Audible vs Scribd (Everand): Which Is For You?
Audible is undoubtedly the most popular audiobook subscription service out there, but have you heard of Everand (formerly Scribd)?
Everand is becoming increasingly popular amongst bookworms so you may now be wondering about Everand vs Audible. They seem to have a similar offering, but which is the best audiobook service?
I’m currently a subscriber to both but am definitely more loyal to one and may be cancelling my subscription to the other in the near future. In this post, I’ll describe both subscriptions and break down the Audible vs Everand argument.
Keep on reading to find out which I think is best!
RELATED: Everand Review
For a bit of background as to my experience with audiobooks, I grew up listening to audiobooks every night before I went to sleep and couldn’t drift off without them.
I then went for almost a decade without ever really listening to them. I always preferred paperbacks and had little to no interest in ebooks or audiobooks.
That all changed at the end of 2018 when I signed up for the Everand free trial.
Since then, the number of physical books I’ve read has seriously declined.
In fact, I rarely read physical books.
That’s a pretty big deal for me because I’ve always been a champion of physical copies, despite the convenience of e-books.
But I’ve been addicted to Everand ever since I downloaded it.
Now I’m going to delve into the detail of Audible vs Everand and find out why lots of bookworms are switching from Audible to Everand.
But if you’re pressed for time and want a short summary on why Everand wins, here’s why:
With my Audible free trial, I listened to one book.
With my Everand free trial, I read/listened to ten books.
I was sold.
In fact, when my Everand free trial finished I was so enamoured with it that I immediately began writing this post because I wanted everyone to know how amazing it was.
Alas, it’s taken me over a year to hit that publish button. But know that I’m frantically trying to polish up and publish the 175 drafts waiting in my WordPress to bring you guys lots of fresh content each week!
For a more detailed look at the pros and cons of Everand, check out my full Everand review here.
Now back to Audible vs Everand.
Audible vs Everand
Mini Everand Review
Before really knew what Everand was about, I thought that Audible was the only really reputable audiobook app out there.
I’ve known about Everand for years but I always thought it was a site where people uploaded documents like essays for students to steal.
I had never seen it as a library of bookish content for the general public.
Today, Everand offers (almost) unlimited access to their e-books, audiobooks, documents, magazines and more for £10.99 (or $11.99) per month.
There’s every genre you can think of and a huge range of titles. There are young adult series, children’s books, classics, romance stories, general fiction and new releases on both audio and e-book.
Many of these had been on my wishlist for a long time and they were suddenly all available to me at a fraction of the cost I would’ve spent if I’d bought them all via Kindle / Audible / physical copy.
As I said above, I managed to read ten books via Everand during my first month and have managed to achieve the same in many months since. Since it costs £10.99 each month (or $11.99), that’s an average of £1 per title!
How amazing is that?
You can use either the Everand website or app to access your titles but obviously, most users will be using the app on the go.
The app has a couple of handy functions for saving and filing your books and you can make lists of titles you want to read.
It also tells you how far you are through a book as a percentage, which I really like.
Now it’s true that Everand’s selection is more limited than Audible. But I like to call it the Netflix for books.
Now I’m a huge bookworm and a known Netflix binge-watcher so for me this concept is the absolute dream.
But I can totally understand why some people are at first put off by this.
Do you remember when Netflix first came out and lots of people weren’t that taken with it because of the limited options?
But then you learned to love what was there and choose from what was available. The same applies to Everand.
It doesn’t have everything, but there’s always something worth reading or listening to and if you poke around you may even discover something new and worthy that you’ve never heard of before.
Plus, I’d like to think that if it gets more and more popular Everand will be able to bring us newer and more exclusive content.
Nowadays, you can get some very popular releases from release day. Take Onyx Storm, for example. This is an incredibly popular release that was available in audio format from Everand on the day of release.
So what’s not so good about Everand?
One drawback to Everand, which I only discovered after a few months of use, is that it has hidden restrictions.
Although it is, in theory, unlimited, when you listen to too many titles of one genre it greys it out so you have to wait until the next month to listen.
However, it’s quite rare that I find myself unable to listen to something because of this restriction.
On the whole, I’ve found there’s always plenty of amazing stuff on there for me to listen to ranging from classics to new releases in all genres.
Another slight hindrance is that the app is not available offline. In order to listen without wifi or data, you’ll need to download the audiobook to your device in advance as it’s not automatically available offline.
This is just a small point but sometimes annoys me when I’m commuting and am underground.
Finally, it’s worth noting that if you cancel your Everand subscription, you will lose access to all your content and downloads.
For more on the pros and cons of Everand, check out my Everand review here.
Audible Review
Audible is Amazon’s audiobook subscription service and one credit (for one audiobook) costs £7.99 per month.
There are three other price points offering more books each month for lower prices per book with the lowest being £109.99 per year for 24 books (£4.59 per book).
Whilst Everand provides many different types of digital content, Audible solely offers audio content in the form of audiobooks and podcasts.
However, the range of audio content available from Amazon is unparalleled. They’ve got the audio version of pretty much every single book, sometimes multiple different versions of the same story.
As soon as an audiobook is released, it will be available on Audible so it’s great for people who want to get their hands on new releases immediately.
They’ve also got the best audiobook editions available so you can hear from the top narrators such as Stephen Fry, Rosamund Pike, Jeremy Irons and more.
Conveniently, once you’ve bought something with your credit, it’s automatically downloaded to your phone so you can listen offline.
What’s more, these downloads are yours to keep forever – even if you later cancel your Audible subscription.
But the very best thing? You can return books within 365 days of purchasing it, even if you’ve already read it.
This means that once you’ve had Audible for a while and have built up some credits, you can exchange books as you please and basically have your pick of the Audible library.
So what’s not so good about Audible?
The biggest drawback for me has always been the cost. I know audio content can be expensive and if you look at the price of these audiobooks off the app they are often £20+.
However, I simply wouldn’t pay those kinds of prices anyway so I don’t view it as Audible offering the listener a huge saving since paperbacks are a similar price.
When Audible are charging £7.99 for one audiobook, and my average is £1 per title on Everand, it’s a no-brainer really.
That said, with Audible’s exchange policy, over time you build up access to a larger number of books.
However, this does mean that you have to keep paying for the subscription for a while in order to get these perks. And as soon as you cancel your subscription, this perk is gone.
I also find the Audible app to be less functional than the Everand app as you need to purchase and download your audiobooks from the Amazon website before they are transferred to your app.
The app has fewer features such as lists and notes, which I talk about more in my in-depth Everand review here.
Everand and Audible Pros and Cons
Similarities between Audible and Everand
- Price: Audible costs £7.99 per month and Everand costs £10.99 per month
- Synchronisation: they both sync across your various devices
Audible Pros
- New releases
- Great titles and narrators
- Exclusive content
- Listen offline
- Keep your downloads forever
- Exchange books you’ve already read
Audible Cons
- Limited to one per month
- More expensive
- No in-app purchases
- Owned by Amazon
Everand Pros
- Offers e-books and magazines, in addition to audiobooks
- (Almost) unlimited content
- Listen to/read multiple titles at one time
- Tells you how far through a book you are
- Can create lists
Everand Cons
- Smaller number of new releases
- Lose access to everything when you unsubscribe
So if you’re just getting started with audiobooks, which should you go for?
Well, both…
Didn’t you hear me say they are free?
The great thing is that both services offer a 30-day free trial period so you can test both out for yourself.
I’d highly recommend downloading both anyway just because if you can get that one free audiobook from Audible, why would you not? Free books are free books!
Start with the Audible free trial, get your two free credits, then cancel and move over to Everand. You may as well make the most of that free trial!
Audible is great for getting into audiobooks just because it’ll have literally every title on there, including the newest releases, so you’re bound to find something you like.
Try the Everand 30-day free trial
Try the Audible 30-day free trial (UK)
Try the Audible 30-day free trial (US)
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my biggest problem with audible was the absolutely awful support. It is like dealing with mentally retarded people, but that’s because they outsource all their customer services to india, and they can barely understand anything you say to them.
I subscribed to something on amazon, which gave me access to a certain category of books on Audible.
When I tried to use use that subscription, I was not able to access the audio books.
I spent weeks and weeks going back and forth with both Amazon and Audible over this.
Despite the fact that Audible is owned by Amazon, neither side understood this or knew how anything worked and just kept telling me that I had to have an audible subscription. They blatantly refused to communicate with each other either.
I was continually sending them screenshots from the amazon site showing them what I had subscribed to and that it clearly showed that it included audible books.
This is what drove me to look to for alternatives, and I found scribd, which is what I now use.
If cost is no issue for you, then Audible is better with more books and authors, otherwise scribd is a much better deal and far more flexible. Yes there is far less on there, but still plenty to choose from.
You can also just use Audible for the odd book that you are desperate for :-)
I was disappointed that none of the authors/books I was currently reading were on scribd, so I had to continue paying audible until I had listened to all those audiobooks. Although I did find that I could keep restarting my trial and getting a free book :-)
I also allow my kids to use my scribd account and have their own lists, which I couldn’t do with audible.
I really only listen to audiobooks when I go to bed, so scribd is more than enough for me.
Great review and I am gonna go with the Scribd subscription as I like to have unlimited access.
Thanks for the review.