Okey, not most advanced service, but I can’t figure out one thing. I became Audible member and want to download a few titles for offline listening. Do I need first spent money/credits to de able to do that? Because now when I’m on a title page, I have the option to listen a sample, but no option download/add to my library.
I thought Audible was like Apple Music in the way that you can add so many books you want to your library by paying a single monthly fee?
If it is not the case, I have mixed opinion about this service.
You get one credit per month (at least on the basic package) and one download is one credit normally. Therefore, you can only have a single book month, unless you pay for the higher tiers.
Audible used to be a straight-up thing where “subscribe for x, get y credits per month / year, spend the credits on books”. Almost all books were one credit, and when you purchased a book with credits it was yours permanently. I have some books I bought from Audible 10+ years ago, and I can go download them any time I want.
This was the only way Audible ran before the acquisition by Amazon, and for some time after.
Audible still runs like that (spend money, get credits, swap credits for books), but now they’ve started offering a small-ish (growing, presumably) selection of books that are “all you can listen”. They’ve also started creating their own content, which seems to be included in the “all you can listen” tier.
Audible “Plus” plans are only that selection of “all you can listen” books. Audible “Premium Plus” are the “all you can listen” books and some credits to spend on whatever you want on their site.
I’m not aware of any audiobook platform that offers both a great selection of useful, current stuff and “all you can listen”, but a nice thing about Audible is that their customer service is typically pretty good. You can also exchange books you don’t like (rare on audiobook platforms).
If you know you want to listen to audiobooks, and you anticipate listening a lot, the yearly plans are obviously the best deal. And if you really listen to a lot of stuff, pay attention to the price for a book, note the cost-per-credit of your membership, and don’t use a credit that costs you $11 for a book that only costs $7.99 if you pay directly.
In Spain, it is €9.99 to access 90,000 books with unlimited reading. It depends on the region what deal you get. There are no credits at all involved here.
