VoiceX – Text To Speech Reader Wordpress Plugin - Rating, Reviews, Demo & Download

VoiceX – Text To Speech Reader Preview Wordpress Plugin - Rating, Reviews, Demo & Download

No ratings yet

Free

Follow for free plugins, new theme releases and theme news

Plugin Description

VoiceX is a free text to speech plugin for WordPress. It adds an accessible Listen button to your posts, and when a visitor presses it, their browser reads the article aloud with the speech voices already built into their device. There is no account, no API key and no per-character pricing, and the player sends nothing to a speech service.

Use it to let readers listen to blog posts, news, recipes, guides and documentation while they commute, cook or rest their eyes, and to support visitors with low vision, dyslexia or reading fatigue.

How it works

Activate VoiceX. A Listen player appears on your single posts straight away.
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.
They can pause, resume, stop, and (if you allow it) pick a voice and a speed.

Speech uses the browser’s Web Speech API, so it runs on the visitor’s device. Nothing is uploaded, and there is nothing to pay for.

Features

Works out of the box – the player appears on single posts as soon as the plugin is active. Turn on pages and other public content types with one checkbox.
Natural voices first – 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, status announcements for screen readers and 44 px touch targets.
Play, pause, resume and stop, with optional voice and speed choices for visitors. Their choice is remembered in their own browser.
Two layouts – Standard (controls in a panel) or Button only (a single Listen button).
Placed automatically or by hand – before or after the content, 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, navigation, forms, hidden elements and the player itself. The title can be read first.
Handles 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.
Clear settings screen – a setup checklist and a live preview that plays your unsaved changes.
Lightweight and cache-friendly – one small script and stylesheet, loaded only on pages with a player. React is used only in the admin screen.
Private by design – no tracking, no cookies, no visitor data on your server.
Translation-ready – every interface string can be translated.

Settings

Go to VoiceX in the admin menu:

General – turn automatic insertion on or off, choose content types, and place the player before or after the content.
Player – choose the layout and which controls visitors get.
Voice and playback – reading language, preferred voice, default speed and pitch.

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.

VoiceX Pro

Everything above is free. VoiceX Pro is an optional paid add-on that adds sections to the same VoiceX screen:

Natural AI voices – every visitor hears the same studio-quality voice, on any device and with the screen locked. Connect your own OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure account; each post is recorded once and played from your site.
Podcast feed – publish your recordings as a podcast for Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Listening stats – plays and listens to the end per 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.
Per-post settings, WooCommerce product pages and settings import/export.

See all features on the VoiceX page and plans on the pricing page, also linked under VoiceX › Pricing in your dashboard.

Browser support and limitations

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.

Source code and build

The JavaScript and CSS in the build/ folder are compiled. Their human-readable source (TypeScript, React and SCSS in src/), build configuration and tests are public at github.com/WPXERO/wpxero-text-to-speech.

To rebuild the files, use Node.js 22.22 or later and run npm install and then npm run build in the plugin’s source directory. The build uses @wordpress/scripts (webpack).

Credits

VoiceX is an independent reimplementation inspired by the GPL-licensed “Text To Speech TTS Accessibility” plugin (text-to-audio) by Azizul Hasan / AtlasAiDev. It does not include that plugin’s code.

Bundled 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.

Screenshots

The text to speech Listen player above a post: pause, resume and stop, optional voice and speed menus, and full keyboard support.
Overview: a setup checklist and a live preview that plays your unsaved changes.
Paused: Resume carries on from the last word read.
General settings: automatic insertion, content types and placement before or after the content.
What is read: the article only, with the title read first if you like.
Player settings: Standard or Button only layout, and voice and speed menus for visitors.
The live preview updates as soon as you change a setting, before you save.
The Button only layout placed after the content.
Voice and playback: reading language and preferred voice.
Default speed and pitch.
The player on a phone.
Keyboard focus on the Listen button.
Block editor: the VoiceX Player block and the per-post “Show the automatic player” switch.
Find the VoiceX Player block by searching “VoiceX” in the block inserter.
Block settings: layout and whether the title is read, per block.
The [wpxero_text_to_speech] shortcode in a Shortcode block.
Classic editor: the VoiceX box with the per-post switch.
Elementor: the VoiceX Player widget and the player on the published page.
Help: block and shortcode reference, browser notes and troubleshooting.
The optional VoiceX Pro add-on, described inside the plugin.
Free and Pro features compared.