- To listen to audiobooks on Spotify, simply search for the book title or author, choose the chapter, and play it.
- Spotify gives you access to 250,000 books and 15 hours of listening time per month with its Premium subscription.
- You can also directly purchase audiobooks for their retail price using Spotify's web player.
Spotify has already established its dominance over the music and podcast industry, and now it’s set to devour another segment, audiobooks. Spotify’s audiobook platform was released in 2022 and is now available in several regions. So if you’re a book enthusiast or want to try out the app’s narrated books experience, then keep reading as we discuss how to buy and listen to audiobooks on Spotify.
Note
As of writing this article, Spotify Audiobooks are only available in U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. Users outside these regions won’t get the audiobooks section in the app.
Find Audiobooks on Spotify
Before we jump onto how you can listen to audiobooks, let us give you a tour of how to find them on the app. There are two to do it. Through the search and the audiobooks tab. Here’s a quick guide.
On Phone
- Open the Spotify app and tap on the Audiobooks tab adjacent to “Podcasts & Shows” on the home screen next. This will take you to the “Audiobooks” section, where you can select the book that you want to listen to.
- Alternatively, you can use the search tab at the bottom, and then search for the book you want to listen to. Tap on the result to open and play it.
On PC
- On Spotify’s desktop app, click the Audiobooks tab from the home page, just like the mobile app. From here, pick from different categories and genres.
- You can also click on the search icon in the left sidebar, below the home page button. Here, search for the book title, click on the top suggestion, select the chapter, and start listening.
Listen to Audiobooks on Spotify
Listening to audiobooks is pretty straightforward on Spotify. Once you have found and selected a book using the above methods, just tap on the green play button to start listening from the beginning.
You can skip forward or rewind 15 seconds using the controls in the player. Increase the playback speed if you feel the narration is a little slow for you. Set a sleep timer so you won’t exhaust your monthly 15 hours while asleep.
Like music albums, you can start playing any chapter in the book by tapping on the play button next to the chapter name. However, there is no option to queue an audiobook.
Buy Audiobooks on Spotify
Certain audiobooks will have a lock icon next to the play button. These books can only be played when purchased on the app. If you want to read that book, here is how you can do it.
- Head over to Spotify web player using a web browser.
- Now, find and select the title you want to purchase.
- Click the locked green Play button.
- On the next page, tap Get email.
- You’ll get an email from Spotify with the link to buy the audiobook. Open the link.
- Click on Buy Audiobook and complete the purchase.
Once you have purchased a book, it will be added to your library automatically, and you can listen to it from there. Also, you don’t need a Premium subscription to listen to your purchased audiobooks.
Note Purchased audiobooks can only be accessed by the Plan Manager, even if you are on a Duo or Family Premium plan.
Can You Listen to Audiobooks for Free on Spotify?
Spotify offers over a dozen audiobooks for free. This is included in the Free audiobooks catalog and features titles like Fiona Grace’s Beachfront Bakery and Mia Gold’s Knockout. You can use these titles to try out the audiobook experience on the app.
Alternatively, there are plenty of books available as podcasts on the app that you can listen to without any subscription. It gives you the same playback controls but will include ad breaks.
Audiobooks with Spotify Premium
Besides that, if you have a Premium subscription or are part of the Duo or Family plans, you can read more than 70% of the available books on the platform for free. They are included as a part of the subscriber catalog. Audiobooks that are available as part of the Premium subscription will have the “Included in Premium” label on them.
The Premium subscription gives you 15 hours of monthly listening time for any book in the collection. Beyond this limit, you can purchase 10-hour add-ons. The remaining hours from a month do not stack up; instead, they reset after every month. There’s also an Audiobook Access Plan, which only includes the 15-hour listening and none of the other Premium features.
Audiobooks Available for Purchase
Spotify also gives you the option to buy any book from their catalog. However, pricing of these varies between titles depending on their popularity and demand. They’re only available for purchase through Spotify’s web client. Once you buy the book, you can listen to it regardless of whether you’re subscribed to Spotify Premium or not.
This brings us to the end of this article. Have to admit that the situation with audiobooks on Spotify is a little confusing, especially for someone who is hopping on the platform just for these. They need to iron out their planning scheme. Hopefully, you found this guide useful, and if you have any doubts then leave us a comment.
Spotify offers access to over 250,000 audiobooks from their subscriber tier that you can listen for free up to 15 hours per month with Premium or Audiobook Access plans. Alternatively, you can buy audiobooks and listen to them with or without any plans.
No. Spotify doesn’t stack your leftover hours. It resets every month. So if you have two to three hours of listening time left by the end of the month, then it is best to consume them.
No. You can listen to your purchased audiobooks, even on Spotify’s free tier. There is also no hourly limitation when you listen to a book you have bought.
You cannot add audiobooks to any of your existing playlists. But you can save them to your library and access them from there.
Spotify does feature a limited collection of 15 audiobooks that you can listen to for free and try out the experience on the app before you pay for them.
Audiobooks are readily available on the app and can be accessed through the audiobook section at the top of the homepage next to podcasts. However, they are only available in limited regions.
