How does Audible work? Audible is one of Amazon’s many book-related services that readers love, but it can be confusing trying to figure out what Audible is and how to use it when you first try out this audiobook service.
If you’ve never used Audible before, or have used it in the past but are still a bit confused on how to use it, this guide is for you!
This guide to Audible by Amazon will introduce you to this service and explain everything you need to know to use it to its fullest potential. And, as you learn how to use it, you’ll also discover whether it will be useful for you or not. So let’s get started!
Get two audiobooks for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible!
What is Audible?
So what is Amazon Audible? Audible is one of the largest audiobook subscription services in the world, with over 470,000 titles available on the platform. This service is run by Amazon and allows you to access amazing audiobooks at a discounted rate.
If you’ve heard the term “Audible book” and are confused and asking yourself “What is an Audible book?”, you’re not alone. An Audible book is simply the audio version of a book…so, for example, instead of reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone you could listen to a professional audio recording of the story with Audible.
How Does Audible Work?
Just a moment ago, I told you how Audible is a subscription service you can use to listen to audiobooks for a discounted rate. But how does Amazon Audible work?
To use this service you need an Amazon account and will need to sign up for Audible with a monthly or yearly subscription. There are different subscription plans, but each month you will get access to listen to a variety of audiobooks in the Audible Plus catalog. Depending on your plan, you may also get one or two Audible credits that you can use to buy audiobooks for discounted rates.
How do these Audible credits work? Well, credits are the “currency” you use to exchange for an audiobook. One credit equals one audiobook—so you pay the same fee for every audiobook, no matter what the audiobook usually costs to purchase outside of Audible.
For instance, to return to our Harry Potter example, buying the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone would normally cost $29.99. But with your Audible credit, you can purchase it for $14.95 or less (depending on your Audible membership plan).
While signing up for Audible on Amazon sets you up on a subscription where each month brings you new credits, it is important to note that you do not have to choose an audiobook each month. Your credits will rollover to future months if you do not use them, so don’t feel pressured to use your credit each month when you receive it. You have up to one year after each credit’s issue date to use them…so as long as you end up using them within 12 months you are good.
However, another important thing to know is that if you are on the least expensive plan, which we’ll talk about more in a minute, then you do not get any credits with your plan and will only have access to a select listening library that you can borrow audiobooks from.
But when you are on a plan that uses credits, you are, in fact, purchasing the audiobooks and not borrowing them…which means you will have access to them forever, even if you cancel your Audible subscription! You can listen and re-listen to your audiobooks, download and re-download them, and otherwise use them however you want forever.
Audible Membership Options: How Much Does Audible Cost?
Now that you know the basics of how Audible subscription works, let’s talk about the Audible subscription cost and what Audible memberships are available for you to buy.
When you’re wondering “How much is Audible per month?” you first need to determine how many audiobooks you would like to listen to each month, whether you want to own or just borrow audiobooks, and whether you would like to pay monthly or yearly for your subscription.
The cheapest Audible plan is a borrowing subscription called Audible Plus. This plan costs $7.95 per month, and you do not get any credits to buy audiobooks but instead have access to a library of selected audiobooks, Audible Originals, podcasts, and more. The titles you can borrow will have a little tag that says “included” on them.
However, if you want access to both the Audible Plus library to borrow books but also want audiobooks you can own (or want different audiobooks than are in the included library), then you will want to step up to a slightly higher cost plan. There are four plans that come with credits, and they are Audible Premium Plus, Audible Premium Plus – 2 Credits, Audible Premium Plus Annual – 12 credits, and Audible Premium Plus – 24 credits.
The most widely used plan is Audible Premium Plus, which used to be called “Gold Monthly.” This Audible monthly subscription costs $14.95 per month and gives you 1 credit each month. This means you can pay month-to-month, and the cost of audiobooks is $14.95 each.
The second option is Premium Plus – 2 Credits, which costs $22.95 per month and gives you 2 credits each month. This means you can pay for your subscription month-to-month and the Audible cost per book is around $11.48. If you listen to lots of audiobooks each month, this can be a better deal than the 1 credit subscription.
The next of your Audible membership options is to be on the Premium Plus Annual plan and get 1 credit per month, but pay the Audible subscription price for the whole year upfront. When you buy this annual plan, you will pay $149.50 per year (which works out to about $12.46 per audiobook). Essentially, this option means you only pay for 10 months but get 12 months’ worth of credit!
And the last of the Audible membership plans is the Premium Plus Annual – 2 credits, which gives you 2 credits each month for the cost of $229.50 (or $9.56 per audiobook). Like the Premium Plus Annual plan, the cost of Audible with the 2-credit-per-month annual plan means you are only paying for 10 months and get the other two months’ worth of credits for free.
All of the plans with credits also come with the included Audible Plus listening library, so that is a nice perk to have. But that’s a lot of information above, so how much is an Audible membership and what is the Audible monthly cost or yearly cost? Here is a quick chart you can use to see the four plans compared side-by-side.
How Much is Audible?
| Audible Plus | $7.95 per month | No credits |
| Audible Premium Plus | $14.95 per month | 1 credit per month |
| Audible Premium Plus – 2 credits | $22.95 per month | 2 credits per month |
| Audible Premium Plus Annual – 12 credits | $149.50 per year | 12 credits per year |
| Audible Premium Plus Annual – 24 credits | $229.50 per year | 24 credits per year |
These are all excellent subscription plans and will help you save tons of money on audiobooks no matter which one you choose, so all you need to do is choose the subscription plan that works best for you.
However, even if you aren’t quite ready to choose your plan yet, you should definitely get a free 30-day trial of Audible to try the service out! When you sign up for a free trial, you get two audiobooks completely free to keep forever and you also get access to the Audible Plus library that you can borrow as many audiobooks from as you would like.
Sign up for your free Audible trial now to get two free audiobooks!
How to Use Audible
Once you have signed up for Audible, your next step is figuring out how to use Audible to get the books you want. So how do you use Audible? It’s thankfully quite easy, so let’s dive in and take a look at some of Audible’s amazing features!
1. How to Browse Audible
Choosing books and browsing for audiobooks is very simple. One of the easiest ways to browse books is to go to Audible on your computer and select the “Browse” tab in Audible’s header.
You can then browse specific categories, browse by various lists and collections, or see their featured collections. Or, if you prefer, you can search for books using the search bar in the top right. When you see an audiobook you want using either of these browsing methods, you can add it to your cart.
Another way you can browse is by using the Audible app downloaded on your smartphone, computer, tablet, etc. To browse on the app, just look for the shopping cart icon and you can click that to browse various categories or search for specific books.
Alternatively, you can search on the main Amazon.com site for specific books. Back to our Harry Potter example, when you search for the first book on Amazon the following product page comes up:
As you can see in the circled area, Amazon lets you know if there is an audiobook version and then gives you two choices for purchasing: the 30% off price of $20.99 or the use of 1 credit. On the right side, you’ll find a button that says “Buy with Audible Credit” which you can click if you wish to use your credit, or you can change to “Buy with 1-Click” if you wish to pay cash instead.
2. How to Use Audible Credits
As we learned just a second ago, how Audible credits work is really simple. As seen when using Amazon.com, you have the choice to hit the “Buy with Audible Credit” button when you have audible credits available in your account.
But if you’re wondering how to use credits on Audible itself, you’ll find it’s just as easy. After you find the book you want and hit the “Add to Cart” button, you can then go into your cart and see all the books you have added.
Once you are in your cart, your first step will be choosing whether to use a credit or pay with cash. Just click the button next to the method you want to use, and you’re all set!
3. How to Use the Audible Plus Included Audiobooks
To use Audible Plus and listen to as many audiobooks as you want without using credits, all you need to do is find audiobooks, podcasts, etc. that have a little orange tag that says “included.” When you find one of these, you know that you can borrow it and listen to it completely free without using your credits! Of course, you are just borrowing it…not buying it…which means it will only be available to you as long as you are an Audible subscriber.
4. How to Download an Audible Book
After you’ve chosen and purchased your audiobook, it’s time to start listening! So here are a few of the best ways you can do that (plus a quick tutorial on how to download an Audible book).
Your first option is to open up Audible in your browser and click “Library” in the header. When you do this, it will open up all the audiobooks you own. On the right side of each title, there is an orange “Listen now” button. And if you press this button, you can stream your audiobook in your browser!
(Note that there is a “Download” button below the “listen now” button, but this button only works if you have an audiobook player installed on your device. So if you wish to use this feature, I suggest using the second method described below.)
Your second option, and the one you should use if you want to listen to your audiobooks offline, is to download the Audible app. You can download the app for Android, iOS, and Windows (both Windows Phones and computers running Windows). Once the app is downloaded, type in your Audible username and password and your whole library will be instantly available on your devices!
If you wish to use the app for offline listening, be sure to click the three dots next to the title you are listening to and then click “Download.” This will set you up to listen to the audiobook offline.
So that’s how to download books on Audible! And if you have your audiobooks downloaded to multiple devices, you’ll find Audible does an excellent job of syncing your current place in the audiobook across your devices so you can listen anywhere, at any time, exactly where you left off!
How to Get More Audible Credits
If you are signed up Audible and find you want to get more audiobooks than your plan already offers, you may be wondering how you can do this or where to get more Audible credits. Thankfully, Audible has a solution for this!
If at any time you want to buy more audiobooks than your plan offers, you can get 30% off the list price of any and every audiobook. So if you have run out of credits, this is one option you can use.
But the 30% discount is usually still more expensive than the Audible credit price. To go back to our Harry Potter example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone costs $29.99. With 30% off, you can get it for $20.99. Of course, purchasing it with the discount is way better than purchasing it without…but you are still paying $6 more than if you had an Audible credit to use!
So what else can you do? Well, sometimes there is an extra special offer you can use to get additional credits at a discounted rate. You usually have to purchase a bundle of 3 credits or so to get this offer, but it should bring your cost per credit down to the same or even less than the cost on your normal plan. This is how to buy audible credits for a better price than the 30% off!
This offer will be triggered in a few different ways, depending on what plan you are on. If you are on a monthly plan, you should see the offer to purchase more credits when you have one or zero credits left in your account. If you are on the Gold or Platinum annual plans, then you will see this offer after you’ve been on your plan for at least 30 days.
So if you have run out of credits, there are other options you can use to still get discounted rates rather than paying full price for audiobooks. Keep an eye out for the extra credits offer as that is the best deal, but the 30% off will also help out in a pinch!
Is Audible Worth It?
Now that you know all about Audible, you may be wondering: is Audible worth it? You can read my complete Audible review to learn more about whether Audible is worth it or not, but to give you a brief overview here are some of my thoughts.
I believe that if you like listening to audiobooks, this is definitely one of the top subscription services out there. Here are some reasons Audible might be worth it for you:
- You love listening to audiobooks
- You listen to a lot of audiobooks (or at least an average of one a month)
- You like to own the audiobooks you listen to
- You like to listen to audiobooks without having to wait for them to become available at your library
- You want to pay less for the audiobooks you buy
- You want to be able to return audiobooks if you don’t like them
Audible will likely not be worth it for you if you don’t listen to many audiobooks or if you don’t want to pay for audiobooks.
If you prefer to borrow your audiobooks and want instant access to a select range of audiobooks you can borrow, then Audible Plus might be worth it for you. This new plan allows you to borrow audiobooks for a select fee each month, but you don’t have access to all the audiobooks…only a select few.
But regardless of whether you think Audible is a long-term solution for you, one thing we can agree on is that free audiobooks are the best! That’s why I recommend you at least sign up for a free trial of Audible, as you can get two audiobooks completely free as well as access to the Audible Plus borrowing library! There’s absolutely no reason not to snag this deal!
still confused, with 14.95 subscription, I get one credit which equals one book, but do I still pay an additional dollar amount on top of the credit. I only want to borrow one book a month and do not want to pay any more money above my subscription.
Hi Nancy! If you only want to borrow one book a month through Audible, then you will only pay the $14.95 subscription fee. You should not be charged any additional dollar amount on top of that, unless you decide you want to buy a second book in the same month. I hope that helps make it more clear!
If I buy an audio book on Audible, do I have to pay for the subscription service to listen to it?
Hi Kevin – If you buy a single audiobook from Amazon/Audible, you do not need to have a subscription to listen to it. You can download the Audible app and listen to any Audible audiobooks you buy without having a subscription (the subscription simply helps you save money if you buy audiobooks from Audible frequently).