AudioLayer – Text to Speech

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How is AudioLayer different from a basic text-to-speech plugin?

Most text-to-speech plugins give you a listen button and robotic-sounding voices. AudioLayer gives you a full narration platform: premium, expressive AI voices your readers can choose from, narration in up to 8 of our 30 languages, and advanced listener analytics in the AudioLayer Console that show how your audio performs at both the campaign and article-by-article level.

What does the narration sound like?

Like a real person, not a robot. AudioLayer uses some of the most realistic and expressive AI voice models available today, delivered as high-quality 192 kbps audio.

This is easier to hear than to read about. Every article on the AudioLayer blog at https://audiolayer.io/blog/ is narrated with AudioLayer, so press play and judge for yourself.

What does AudioLayer cost?

The free plan includes 10,000 words of narration per month, forever, with no credit card required. Paid plans start at $35 a month for 50,000 words. Each step up widens the voice and language selection and covers more sites. Full details at https://audiolayer.io/#pricing

Is the free plan really free?

Yes, $0 a month, with no credit card required. You get one-click narration from the post editor, 10,000 words a month, one premium voice of your choice from our library of 30, English narration, one website, the full set of listener analytics, and email support.

The Free Plan does not offer overage, so if you reach 10,000 words in any given month, narration pauses until the next month begins.

What is included in each plan?

AudioLayer has four plans:

• Free: $0, 10,000 words a month
• Starter: $35 a month, 50,000 words a month
• Growth: $79 a month, 200,000 words a month
• Business: $179 a month, 750,000 words a month

They differ by monthly word allowance, how many voices and languages your readers can choose from, and how many websites you can run. Compare the plans at https://audiolayer.io/#pricing

How many articles does 10,000 words cover?

Approximately ten 1,000-word articles, or roughly 70 minutes of narration. Every 1,000 words produces about 7 minutes of audio.

In practice, the free plan suits a publisher posting about two 1,000-word articles a week, and the Starter plan (50,000 words) covers roughly a dozen a week. These estimates assume each article is narrated in one voice and one language. Each extra voice or language you enable counts as another narration.

Can I choose the voice and language?

Yes. On every plan, including Free, you choose your voices from our library of 30 premium English voices: 1 on Free, 2 on Starter, 4 on Growth, and 8 on Business. The Free Plan narrates only in English, and paid plans can narrate in up to 2, 4, or 8 of our 30 languages, including English. Each language uses a native-speaking voice. On paid plans, your readers choose among your enabled voices and languages in the player. You set your defaults in the AudioLayer Console.

Can I adjust how AudioLayer pronounces names and terms?

Yes. Add any word to the pronunciation dictionary in the AudioLayer Console, along with how it should be pronounced, such as a person’s name, a brand, or terms like «charcuterie» (shar-KOO-tuh-ree) or «epitome» (ih-PIT-uh-mee). AudioLayer applies your dictionary to every new narration.

What languages are supported?

AudioLayer supports 30 languages: Bulgarian, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.

Your plan sets how many you can publish, with English counted as one: English only on Free, up to 2 on Starter, up to 4 on Growth, and up to 8 on Business. Every language is narrated by a native-speaking voice, and on paid plans your readers can switch voices and languages in the player without leaving the article.

What listener analytics can I measure?

The AudioLayer Console shows how your narration performs across your whole site, and for each article: views, plays, click-through rate, average listen time, total listen time, completion rate, and time spent on page when narration is played. Every plan, including Free, includes the full set of advanced listener analytics.

Does adding audio help with accessibility?

Yes, absolutely. Narration opens your content to readers with low vision, dyslexia, other learning differences, reading fatigue, or busy hands and eyes. It also adds no ongoing work: one click per article in the post editor, with nothing to record or edit.

Narration is not a substitute for an accessibility audit, and on its own it won’t make a site compliant with WCAG or the European Accessibility Act. It works best alongside your other accessibility efforts, giving every narrated article an audio version.

Can I use AudioLayer on more than one site?

Yes, on the right plan. Free and Starter each cover one website, Growth covers up to two, and Business covers up to four. Your monthly word allowance is shared across your account rather than given to each site, so two sites on Growth share the same 200,000 words.

Do I need an account to use this plugin?

Yes. AudioLayer is a hosted service, so you’ll need an API key from https://console.audiolayer.io before the plugin can generate any audio. Creating an account is free and requires no credit card.

Will the player slow down my site?

No. The player is deliberately light and small. It loads no external JavaScript libraries, web fonts, or third-party scripts. Each narration is created and stored in advance, when you generate it, so nothing is produced when a reader presses play. Until then, the player fetches only the audio file’s metadata, which lets it show the running time. The finished narration streams from AudioLayer’s servers only when a reader presses play, so it adds nothing to your page load.

Does the player work on mobile?

Yes. The player is built for mobile and runs in your reader’s browser on iOS and Android, with no app to install and no sign-in. On narrow screens, play, the 15-second skips and the progress bar stay within thumb reach, and voice, language, and playback speed sit behind a settings control that opens with a tap.

Does the player show AudioLayer branding?

Only if you want it to. The AudioLayer attribution credit is off by default. You can switch it on from the AudioLayer Attribution submenu on the AudioLayer plugin settings page. Attribution is optional, but we humbly request that you opt in, as this branding support helps us enhance our offerings over time.

Can I change the square AudioLayer player thumbnail image?

Yes. By default, the player uses your site icon, so the thumbnail looks right with no setup. To use something else, upload an image from the AudioLayer right-side panel in the block editor, and it replaces the site icon for that post. If your site has no icon set, the player shows a clean tile with your site’s initials instead, so the thumbnail never appears broken or empty.

Will narration cause duplicate content or SEO problems?

No. Narration is added to the page, not a second copy of it. Search engines index your article text the same way they do today, and the audio is an extra format on the same URL.

What counts against my monthly words?

Only the words we turn into audio. Each time you generate or regenerate a narration, the whole article counts, and if a generation fails, nothing counts. Sampling voices and languages, and all settings and analytics screens, are free.

Each voice and language you enable produces its own narration, and each one counts. For example, with two English voices and one other language enabled, a 1,000-word article produces three narrations and uses about 3,000 words. A translated narration counts the words in the translated text, which can be slightly more or less than the original.

Is there a limit on how much audio I can generate?

Yes. Each AudioLayer plan includes a monthly word allowance: 10,000 words on Free, 50,000 on Starter, 200,000 on Growth, and 750,000 on Business. When you reach it, new narration pauses until your next month begins, and narrations you’ve already published keep playing for your readers. On paid plans, you can turn on overage billing (along with optional monthly spend caps) to keep narrating past your monthly allowance. The free plan has no overage option, so it can never generate extra charges.

You won’t be caught off guard. AudioLayer emails you when you reach 80 percent of your monthly allocated words, and again at 100 percent, and your current usage is always visible in your AudioLayer account.

If your narration needs go beyond our four plans, contact us at https://audiolayer.io/contact (or directly at info@audiolayer.io), and we’ll be happy to create a custom Enterprise plan tailored to your needs.

Can I be billed more than my plan price?

Not unless you choose to be. Overage is off by default, so your bill is your plan price and nothing else. Turning overage on lets you keep generating narration after your monthly words run out. Leave it off, and narration pauses when the allowance runs out, then resumes at the start of your next billing cycle.

How is overage billed?

Overage rates are quoted per 1,000 words, starting at $0.50 per 1,000 on the Starter plan, and dropping to lower rates on the Growth and Business plans. But you are billed for the actual number of narrated words you generate, never rounded up to the next block of 1,000 words. So if you use 1,150 words past your allowance, you pay for 1,150 words, not 2,000. These details are clearly reflected in every AudioLayer invoice.

How does the monthly cap work?

The cap is optional, and separate from the overage switch. Turning overage on does not set a monthly cap. So if you want a hard ceiling on what you can be charged in any given month, manually set the cap yourself.

When you do, it is a total monthly bill, not a budget stacked on top of your plan. It covers your subscription price plus whatever overage you use, so the cap is the most AudioLayer can charge you in that month. Once you reach the cap, narration pauses until the next billing cycle starts. You can change the cap, or switch overage back off, at any time from your AudioLayer Console account.

What happens if I change plans?

You can change plans any time in the AudioLayer Console. Upgrades take effect right away: you pay only the difference for the rest of your billing cycle, and your new words and lower overage rates are available immediately. Words you’ve already used this month count toward the new allowance. Downgrades take effect at the end of your billing cycle, so you keep your current plan until then, and narrations you’ve already published keep playing.

What happens to my published audio if I cancel my plan?

Canceling a paid plan does not delete your published narrations. They stay in your posts and keep playing for your readers.

What happens if I edit a post after generating narration?

Nothing happens automatically. Narration isn’t regenerated when you save new edits in a post. Use the «Regenerate Narration» button in the AudioLayer right-side panel when you want an updated version.

How do I remove narration from a post?

Use the «Delete Narration» button in the AudioLayer right-side panel. This removes both the stored audio and the player block from the post.

Does the player use cookies or track my readers?

No cookies, no browser storage, and no identifier that lasts beyond a single page view. AudioLayer does not store your readers’ IP addresses or locate them by IP. Listener analytics are anonymous and can be switched off on the Privacy page of the AudioLayer settings. See «Privacy» above for the details.

Do I need a cookie banner because of AudioLayer?

AudioLayer doesn’t add anything for a cookie banner to manage, because the player sets no cookies and uses no browser storage. Whether your site needs a banner depends on the other tools you run, such as analytics and advertising tags, and on where your readers are.

How are multilingual translations produced?

Translations are produced using AI and read aloud by a native-speaking voice without human review. The translation keeps your complete text and paragraph structure, with nothing summarized, shortened, or added. Numbers, dates, currency, and units are written out the way a native narrator would say them, and the names of people, organizations, brands, and products stay as they are.

Spanish narration uses Latin American Spanish, and Portuguese uses Brazilian Portuguese. For articles where exact wording matters, such as legal, medical, or financial content, preview the translated narration before you publish it.

Does this plugin use a third-party service?

Yes. AudioLayer is a hosted service. When you request narration for a post, the plugin sends its title and content to the AudioLayer API. The plugin does not work without an AudioLayer account. See «External Services» above for what is sent, when, and to whom.

Where can I get support?

Visit https://audiolayer.io/contact for support. Or you can email us directly at info@audiolayer.io.