Ryan Dube · June 16, 2020 · 7 min read The Amazon Audible service gives you access to a massive library of audiobooks including fiction, non-fiction, self-help and much more.
Unless you take advantage of any special offers, Audible normally costs $14.95 each month. For that price, you receive 1 credit to download a single audiobook at any price each month. Many of the audiobooks have a market price of anywhere from $15 to $40.
From a financial standpoint, Audible seems like an excellent deal. But is it right for you? In this article, we’ll take a look at how Audible works once you subscribe. We’ll also explore scenarios where you may want to to end your membership, and how to cancel Audible.
How Does Audible Work?
Signing up for Audible is fairly straightforward. First, sign up for a free 30 day trial with your credit card. You’ll also need to download the Audible app for Android or for iOS.
Once you launch Audible, you’ll see lots of suggestions for audiobooks you may enjoy. These are organized across a number of categories like:
- Recommended for you.
- Popular In Your Top Genres.
- Free for Members.
And a variety of other categories that update regularly.
Once you start listening to audiobooks, at the top of the Home page you’ll also see your current audiobooks and your progress in each one. It’ll also show you the status of available credits to use.
It’s worth noting that you don’t have to use your monthly credit for all audiobooks. Audible has a collection of audiobooks in its library that you can listen to free of charge with a subscription.
When you tap the menu icon at the upper left of the home screen, you’ll see the full Audible menu with lots of options.
Navigating Audible
- Select Originals from the menu to browse Audible originals that you can listen to for free.
- Select My Library from the menu to view all of the audiobooks you’ve purchased. Purchasing an audiobook means that it’ll stay in your library permanently and you can listen to it as often as you wish.
- Select Recommended from the menu to see what audiobooks Audible recommends, based on your recent listening history.
This area is especially useful considering the Audible library of audiobooks is so large, it can be difficult sometimes to find audiobooks that you’ll find interesting.
- If you select Stats from the menu, you’ll see your listening history visualized in different ways.
- Listening Level: Earn higher ranks the more hours you listen to audiobooks.
- Badge Collection: You can win badges for listening to audiobooks in a row, listening at certain times of day or the week, and more.
- Listening Time: See a history of your total listening time.
- Audible Titles: View a total of the number of audiobooks you’ve listened to over time.
Just like fitness apps help you see how well you’re maintaining your physical fitness, Audible stats help you monitor how well you’re keeping up with your intellectual fitness!
Finding New Audiobooks To Listen To
When you select Store from the main menu, you’ll see different approaches to finding new Audible audiobooks to buy. You can build a Wish List, search for Best Sellers or New Releases, or simply select Browse to browse top selections.
The Categories option is the best way to dive into the entire Audible library. You’ll see a main Categories page breaking all audiobooks across 26 categories.
These should cover just about any area of topical interest you may have.
Select any one of them to browse by Recommended titles or by subcategories of each topic area.
Once you see an Audible title that you’d like to listen to, just tap the audiobook title. You’ll see the option to buy the audiobook at a price that’s typically discounted off retail price for subscribers.
However, most of the time you’ll use one of your monthly credits by tapping on Buy Now with 1 Credit. If you don’t want to buy now, you can select Add to Wish List so that anyone else with an Audible account could buy it for you by selecting Give as a gift.
One thing you can be confident about if you have an Audible account is that you’ll never run out of audiobook options to listen to. The library is truly massive.
Is Audible Worth The Cost?
Deciding whether Audible is right for you isn’t simple. A lot depends on your lifestyle and how much time you actually have to listen to that can range from 8 to 15 hours.
There are a lot of other considerations as well:
- Do you enjoy hearing stories told to you out loud?
- What part of your daily schedule allows for listening to audio for long periods of time?
- Can you listen to an audiobook while focusing on other work?
- Do you normally spend a lot of money on audiobooks anyway?
Audiobooks aren’t ideal for people who prefer the experience of reading physical books. It also isn’t cost-effective for people who only listen to them during long trips, and only take long trips infrequently.
To determine whether it’s worth the cost, consider that the monthly cost of an Audible subscription is $14.95.
- Most subscriber prices for audiobooks average about $20 to $25 each.
- You can purchase any audiobook with your monthly credit regardless of price.
- You have access to an entire library of free audiobooks with your monthly subscription
Keep in mind there are plenty of places online where you can get free audiobooks to listen to. However the library of free audiobooks is typically much smaller than the library you’ll find at Audible.
How To Cancel Audible
If you’ve subscribed to Audible but have decided that it isn’t cost-effective, understanding how to cancel your subscription isn’t entirely obvious.
You do need to dig a little in the menu system to find where you can cancel your Audible subscription.
- From the Audible Home page, select My Account from the menu. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select Help.
- Under the What can we help you with? section, select My Account.
- On the next page, select Change or cancel my membership.
- On the next page, select Cancel my membership.
- Select the Cancel membership button to complete the membership cancellation.
You do have other options rather than outright cancelling your subscription. If you want, you could place your account on hold for up to three months. This will pause any monthly charges.
During that time, you won’t be charged the monthly subscription rate, but you also won’t accumulate any new monthly credits. This can be helpful if you’ve accumulated a lot of credits and haven’t had a lot of time to listen to audiobooks.
However, to do this, you’ll need to contact customer care via phone or email.
Should You Keep Your Audible Subscription?
The decision to keep paying for your monthly Audible subscription boils down to how much you use it. If you just don’t have the time to listen to audiobooks very often, an Audible subscription may not be cost-effective for you.
However, if you travel a lot and need entertainment during your long travels, or you find that listening to stories helps you stay more productive – an Audible subscription may be perfect for you.
