What to know

  • Spotify lets Premium subscribers listen to its Premium audiobooks for free for 15 hours per month. 
  • Spotify doesn’t have a dedicated section for its free audiobooks. But since most of them are from the public domain, you can search for them by title and click on ‘Get’ to start listening for free.
  • You can also find thousands of audiobooks to listen for free on Spotify. Search for audiobooks and look through several playlists and podcasts uploaded by users to find an audiobook to listen to.

Spotify’s foray into audiobooks hasn’t been received all that well. Although there are now thousands of audiobooks that you can listen to, audiobooks have also led to a price hike in monthly subscriptions. But searching for audiobooks isn’t as intuitive on Spotify as it is on, say, Audible, especially if one’s looking for the free audiobooks that Spotify claims to have on the platform. And although Spotify doesn’t make it any easier, there are still a few ways in which you can hunt down free audiobooks on Spotify. 

What Spotify claims works (but doesn’t)

Spotify claims on its community forum that all free audiobooks are listed in a ‘Free audiobooks’ section under ‘Search > Browse all > Audiobook’.

However, as confirmed by users on the same community page, there is no such free audiobooks section. And although Spotify claims that the section may not be available in certain countries, the feature is unavailable in USA as well. This can only mean that regardless of which criteria is put forth, you won’t see the section magically appear out of thin air.  

How to (actually) find free audiobooks on Spotify

It’s not unlike profit-driven companies to make it harder for users to access free content while forcing them to purchase content. That appears to be the case with Spotify too. But that doesn’t mean you can’t hunt down the audiobooks on your own. Here are a few ways in which to actually find and listen to free audiobooks on Spotify. 

Find Public Domain audiobooks (by title)

Most of the free audiobooks on Spotify are, unsurprisingly, ones that are already in the public domain. Most of these books tend to be classics that are a hundred years old or more. But even amongst these, you may find some that are paid, since the publishers can still sell the narration. 

The simplest way to find free audiobooks is to look them up in the Public Domain and then search for the one you want to listen to on Spotify. You can find a list of Public Domain books on Goodreads.

  1. Search for a title and make sure to select the ‘Audiobooks’ filter.
  2. Then click on a result.
  3. If you see the ‘Buy’ option, skip this particular narration. 
  4. Click on another audiobook. If you find the ‘Get’ option, or the words ‘This audiobooks is free’, click on it to add it to your library.
  5. You can start listening to it instantly. 

Find compete audiobooks uploaded in Playlists, Podcasts, and Artists

Well before Spotify made audiobooks available on the platform, users had already been uploading complete audiobooks in their playlists and podcasts. This means that whether or not you have a Premium subscription, you can find and listen to thousands of audiobooks as long as you know where to look. 

  1. The easiest way to look for these playlists and podcasts that host complete audiobooks is to simply search for them using keywords like “free audiobooks”.
  2. Thereafter, choose a playlist or a podcast from the results.
  3. Here, you can search the playlist for a particular audiobook that you’re looking for.
  4. Alternatively, within the playlist, click on the ‘Album or podcast’ under the section and find a whole new audiobook page to explore.
  5. On some of these playlists, you will find the complete audiobook as a single track.
  6. But on other playlists, you will find audiobooks divided into different chapters, though only the first chapter of those audiobooks will be listed there. To view all the chapters click on the audiobook title under the ‘Album’ column.
  7. And view all the chapters within the audiobook. 

To simplify your search, we have listed a few playlists, podcasts, and artists where you can find audiobooks for free:

Listen to paid audiobooks freely for 15 hours per month (with Spotify premium)

Beside the free audiobooks that anyone can listen to, Spotify lets its Premium members listen to 15 hours of premium audiobooks per month. These are books that will have the ‘Included in Premium’ tag. 

As long as you have a premium plan, you can start listening to them without any issue. However, once your 15 hours are up, you either have to top up your listening hours with a fee or wait for the next billing cycle. 

The biggest issue here is that you cannot purchase a book that is included in premium. You can only use the 15 hours that Spotify provides as part of the Premium membership.

FAQ

Let’s consider a few commonly asked questions about listening to free audiobooks on Spotify. 

How many hours do you get with Spotify audiobook top ups?

You get 10 hours of audiobook listening when you top up for $12.99. These additional hours are valid for 12 month since purchase. 

Do Spotify’s unused audiobook listening time carry over to the next month?

No, unused audiobook listening time that is part of the Spotify premium membership does not carry over. It expires on a monthly basis. 

We hope you were able to find and listen to audiobooks for free on Spotify. Until next time!