Audible books cost a lot but it’s still the only loving place where all the book lovers want to go. The amazing experience it offers to all the audio lovers worth every penny.
Besides, there are plenty of ways to keep your cost at a minimum. In this article, you will learn why Audible is still great and how to save money purchasing their books.
Audible books with membership
In case you don’t know about it; an audible subscription is separate from other subscription systems of Amazon. So, if you are wondering whether you can get its membership free since you are a Prime member – you may be disappointed.
Another point to note here is that you don’t need to be an Audible member to buy audiobooks. You can simply use your credit/debit card to buy any books you like. But being a member is always recommended.
Let me explain why and if you are wondering how much are audible books – you will learn it now.
Your cost of purchasing audiobooks will be much lower than using your credit cards directly. And there are some other cool benefits for the Audible members too. Sign Up here for the 30-Days Free Audible trial today!
You will get access to an audiobook of your choice including 2 Audible Originals as soon as you sign up. This is incredible to get you to familiarize yourself with the Audible!
Now, let me give you an idea of how much the membership may cost you. Apart from the Audible Escape Subscription plan, there is mainly Gold and Platinum membership that you can buy on a monthly or yearly basis.
If you prefer the monthly plan, the Gold subscription will cost you $14.95 for 1 credit and the Platinum package will cost you $22.95 for 2 credits. But if you love to save more, you can get the annual Gold plan for $149.50 or the annual Platinum plan for $229.50 only.
The annual Gold plan will get you 12 credits to buy your books whereas the Platinum package will get you 24 credits. For a pure bookworm, getting Audible membership is the ultimate solution.
Read Also| Audible Membership 101 – Everything You Need to Know
So, if you are still wondering is Audible membership worth it or not, I believe you got your answer.
Where to Buy Audible Books?
Visit www.amazon.com/audible to buy any Audible audiobooks you like. So yes, you can buy any audiobooks from Audible directly from Amazon. You have multiple options to buy your books from Amazon.
You can either use your membership credits or you can even use the Amazon 1-click payment method. Sometimes, you can even use coupons too. Depending on whether you have a membership or not, you will be having different payment options.
If you are not a member, you can get your audiobook from the trial options. At the end of the trial period and if you don’t cancel, you will be charged at the end of the period.
Is An Audible Book Worth It?
Absolutely! If you love to listen to your favorite audiobooks on the go or wherever you are, it worth it. The Audible membership worth every penny if you love reading a lot.
With Audible, it’s like reading your printed favorite books. The Audible app will let you make notes and mark your favorite place in the audiobook. So, the experience is much better than reading a printed book.
Indeed, you can’t lend your purchased audiobooks to your friends like what you could do with your printed books, but it’s still worth it.
For fiction and non-fiction books, it’s the vastest collection of all of your favorite books. Many (Like me) have been listening to their favorite audiobooks for several years and they are still happy with their memberships.
If you love to listen to your audiobooks while traveling, exercising, or commuting – the membership plan is what you need to get the most out of it.
How Is Audible Worth It?
Now that you know Audible totally worth it, let’s see how. I mean sure…it’s the most affordable and easy solution to satisfy your listening needs to awesome books, but how it is different than its counterparts?
Here are some of the reasons why Audible worth it:
- Vast Collection of Audiobooks
You can be almost certain that all the books from famous writers from the bigger publishing houses will be available in Audible. The vast library of Audible is already amazing and the list is getting bigger day by day.
For voracious listeners, this is the one place where they can find all of their books. From the classics to the best sellers, you will never run out of audiobooks when you have a membership.
- Audible Originals
When you have the membership, you will get exclusive access to Audible Originals in addition to other audiobooks.
The general practice of such Originals is that at least 6 Audible Originals are released on the first Friday of each month. And out of the 6, you will get access to 2 of for your membership.
Of course, you won’t like all of them but they are of top-quality and cover almost all genres from true crimes to dramas. You will like a couple of them for sure.
- No Pressure!
You will never feel pressed to spend your credits. Yes, your purchased credits won’t run out and these unused credits will automatically carry forward to the next month.
This is really cool because it’s normal not to be able to spend all of your credits each month due to many reasons. So, you don’t have to fear losing your unused credits.
- Awesome Discounts
Even if you run out of credits buying some expensive audiobooks, you will get huge discounts (sometimes up to 30%), to buy additional books. This way you will get more value for your money.
- Incredible Deals
Apart from books and novels, your Audible subscription comes with a lot of other goodies like access to Audible Podcasts and prominent Newspapers. Most of such top Newspapers like the NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, etc. will be totally free of cost!
So, as soon as you sign up for their membership, you are opening a door of infinite goodies. There are plenty of Daily Deals that you can avail of at a surprisingly discount rate too.
- Multiple Devices Access & Multi-Tasking
Reading a printed book always feels good but it’s not efficient when multitasking. This is when the audiobooks come in handy. You can listen to your favorite books and complete all of your tasks simultaneously.
You can cook or exercise while listening to your audiobooks conveniently. More importantly, you can connect your audiobooks to multiple audio devices at ease.
Audible with Amazon Prime
Is Audible free with Amazon Prime?
This is the common question every new and existing Prime member asks. Sadly, it’s not free for them.
It’s true, you have to buy the Audible subscription irrespective of your Amazon Prime Membership. I know it sounds disappointing since Prime offers so many exciting benefits but not the free Audible subscription.
Now, before you get disappointed – let me assure you that Audible with Amazon Prime is still a good deal. Prime is so popular because of its incredible benefits and you will get some of such benefits if you get Audible in addition to the Prime membership.
For Prime members, the deals and discounts of Audible books will be even more exciting than the general members. That’s just a common expectation, right? Well, you are not wrong!
Are Audible books free with Amazon Prime? You will get a few of them for free sometimes, but that’s not a permanent solution for a bookworm.
How to Save Money On Audible?
Is there really any way to save money on Audible? There are plenty of them! You just need to be alert and willing to act on multiple opportunities. This is how you can save your hard-earned money on your audiobooks purchase:
- Enjoy The Free Trial
This is a great way to start things off. Why pay the money first when you can have a taste for free? As you already know, you will get a free credit just for your sign up. Use that credit to buy any audiobook you like.
When you are done listening to the book, return it, and get another for free! This is a pretty good money-saving trick to me!
- Special Sales & Daily Deals
This is where you need to pay special attention if you really want to save your money. You should visit their official site if you don’t want to miss such opportunities.
- Exchange & Return
You can return any audiobooks you don’t like. That way your credits won’t be wasted and you will have more options to get new audiobooks with less cost.
Why audible books cost so much?
Believe it or not, the production cost of their audiobooks is very high which in turn leads to a higher cost of their audiobooks. Audible often hires famous narrators as their voice narrators. And this cost insanely high!
To give you an idea, such famed narrators charge more or less $400 to $500 per hour and if an audiobook is 10 hours long, you do the math!
Alternative of audible
Though none of the Audible counterparts is even close to it, there are a few that you may or may not heard of. Here are some of them:
- Scribd
- AudioBooks Now
- LibriVox
- Hachette Audio
- Downpour
- Apple Audiobooks
- Etc.
Pro Tip: I have written an in-depth article on Audible alternative here. You can check this out and decide which one is the best alternative to Audible.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it may seem the Audible books cost a lot but if you get a membership and follow my tips to save money, it’s a pretty good deal to have. None of its competitors can’t offer the same value for your money.