Audible versus Spotify audiobooks

Spotify added audiobooks to a music subscription that a great many people already pay for, which makes this the most genuinely competitive comparison on this site — and one where the answer for many readers is “the one you are already paying for”.

What each one actually gives you

Spotify's own page states “15 hours of audiobook listening time on Premium, every month”, available to “Premium Individual subscribers, and Duo and Family plan managers only”, drawn from “over 700,000 audiobook titles in our subscriber catalogue”. If you run out, it says you “can purchase a top-up, available in increments of 10 hours”.

Audible's own page states that Premium Plus gives “1 credit a month to buy any title” plus “thousands of included titles in the all-you-can-listen catalogue”, and that “all titles purchased with a credit are yours to keep forever”.

The two differences that decide it

Metered time versus a title. Spotify meters hours; Audible hands you a book. A twenty-eight-hour biography costs you one Audible credit and costs you nearly two months of Spotify's allowance. A pair of six-hour novellas is the reverse. The arithmetic for translating a book into hours is on how long audiobooks actually take.

Access versus ownership. Spotify's audiobook hours are a benefit of a subscription. Audible's credit purchases are stated to be permanent. If you are the kind of listener who re-listens, or who wants a library that survives cancelling anything, that difference matters more than the monthly figure — see what you keep when you cancel.

The rule that covers most people

If you already pay for Spotify Premium, you already have fifteen hours a month you are probably not using. Use them before paying anyone else anything. That is roughly a novel a month at no additional cost, and it is enough listening to establish whether you have an audiobook habit at all.

You then reach one of two conclusions. Either fifteen hours covers your listening, in which case you are done and this site has cost you nothing. Or you run out around the twentieth of the month and start resenting it — which is a genuine signal that a dedicated audiobook subscription is worth its fee.

Who should pick which

• Pick Spotify if you already subscribe, listen to roughly a book a month, and mostly read normal-length fiction. The marginal cost is zero and nothing beats zero.
• Pick Audible if you listen to long books, want to own what you listen to, or get through more than about twenty hours a month. Its plans and prices are on plans and pricing.
• Pick neither if your list is mainstream published fiction and you are patient. Your library lends the same books free.

A note on how we checked this

Spotify's figures above were read from Spotify's own audiobooks page on the date stamped at the top of this article. We have no affiliate relationship with Spotify and are paid nothing if you use it — which is worth stating on a page that concludes Spotify is the better answer for a large share of readers. Our method is on how we research.