Amazon renames Kindle Unlimited to Kindle Plus and expands audiobook access
Amazon has rebranded its Kindle Unlimited subscription as Kindle Plus. It stays at $11.99 a month and now adds audiobooks, including ones read by AI narrators.
Technology company Amazon has renamed its ebook subscription service Kindle Unlimited as Kindle Plus. The service still costs $11.99 per month and gives unlimited access to a selection of ebooks, comics and magazines from the Kindle catalog. What is new is a wider audiobook offering that includes "virtual voice" recordings read by AI narrators, as first reported by ZDNet.
Amazon spokesperson Josh Pflug told The Verge in an emailed statement that the subscription keeps the same reading experience, with access to millions of titles, and now also includes thousands of audiobooks in the U.S. catalog at no extra cost.
What stays the same
Thousands of titles already came with a companion audiobook, letting users switch between reading and listening at the exact point where they stopped. Kindle Plus remains a standalone subscription, separate from Amazon Prime. Subscribers can still borrow up to 20 titles at a time, with no return dates.
Changes for authors
Amazon is now letting authors who use its self-publishing platform, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), make their audiobooks available to Kindle Plus subscribers. Virtual voice audiobooks will become available automatically as new titles are enrolled in KDP Select, and authors can also opt in to AI narrators for titles they published earlier.
For authors who prefer a human narrator, audiobooks created through Audible's Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX) marketplace will also be offered through Kindle Plus. They will initially be limited to subscribers in the U.S., and Amazon plans to extend availability to other markets over time.
