Playtext is a text-to-speech browser app that you can use to enhance your reading speed.
You can use the app to capture articles, pdfs and other content from the internet. The app then presents your content with an audio player so that you can listen to the content while reading. You can adjust the reading speed up to 3x and train yourself to read much faster than your normal reading speed.
Playtext gives you a 7-day free trial to test the app. To continue using it after the trial is over, you will need to subscribe at a cost of $120/year.
If you want to demo how the player works, you can check out their collection of book summaries which all use the Playtext player to deliver your summary content.
In this article, I’m going to show you how easy it is to sign up for a 7-day Playtext free trial. You will need your credit card but you can cancel at any time.
Starting Your PlayText Free Trial
To begin using PlayText to listen and read unlimited books and articles up to 3x faster, you’ll need to subscribe, starting with a 7-day free trial.
You can demo the service by going to the “Books” section where there’s a collection of more than 100 book summaries. Click on any of the books and you can play each summary using the PlayText player interface.
The signup process is easy and straightforward. Below I’m going to outline the process so that you can see what you’ll need to do.
The first thing you’ll need to do is to click on the “Start 7-day Free Trial” button on the website. Then follow the instructions below.
1. Enter your payment details
Fill out the secure Stripe payment form by entering the necessary details.
Below the “Start Trial” submit button, you’ll find information about your free trial including how much will be charged after your trial ends and the trial end date. Submitting the payment details means you agree to the subscription terms.
2. Register to login
Next, you’ll need to register in order to log in and manage your service.
There are two options available for registration. You can use the Google account authentication or use your email to login with email and password.
Personally, I prefer the password-less method of registering and logging in so I’m going to choose the “sign up with Google” option.
After you click the button, you can just click on the Google account you want to use and if you’re already logged in then you’ll be forwarded to the login page of Playtext.
3. Log in to Playtext
Finally, you can login using the method you chose in the previous step.
I chose the Google authentication method but had trouble with the sign in button. If you encounter the same problem. just enter your email address in the email sign in form and click the button. Playtext will send a link to that email for you to click and sign in. After you click on the link in your email, you’ll be logged into your Playtext account to start using the service.
4. Install the extension or use the web app
To start reading articles and documents, you will need to either install the Chrome extension or just use the web app to capture articles and read them up to 3x faster.
How Much Does PlayText Cost?
Playtext costs $120/year. This works out to be $10/month. However, there is no monthly billing option.
To subscribe to Playtext, you get a 7-day free trial which needs to be activated by entering your credit card information. After your free trial expires, you’ll be automatically charged $120 which will continue to be billed on an annual basis until you cancel.
If you don’t want to be charged, you’ll need to cancel before your free trial expires. This is easy to do. Just log into your account and click on the cancel button.
Your subscription to Playtext gives you the ability to listen and read unlimited articles and books up to 3x faster. You also get access to premium support which according to the website means you get a direct channel to the founder (including a 15 minute chat).
Should You Get PlayText?
Try Playtext app works very well and is easy to use. The browser extension only works with the Chrome browser but you can also capture articles from your account dashboard.
I captured a few articles while trialing the app and they work the same as presented in the book summaries section.
If you’re looking to improve your productivity or your reading speed to consume more content faster, then Playtext is a good option. There’s a 7-day free trial so there’s really no excuse to not try it.
You can also check out the collection of summaries to demo how the app works. Then you can take the free trial to listen to the content you want to read.
