Listen to any page.
Press one button and the article reads itself to you — in a voice chosen to suit what it is. A news story gets a news anchor. A tutorial gets a patient teacher.
Free to start — no card needed.
Press one button and the article reads itself to you — in a voice chosen to suit what it is. A news story gets a news anchor. A tutorial gets a patient teacher.
Free to start — no card needed.
Eleven readers
Let the extension pick whoever suits the page, or choose a favourite and have them read everything.
Talks back
Talks backWho else should be reading?
How it works
The navigation, the adverts and the comment section are left out before a word is spoken.
The sentence being spoken is highlighted as you listen, and the page scrolls to keep up. Terms the article keeps returning to are picked out as they are read.
Nothing on the page is modified — the highlight is painted over it and leaves when you do.
Tables, code listings and pasted data make no sense aloud, so they are left out. And you are told, so you know they were there:
“I’ll skip a table here, three columns and four rows.”
Right-click any paragraph and choose Read from here. Playback begins at that exact sentence, not at the top of the page. Select text first and it reads just that.
Alt+R starts and pauses. A player bar sits at the foot of the page with skip, speed, and whoever is currently talking.
The panel reads the page or just what you have selected, stops it again, and shows how much of the day’s allowance is left.
If it is running low there is a way to buy more that does not involve subscribing.
Pick a default in the settings and every page uses it. Choose Auto instead and the reader is picked to suit whatever you have open.
Changing reader from the player bar applies to the page you are on and is remembered for it, leaving your default alone.
Pricing
Sign in with Google. Payment is handled by Stripe — your card details never touch the extension.
| 30 minutes | 5,000 words | $1.99 |
| 60 minutes | 10,000 words | $2.99 |
| 150 minutes | 25,000 words | $4.99 |
| 360 minutes | 60,000 words | $9.99 |
| 900 minutes | 150,000 words | $24.99 |
Privacy
The extension has no access to a page until you press the button, use the right-click menu, or press Alt+R on that page.
The addresses and titles of pages you read are never sent anywhere, and never stored.
Synthesised audio is kept up to 90 days so the same paragraph is never paid for twice, then removed automatically.
Payment happens on Stripe's own pages. Card details never reach this extension or its service.
Questions
Text2Voice is a Chrome extension that reads web pages aloud. It finds the article on the page, leaves out the navigation, adverts and comments, and reads what remains in a natural voice chosen to suit the kind of page it is.
It is free for 500 words a day, plus a one-time welcome allowance of 6,000 words — about half an hour of listening. A paid plan raises that to 10,000 words a day — about an hour of listening — and costs $3.99 a week, $12.99 a month, or $129.99 a year. You can also buy words outright without subscribing, from $1.99 for 30 minutes up to $24.99 for 900; those never expire.
Eleven readers. Susan is a teacher, Marcus a news anchor, Fiona a storyteller, Dev an engineer, Elena a researcher, Nora a guide, June a librarian, Cory a friend, and Alex a plain narrator. Walter and Jessica also comment on what they are reading. You can pick one, or let the extension choose whoever suits the page.
It works on ordinary web pages — articles, blog posts, documentation, research papers. It cannot run on Chrome's own internal pages, such as the settings or new-tab page, because no extension is permitted to.
Yes. Right-click any paragraph and choose "Read from here", and playback begins at that exact sentence rather than at the top of the page. Selecting text first reads just the selection.
Yes. The sentence being spoken is highlighted and the page scrolls to keep up, and terms the article keeps returning to are picked out as they are read. The page itself is not modified — the highlight is painted over it and disappears when you leave.
No. It has no access to a page until you invoke it there, and the addresses and titles of the pages you read are never sent anywhere or stored. The text of an article you ask to have read is sent to the extension's own service to be turned into speech, and the resulting audio is cached for up to 90 days before being deleted automatically.
Your daily allowance, then the welcome allowance, then anything you bought. The order is deliberate: the daily allowance is the only one that resets, so whatever is left of it at midnight is gone. Spending it first means nothing free is wasted, and the words you paid for are the last to be touched.
No. They sit on your account until you use them, whether that takes a week or a year. Nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel.
Reading stops and the player bar says which allowance ran out and when it comes back. Your daily allowance returns at midnight UTC. If you would rather not wait, you can buy words outright without taking a subscription.
No. Audio that has already been made is kept and served again, and a repeat costs nothing and uses none of your allowance. That applies to a page you come back to, and to a paragraph that appears on more than one page.
Yes. The reader in the settings page is your default and is used everywhere. Changing reader from the player bar applies to the page you are on and is remembered for it, so the rest of that article is read by whoever you picked — and your default is left alone.
Nothing. They belong to your account, not to the plan. A cancelled subscription runs to the end of the period you paid for, after which your daily allowance returns to the free one — and anything you bought is still there.
Yes, and signing in with Google is the only way in. It exists so an allowance can be attached to somebody, and so a subscription or a purchase follows you between machines. There is no password to set and none to lose.
Approximate, and rounded in your favour. They assume about 171 words a minute, which is a comfortable reading pace, so a pack of 5,000 words is quoted as 30 minutes and is really a little under. How long a given article takes depends on the reader — some are quicker than others.
No. Speech is synthesised by a server, so an internet connection is required. Audio you have already heard is briefly cached in the browser, but a new page cannot be read without a connection.
Google Chrome, version 116 or newer. There is no Firefox or Safari version.
Alt+R starts reading and pauses it again. The player bar at the bottom of the page also has skip, speed, and the reader currently talking.
Get in touch
Send it here and it reaches me directly.