Article-to-audio, not a browser plugin

Text to speech software for your reading list

Turn saved articles, newsletters, and PDFs into narrated audio you queue like a podcast. No per-character billing, no separate accessibility tier.

Start listening free See how it works

Commuter walking through a train station platform listening to audio through wireless earbuds

What it actually does

Long-form narration, not a text to speech toy

Most text to speech software is built for short utterances. heartheweb is built for the 2,000-word article you saved three weeks ago.

Long-form narration fidelity

Tuned for pieces over 2,000 words with nested quotes and subheads, not the 10-second clips most text to speech engines were designed for.

Private RSS feed

Every converted article lands in a private feed. Subscribe once, in whatever podcast app you already use.

Newsletters and PDFs included

Forward a newsletter or drop in a PDF. The queue does not care where the text came from.

Calm, sharp, or documentary voices

Pick a narrator voice that matches the piece: calm for essays, sharp for news, documentary UK for long reports.

Built for low vision, not bolted on

Screens are not always available or usable. The audio pipeline works the same either way, by choice or by necessity.

No ads in the feed

The MP3 output is clean. What you queued is what plays, nothing inserted before or after.

The commute problem

For readers with 200 tabs and no time to close them

Three articles absorbed in the time it took to make coffee, that is the target. heartheweb takes what you already saved, whether that is a Readwise Reader highlight, an Instapaper queue, or a plain RSS export from the read-it-later app you used before Pocket, and turns the backlog into something you finish instead of scroll past. NOW PLAYING: narrator-calm, format mp3, duration 8m42s. You listen on the drive, the run, the dishes. The article gets read either way.

Works with links from Instapaper, Readwise Reader, Omnivore, or a raw RSS export
Queue order stays yours: newest first, or reordered by hand
Skip, rewind 15 seconds, or bump speed to 1.8x mid-article

Commuter sitting by a subway train window wearing earbuds, listening to a narrated article

Screens are not guaranteed

Built for screens that are not always available

heartheweb's listeners include people who read for a living and people for whom a screen is not a reliable option: low vision, a temporary injury, a stretch of the day where reading is not possible. The narration pipeline is the same pipeline for everyone. There is no separate accessibility mode with a shorter feature list or a worse voice. Footnotes, pull quotes, and long subheaded reports come through in the same MP3 as the rest of the queue.

Same narration quality for every listener, no lower accessibility tier
Works hands-free with any Bluetooth headset or car audio system
Sign-up and account pages built to work with screen readers

Person sitting on an outdoor bench with headphones and a mobility cane, listening to audio

Where heartheweb fits

Text to speech software, three different jobs

Speechify reads a broader range of documents on more devices. Amazon Polly and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech are developer engines, not reading apps. heartheweb sits between them: an app built specifically around a personal reading queue.

Feature	heartheweb	Speechify	Amazon Polly / Google Cloud TTS
Built for	Long articles, newsletters, and PDFs from your reading list	Articles, PDFs, and general on-screen reading	A raw text to speech engine for developers to build with
Long-form narration fidelity	Tuned for pieces over 2,000 words with nested quotes and subheads	Good, aimed at a broader range of content	Depends entirely on your own post-processing
Private RSS feed of your queue	Yes, subscribe in any podcast app	No	No, it is not an app
Pricing model	Flat monthly subscription	$29/mo Premium, or $11.58/mo billed annually	$4 to $100 per million characters, billed by usage
Setup	Save a link, forward a newsletter, or drop in a PDF	Browser extension or mobile app	API integration, requires code
Built-in low vision support	Yes, a core use case from the start	Partial	No, left entirely to the developer

The text to speech software landscape in 2026

What the rest of the market looks like

30M+

Pocket users left without a read-it-later app when Mozilla shut it down on July 8, 2025

18 years

How long Pocket ran before Mozilla discontinued it in 2025

$4-$100

Per-million-character price range across Amazon Polly's and Google Cloud's text to speech voice tiers

$29/mo

Speechify Premium's list price for unlimited listening across 200+ voices

Questions that come up

Common questions about heartheweb

Is heartheweb the same thing as Pocket's old listen feature?

No. Pocket's text to speech was a bolt-on feature inside a save-for-later app, and it disappeared when Mozilla shut Pocket down on July 8, 2025. heartheweb is built around the audio pipeline first: narration quality, private RSS delivery, and PDF and newsletter support are the product, not an add-on.

How is this different from turning on 'read aloud' in my browser or phone?

Built-in read-aloud tools are designed for short bursts, an email or a paragraph, not a 5,000-word article with nested quotes and eight subheads. heartheweb's narration is tuned specifically for long-form structure, so headers, block quotes, and footnotes come through instead of getting flattened into one monotone stream.

Does it work with Readwise Reader or Instapaper?

Yes. Forward a link, paste one in, or point heartheweb at an RSS export from Readwise Reader, Instapaper, or Omnivore. The queue does not care which app the article was saved in first.

Can I listen in my normal podcast app instead of a separate one?

Yes. Every converted article lands in a private RSS feed. Subscribe to that feed once in Overcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever you already use, and new articles show up as episodes.

What happens with PDFs and newsletters, not just web articles?

Drop in a PDF or forward a newsletter and it goes through the same narration pipeline as a saved web article. Formatting gets parsed, not just read top to bottom as raw text.

Is this usable if I can't rely on a screen at all, not just while commuting?

Yes. The narration pipeline is the same for every listener, and there is no separate lower-quality accessibility mode. If a screen is not available or not usable, right now or as a matter of course, the audio path works the same way.

How does pricing compare to something like Amazon Polly or Speechify?

Polly and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech charge per character, from $4 to $100 per million characters depending on voice tier, and are built for developers wiring narration into their own product. Speechify Premium runs $29/mo for a broader reading app. heartheweb is a flat monthly subscription built specifically around a personal reading queue, not a per-character API bill.

Stop losing articles to a backlog you will never finish

Start free. No credit card required. Your reading list becomes a queue you actually finish.

Start listening free Browse narrator voices