Audible versus Chirp

It is worth stating what these two things are before comparing them, because one of them is not a subscription and the confusion costs people money in both directions.

What Chirp says it is

Chirp's own site, read on the date above, describes “handpicked, limited-time audiobook deals” and states plainly: “No subscription. No membership fees.” It tells you to “buy only the audiobooks you want — no complicated or wasted credits — and listen immediately”, and says “the audiobooks you purchase are yours to keep forever”. It also claims the same audiobook can cost “75% less than the cost of a credit”.

That last claim is a marketing comparison against a subscription credit, and it is worth reading carefully: it is true of the specific titles on deal at a given moment, which is not the same as being true of the book you want.

What you are actually choosing between

Audible is a supply of books you choose. A credit buys any title in the store, so the thing you want is available at a fixed monthly cost. You are paying for certainty and for the habit of a book arriving every month whether or not you went looking.

Chirp is a supply of books somebody else chose, cheaply. You browse what is discounted today. If your taste is broad and you enjoy discovering things, this is excellent value. If you have a specific list, most of it will not be on offer this week, and the discount on things you did not want is not a saving.

The arithmetic, done properly

The mistake people make is comparing a deal price to a monthly fee. Compare like with like: what does a year cost, and how many books that you actually wanted does each year produce?

A credit-based membership at $14.95 produces twelve titles a year of your own choosing. Deal-buying produces however many discounted titles you happened to want, at a much lower unit price. If four deals a year hit books on your list, deal-buying wins on cost and loses on volume. If you are happy reading whatever is good and cheap, it wins outright. Run it against your own numbers on is Audible worth it, and the general version of the question is on subscribing versus buying.

The frictions worth knowing

• Another app. Chirp's purchases play in the Chirp app. Two audiobook apps on one phone is manageable and is genuinely annoying in the car.
• Deal timing. Deals are limited-time by design, which means either checking regularly or accepting email prompts. That is a small ongoing cost in attention.
• No included catalog. There is nothing to browse for free. Every listen is a purchase, which suits people who finish books and punishes people who sample a lot.

Where we make money, stated plainly

We are paid a flat fee when someone starts an Audible trial through this site, and we are paid nothing at all if you use Chirp. That is precisely why the recommendation above is a combination rather than a push: for a reader with broad taste and no urgency, deal-buying is straightforwardly the cheaper way to build an audiobook library, and a page that pretended otherwise would be selling you something. Our method and our funding are on how we research and the affiliate disclosure.