VoiceX – Text to Speech Reader

VoiceX turns every WordPress post into audio in one click. Visitors press Listen and hear the article read aloud in the most natural voice their device has. It is free text to speech with no API key, no account and no per-character fees. Activate it and the player is already live on your posts.

Why add text to speech to your site?

Not every visitor wants to read. Some are on a phone, commuting, cooking or working out. Some have low vision, dyslexia or tired eyes, or are reading in a second language. A Listen button lets all of them take in your full article instead of skimming it or leaving.

VoiceX works well for:

• Blogs and magazines – give long reads an audio version without recording anything.
• News sites – let readers catch up hands-free.
• Recipe and how-to sites – visitors listen while their hands are busy.
• Schools, courses and documentation – support learners who understand better by listening.
• Online stores – read product descriptions aloud (with VoiceX Pro).

How does VoiceX work?

1. Activate VoiceX. A Listen player appears on your single posts straight away. No setup is needed.
2. A visitor presses Listen. Their browser reads the title and the article, one sentence at a time, in the most natural voice their device has for your language.
3. They stay in control. Pause, resume from the last word, stop, and (if you allow it) pick a voice and a speed.

Speech uses the browser’s built-in Web Speech API, so it runs on the visitor’s own device. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is billed.

Free features

• Ready in seconds – the player appears on single posts as soon as the plugin is active. Turn on pages and custom post types with one checkbox.
• Unlimited and free – no usage caps, no character limits, no account.
• Natural voices first – VoiceX picks the most natural-sounding voice on each device (neural and online voices first) and never uses novelty voices. Set a preferred voice, speed and pitch if you like.
• Accessible player – real buttons with visible focus, full keyboard support, screen reader announcements and 44 px touch targets.
• Play, pause, resume and stop, with optional voice and speed menus for visitors. Their choice is remembered in their own browser.
• Two layouts – Standard (controls in a panel) or Button only (a single Listen button).
• Place it anywhere – automatically before or after the content, or by hand with the VoiceX Player block, the [wpxero_text_to_speech] shortcode or the Elementor widget. The shortcode also works in Divi, Bricks and other page builders.
• Per-post control – hide the automatic player on any post from the block editor panel or the classic editor box.
• Reads only the article – skips scripts, menus, forms, hidden elements and the player itself. The title can be read first.
• Reliable on long articles – reads one sentence at a time so browsers don’t stop part-way, and pauses cleanly when a phone locks or the tab goes to the background.
• Multilingual – reads any language the visitor’s device has a voice for. With Polylang or WPML, each post is read in its own language.
• Live preview – a setup checklist and a preview that plays your unsaved changes.
• Fast and cache-friendly – one small script and stylesheet, loaded only on pages with a player. React runs only in the admin screen.
• Private by design – no tracking, no cookies and no visitor data on your server.
• Translation-ready – every interface string can be translated.

VoiceX Pro: the same studio voice for every visitor

Browser voices are free, but they sound different on every device. VoiceX Pro gives every visitor the same natural AI voice and turns your posts into an audio channel. It adds sections to the same VoiceX screen; nothing to migrate.

• Natural AI voices – connect your own OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure account. Each post is recorded once and played from your site, on any device and even with the screen locked. Your provider bills you directly, with no extra per-character fee from us.
• Podcast feed – publish your recordings as a podcast for Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
• Listening stats – plays and listens to the end for each post, counted on your site without cookies.
• Read-along highlighting – the sentence (and, where the voice supports it, the word) being read is highlighted.
• Listen to a selection – visitors select a passage and hear just that part.
• Nine more player designs – Studio (a podcast card with cover art, seek bar and skip buttons), Capsule, Editorial, Waveform, Glass, Midnight, Expanded, Compact and Minimal, with your own colours and labels, plus a floating mini player.
• Content rules – place the player after any paragraph, choose what is read, and skip posts by category, tag or length.
• WooCommerce product pages, per-post settings and settings import/export.

See every Pro feature or compare plans and pricing. You can also open VoiceX › Pricing in your dashboard.

Shortcode

[wpxero_text_to_speech]

Optional attributes:

• layout – standard or button (extensions may add more)
• title – yes or no: read the post title first
• lang – a language code such as en-GB
• rate – speed from 0.5 to 2

Example: [wpxero_text_to_speech layout="button" title="no" rate="1.25"]. Invalid values are ignored and the settings are used instead. A post that contains the block or shortcode does not also get the automatic player.

Browser support and limitations

Free voices, languages and quality depend on the visitor’s operating system and browser, so the same page can sound different on different devices. Some in-app and privacy-focused browsers have no speech support; the player then says so instead of showing controls that do nothing. Some browsers stop speaking when the tab is in the background or the screen locks; VoiceX then pauses at the last word so the visitor can resume.

Some browser vendors provide online voices that process text on their own servers. That is a browser feature outside the plugin’s control.

VoiceX helps visitors who prefer to listen. It is not a screen reader, and it does not by itself make a site conform to WCAG or any other accessibility standard.

External services

The player itself uses no external service. The plugin includes the Freemius SDK for two purposes:

• Optional opt-in – nothing is sent unless an administrator chooses “Opt in” on the VoiceX Overview screen. If they do, Freemius receives the administrator’s name and email address, the site address, the WordPress, PHP and plugin versions and, if allowed, the list of plugins and themes, to send security and feature-update notices and non-sensitive diagnostics. You can opt out at any time from the plugin’s row on the Plugins screen.
• VoiceX Pro licensing – buying, activating and updating VoiceX Pro happens through Freemius.

When you deactivate the plugin you may answer an optional one-question survey; the answer is sent to Freemius only if you submit it. See the Freemius terms of service and privacy policy. Your visitors’ data is never sent.

Credits

VoiceX bundles the following third-party code and assets:

• Freemius WordPress SDK by Freemius, GPL-3.0-or-later (licensing and the optional opt-in).
• Figtree font by Erik Kennedy, SIL Open Font License 1.1.
• Geist Mono font by Vercel, SIL Open Font License 1.1.
• Material Symbols icons by Google, Apache License 2.0.