Audible Plus is both a membership benefit and a subscription plan in itself. And with the Plus catalog, Audible has introduced a gamechanger to standard “1 free audiobook per month” subscriptions!
As an Audible member, you get access to thousands of audiobooks that are included for free in your membership. No need to spend your monthly credit on them!
But you can also sign up for the Audible Plus catalog without receiving credits for a cheaper monthly fee. Let’s take a look at all the ins and outs of this unlimited audiobook subscription!
Audible Unlimited!
I will assume here that you already know a bit about Audible. (If not, check out my article: How does Audible work?)
In 2020, many people expected them to create something similar to Audible Escape for other genres – or extend that subscription further, outside of the Romance genre. Plus is it!
With this service, you get unlimited access to thousands of Audible Original and Audible Studios productions. So, instead of picking two Originals a month as it was in the olden days, you can now listen to all of them.
In my opinion, the most important thing about Plus is that it gives the standard Audible membership (which used to be called Gold or Platinum plans but are now Audible Premium Plus 1 or 2 credits) a huge advantage in comparison to similar audiobook subscription models like Audiobooks.com.
The standard Premium Plus subscription costs $14.95. For that fee, you get an Audible credit that you can use for any audiobook in the entire catalog. On top of that, you also get free and unlimited access to the “Included” selection in the Plus catalog.
That means can listen to as many audiobooks as you want every month instead of just the one you bought with your credit.
Yes, if you have a standard Audible plan, you automatically have access to the Plus catalog without any extra cost!
But as I said earlier, you can also sign up for the Audible Plus plan by itself. That costs $7.95 per month. It doesn’t give you any additional benefits. For the relatively low monthly fee, you simply have unlimited access to all included books.
Related article: Is Audible worth it?
How does Audible Plus work?
Audible Plus titles don’t have a special icon like Audible Escape audiobooks used to. Instead, all Audible audiobooks that you need to buy have an icon saying “1 credit”, while those that are included in the Plus catalog are not marked.
The buttons next to the included audiobooks say “Play” or “Add to Library” instead of showing buying options. You can stream books from the Audible Plus catalog or download them so you can listen during offline times.
Audible Plus is a real unlimited audiobook subscription. You can click through the catalog and listen to as many titles as you like.
You don’t have to remember to return them since you can borrow as many audiobooks as you like and keep them as long as you like. When your membership runs out, the titles will automatically be removed from your device though.
You only have access while you have an active subscription.
Of course, this only applies to the borrowed titles from the Audible Plus catalog! Audiobooks you bought (for an Audible Premium Plus credit or money) are yours to keep, and you can always listen to them, even after canceling your membership.
Right now, there are over 40,000 included books that are read by human narrators. Additionally, the Plus catalog is being absolutely flooded with AI productions. In the link below, I have already filtered these out for you. But you can also check out my guide on how to filter Virtual Voice audiobooks.
New human-read audiobooks are added every month and most audiobooks, especially Audible Originals, are likely to remain included. But some titles might be rotated out after a while.
Audible will notify you if a book in your library is about to be removed.
What does the Audible Plus catalog include?
It offers, first and foremost, Audible Originals and many titles produced by Audible Studios, as well as exclusive podcasts. Some of the productions that were previously available through Audible Escape are now included in Plus instead.
You can find an excellent selection of short audiobooks in Audible Plus with a length of 1 – 4 hours which I find great during longer drives and trips as you can finish them in a day or even in one sitting.
But you can also find many included audiobooks with novel length and entire book series which will give you the full immersive experience many listeners love about long audiobooks.
If you are looking for things to listen to, check out my quarterly Audible Plus book lists with the newest and most popular included titles:
Popular Audiobooks in Audible Plus released last Spring
Best Audible Plus Books released last Summer
Best Free Audible Books released last Fall
New Audiobooks in Audible Plus released last Winter
Is Audible Plus worth it?
I have been using Audible for many, many years and, honestly, I love Audible Plus.
Firstly, because I love Audible Originals. Not to sound like a fan here, but as an audiobook blogger, I have always gotten the impression that (corporate interests aside) the people at Audible really do love audiobooks.
And their own productions are just really, really fun. They always cast excellent voice actors, often famous people, often full casts, that make for special listening experiences.
Secondly, as I said in the beginning, free and unlimited access to the Plus catalog is a huge membership benefit. At the same time, the Audible Plus plan by itself is the cheapest unlimited audiobook subscription I know of, aside from library audiobooks.
That being said, whether you will be entirely happy with the Plus plan and whether it will feel like enough for you depends on which kinds of audiobooks you enjoy and if you can find enough included titles that interest you.
So, to sum it up, if you are wondering whether Audible Plus is worth it, my answer is: Yes, but for only $7 a month more, you can have a full Audible Premium Plus membership and get a premium audiobook of your choice every month. And you can keep that one even after canceling your subscription.
So, yes, Plus is worth it. But Audible Premium Plus offers better value!
You can read more about that in my comparison of Audible Plus vs Premium Plus.
If you haven’t tried it yet, I recommend the free trial of Audible Premium Plus since you can score a free audiobook to keep while exploring the Plus catalog! Get the 30 day free trial on Audible here**
Before the trial ends, you can cancel it and switch to the cheaper plan if you like.
I hope I could answer any questions you have regarding this subscription plan and the included catalog. If you are looking for more book recommendations, check out my list of the best Audible Originals.
Happy listening!
Eline Blackman (pronouns: she/they) fell in love with books as a child – with being read to and reading herself. 10 years ago, she bought her first Audible book. It was love at first listen! An average of 250 audiobooks per year has become the new normal and you will rarely see Eline without a wireless earbud. Romance and Fantasy are the go-to genres for this audiobook fan.
I had no idea Audible Plus came with your subscription! I haven’t explored the Audible site in a long while! I just started working on my Kindle Unlimited TBR finally lol!
It’s a brand-new thing! It’s only become available yesterday 🙂
It’s not worth it, IMO. I use the public library app Libby (and its predecessor Overdrive) extensively, and I recently tried the new 2020 Audible Premium Plus subscription. I also browsed the offerings from the lower tier plan that acts more like a library (you don’t pay for the books but you don’t own them.)
It didn’t take long to get the lay of the land. Although I read all kinds of fiction, I don’t read just any book; I have standards 🙂 I also listen to audiobooks a lot; daily. And if I don’t like a book, I stop reading it.
I found the inexpensive Audible “unlimited” plus plan basically has maybe one or two books each from the really good or prolific writers, and the rest will cost you a credit (basically $15/ea). The other titles are all old classics and unknown authors that you have to wade through to find something decent (similar to the library audio book apps.)
Anyway I dropped the subscription two days into the trial. I’ll stick with the libraries.
Thank you for your comment 🙂
There’s little that can beat a good digital library selection! Sadly, that isn’t available to everyone. And I actually do like what I’ve been seeing in Audible Plus lately. They are adding audiobooks every week and there are some pretty decent titles among them.
I suspected such. It would be worth it to me if the plus collection surpassed the public library available audiobooks of prolific writers and without holds on popular titles or hot new releases. I assumed books in high demand aren’t included with membership.
I was an Audible reader for years, but decided to drop my membership in favor of Overdrive and Libby. I’ve found that most of the popular books have a waiting list, sometimes of 6 months! Or, I’ll put one on hold that has an estimated wait time of 4 weeks, check out an available audiobook, and then then in the middle of reading the available book, the one on hold becomes available! Or, I find a great book that takes 39 hrs to listen to, but there’s a two-week limit (and I don’t have that much listening time available) so I have to turn it back in before I’m finished with it. I’m going back to Audible, but am not sure which—Plus or Premium.
Thank you for your comment! That sounds pretty annoying. I know many people who are happy with Libby but they all have a second audiobook subscription, too, like Audible Premium Plus or Kindle Unlimited. I hope you find something that works for you 🙂 If you’re interested in popular audiobooks, Audible Premium Plus is probably the best choice for you.