Audiobook and podcast specialist Audible is testing a new Standard plan, its most affordable tier, with select Australian customers.

Called Audible Standard, the plan costs A$8.99 a month. That’s nearly 60 per cent less than the A$16.45 that a user would pay for the Premium Plus offering.

There are limitations that will be placed upon subscribers Under the new Audible Standard plan, subscribers who miss a month without choosing a book won’t have credit that carries over to the following month. Also, they’ll have limited access to certain Audible Originals podcasts, which the company produces, and will lose access to audiobooks they’ve chosen if they close their accounts.

The move by Amazon’s Audible seems to be in response to Spotify which last year introduced an audiobook plan that gives paid subscribers in certain markets including Australia 15 hours of listening a month, typically enough for a single title. Listeners don’t own the audiobooks in any way, and if they want to exceed 15 hours they have to purchase additional time. Spotify negotiated deals with all five big publishing houses including Penguin Random House to bring their catalogues to the service.

Audiobooks (Image: Sourced from Unsplash)

Last month, Spotify revealed that 25 per cent of its paid users in the US, UK and Australia have started an audiobook as part of their subscriptions.

According to the results of a National Arts Participation Survey in Australia, released last September, more Australian readers are reading ebooks and listening to audiobooks. In 2022, of those who read, three in five read ebooks (60 per cent up from 57 per cent in 2019). In 2022, a third of Australians listen to audiobooks (34 per cent up from 31 per cent in 2019); and half of those who read used audiobooks to consume literature (49 per cent of readers use audiobooks, an increase from 43 per cent in 2019). Monthly or less regular use of audiobooks has increased eight percentage points from 18 per cent in 2019 to 26 per cent in 2022.