Quick TTS vs TTSMaker: What Is the Free Limit, Really?
TTSMaker is a free, server-side text-to-speech site with a large voice catalogue and a weekly character cap. Quick TTS is a free, browser-only tool with fewer voices and no usage meter. Every TTSMaker figure below was read from their own pages on 8 September 2026, not from reviews.
The short answer
- TTSMaker is free without signing up, synthesises on its servers, meters you by the week and by the conversion, and exports MP3, OGG, AAC, OPUS or WAV.
- Quick TTS is free with no account at any point, synthesises in your browser across four engines, and has no quota.
- The catch is that TTSMaker's ceiling depends on which voice you pick, and a subset of voices ignore the meter entirely.
What is TTSMaker's free limit, really?
Three numbers govern the free tier, and TTSMaker publishes all of them.
- 20,000 characters per week. The converter reads "Limit 20000 characters per week (some voices support unlimited free use)", and the pricing page opens the free plan with "20,000 characters per week limit".
- A per-conversion cap sits underneath it. The pricing page lists "Maximum 500 characters per conversion" for the free plan. The converter looks more generous: every voice carries its own "Limit Per Conversion" badge, and the catalogue values behind them run from 100 to 50,000. The two do not reconcile, so plan around the smaller one.
- Some voices ignore the meter. Voices flagged with a flame "without counting towards your quota, available for unlimited use". The pricing page advertises "20+ unlimited voices"; the catalogue flags 60. Their terms give Free and Pro "equal access to unlimited voices".
Catalogue size is the one place TTSMaker's pages disagree with each other. The pricing page sells the free plan on "600+ AI voices and 100+ languages", while the voice data the home page loads holds 639 voices across 79 language options. The voice count checks out. The language count does not.
Commercial use is simpler than the review write-ups suggest. TTSMaker's FAQ asks whether you must credit them on YouTube or TikTok and answers that "it's not mandatory, and you are not required to attribute the source. However, if you would like to attribute the source, we would greatly appreciate it." Their commercial licence terms grant a "non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, and perpetual license" to use the audio commercially "without paying additional fees or obtaining further permissions". One line there is worth reading twice, because it is narrower than the "100% voice copyright" their pricing FAQ promises: "Users receive usage rights, not copyright ownership."
A process note, since an earlier version carried the opposite one. ttsmaker.com sits behind a bot check that refuses many automated requests, which is why this post used to lean on reviews. It no longer does.
Things Quick TTS can't do that TTSMaker can
- Sheer catalogue size. 639 voices across 79 languages. Quick TTS ships Piper in 13 languages, Supertonic HD in 31, and Kokoro in English only. If your language is not in that set, TTSMaker probably has it.
- Timed subtitle export. After a conversion the free tier offers "Need subtitle file (SRT)? Click here to export the SRT file for the current audio." We flagged this as unverified last time. It is real and it is free.
- More export formats and background music. MP3, OGG, AAC, OPUS and WAV, plus an uploaded backing track. We do WAV and MP3.
- An API, if you pay for it. The free plan is listed as "No API support", and their FAQ says access "requires Pro/Studio subscription members, not Lite". We have no API and no plan for one, because there is no server to put it on.
- Emotion control. Dozens of their voices carry emotion styles, which the pricing page puts on Pro Mini and above. We found no general SSML input advertised on their site, so if SSML is what you need, check first.
- No hardware requirement. An old laptop gets the same voices as a new one. Kokoro and Supertonic HD need WebGPU, and Supertonic HD pulls roughly 380MB of weights on first use.
Where Quick TTS wins
- Your text never leaves the browser. TTSMaker is server-side, so your text is uploaded to synthesise it. Their terms say they do "not retain input text or generated content" beyond a short window. That is a fair policy, but it is a policy rather than an architecture.
- No meter, and no captcha. No weekly quota, no per-conversion ceiling, no voices held back behind one. TTSMaker's free plan lists "Captcha & Ads". We have ads and no captcha.
- Nothing expires. TTSMaker's licence terms say audio files and their download links are kept "for up to 30 minutes", after which they "are automatically deleted and cannot be recovered". Ours are saved straight to your disk.
- File import, including scanned pages. TTSMaker's converter takes pasted text, and the only file upload on the page is for background music. Quick TTS reads PDF, DOC, DOCX, EPUB, ODT, RTF, HTML, TXT and Markdown, plus JPG and PNG images and scanned PDFs through in-browser OCR.
- Downloads that survive long documents. WAV or MP3, and a multi-part ZIP when one file would be unwieldy. Read a whole book in one sitting.
- A site in your language. The interface is translated into 32 locales, separate from voice coverage.
- Studio sample rate for free. Supertonic HD generates at 44.1kHz, CD rate.
Pricing, honestly
Both are usable without paying anyone. TTSMaker's free tier is metered and ad-supported, with four paid plans above it. Billed monthly they run $13.99 for Lite, which buys 300,000 characters a month, $23.99 for Pro Mini, $32.99 for Pro Max and $140 for Studio. Annual billing drops Lite to $9.99 a month, and Lite includes neither the API nor the emotion controls. That is a normal business, not a criticism.
Quick TTS has no paid tier and no plan for one. Display ads cover static hosting, and the models run on your hardware rather than ours. The FAQ answers the obvious follow-up about what happens to your text.
Which one should you use?
- Your language is not in our engine list. TTSMaker. This is the clearest case, and it is not close.
- You need subtitles alongside the audio. TTSMaker, free.
- You need an API or emotion control. TTSMaker, Pro Mini and above.
- The text is confidential. Quick TTS. Nothing is uploaded.
- You have a long document, or many of them. Quick TTS. A 500-character conversion limit is the wrong shape for book-length input.
- Your source is a PDF, EPUB or a photo of a page. Quick TTS. TTSMaker wants pasted text.
- You are proofreading by ear. Quick TTS. You will replay the same paragraph a dozen times, and a meter makes that miserable.
What about other alternatives?
NaturalReader, Speechify and TTSReader turn up in the same searches. The full comparison page covers them side by side, and our Quick TTS vs NaturalReader post takes the paid-suite end. TTSMaker is closest to us on intent, since neither requires an account, and furthest on architecture.
Try Quick TTS
Open Quick TTS, paste your text or drop a file in, and press play. Pick Supertonic HD or Kokoro on desktop Chrome or Edge, Piper otherwise. If you need a language we do not carry, or subtitles, or an API, then TTSMaker is a good tool and you should use it. For everything else, there is nothing to install, no meter counting down, and nothing leaving your browser.