Spoken's Magic Mode Leaves Preview Nov. 1; Multi-Cast Listed at $30 per 5,000 Words

Spoken, the AI audiobook company built in Portland, Oregon, says its Magic Mode production tool leaves preview on November 1. "On November 1, Magic Mode enters general availability," the company wrote in its v2.3 release notes, dated October 13. The same post closes with a direct nudge: "Make sure you're a Spoken subscriber before Nov. 1."

What Magic Mode is

Magic Mode is Spoken's system for multi-voice audiobooks, which the company sells as Spoken Multi-Cast. When Spoken introduced it in Studio V2, the company described it as an orchestration layer that carries "tone, emotion, pacing, and character intent across the work as a whole," rather than generating each passage on its own. During the preview, Spoken said Magic Mode was "available at no additional cost for a limited time" for multi-voice, character-driven projects.

What the pricing page says now

Spoken's pricing page now lists Spoken Multi-Cast, started in Magic Mode, at $30 per 5,000 finished words on a pay per project basis, or $15 per 5,000 finished words for subscribers. Manual Mode is listed at $20 per 5,000 finished words, or $10 for subscribers. The subscription is $50 a month and can be cancelled at any time.

Spoken calls its billing model Pay When Perfect: it charges for finished words, with no regeneration costs, and subscribers do not pay until they hit publish.

Not every Spoken page has caught up. The company's Magic Mode page still shows $20 per 5,000 finished words for pay per project and $10 for subscribers. Spoken's release notes do not spell out exactly which price applies to a project started in preview but published after November 1, so authors with a production in progress should confirm with Spoken's support team at help@spoken.press before they publish.

Series casts and a starter credit

The v2.3 release also adds features aimed at series authors. A project can now be marked as part of a series, so its cast carries from one book to the next. Completed multi-cast productions can be turned into single-narrator editions, and authors can add their own music under opening and closing credits and choose their own retail samples.

Spoken also says every new user now starts with 5,000 words of publishing credit, enough to take a piece of a manuscript through the workflow before paying.

The bottom line

For authors already working in Magic Mode, the date to watch is November 1. Spoken's own advice is to be a subscriber before then, and its pricing page shows subscribers pay half the pay per project rate for Multi-Cast.