premium options. Even though many providers seem to use a similar foundation, the results and learning curve clearly aren't the same. With the voices I use most, I barely need to make any changes. It fits my workflow well and I've also noticed that the platform keeps improving over time. On top of that it has been very stable.

Cons

One thing worth knowing is that when English words appear inside a German text, they can sometimes be pronounced as if they were German. The good part is that this can usually be fixed with a few simple adjustments. Depending on the text to speech voice you choose, changing a couple of settings is often enough to make the English words sound the way they should within German content. That leads to more natural audio and better overall clarity.

Pros

It offers a wide range of languages and plenty of narrator choices within those languages. It has a lot of potential for handling narration in videos or articles which is exactly where the app could be very useful. Still, a few problems make it hard to keep using it.

Cons

An issue that really gets in the way is the narration speed setting. The development team has already acknowledged this bug and said they would fix it but unfortunately it still hasn't been resolved. Every time I save, all voice speeds reset to 120% which makes the whole app almost unusable. For natural sounding speech, the speed usually needs to be adjusted somewhere between 90% and 120%, not forced to stay at a fast, lifeless pace every time.