Liso
Liso turns web text into audio. Highlight an article, newsletter or post, right-click, and a natural AI voice reads it back inside a personal library you can organise, play offline and resume across devices.
What is Liso?
Liso is a text-to-speech reader for the web. Its premise is narrow and clearly stated: anything you read on the internet, whether an article, a newsletter, a Substack post, a thread or a pasted paragraph, can be turned into audio and played back from a personal library. The capture path is the real distinguishing feature. With the Chrome extension Liso: Listen to Highlights installed and paired to your account, you select text on any page, right-click, choose Listen with Liso, and the passage lands in your library as audio a few seconds later, with a toolbar badge counting what is waiting. Without the extension, you paste text straight into the app and can add a title and the source URL.
Playback is where the rest of the feature set sits. Nine AI voices are offered, named Alloy, Ash, Coral, Echo, Fable, Nova, Onyx, Sage and Shimmer and described by tone rather than by language, and speed runs from 0.75x to 2x. A listen can be downloaded for offline playback, resumed on another device at the exact point you stopped, filed into folders and tags, shared through a link, and read as a verbatim transcript beside the audio. Since the update of 28 July 2026 a single listen can carry up to 45 minutes of speech, and an optional Monday digest emails the highlights you have not played.
The technical arrangement is disclosed rather than hidden: OpenAI generates the speech, Convex hosts the backend and database, Stripe handles billing. Sign-in is through Google only. Liso runs as a web application, with no native iOS or Android app; the site points iPhone users to the browser and a home-screen shortcut. It is a young product, its domain registered on 7 July 2026 and its first archive capture dated 24 July 2026. The homepage positions it against Speechify, NaturalReader and ElevenLabs Reader, and carries a testimonial signed by Evgeny Timofeev, founder of Liso.
What it does
- Turn any text highlighted on the web into audio with a single right-click
- Paste text straight into the app when the extension is not available
- Listen with one of nine AI voices, at a speed between 0.75x and 2x
- Download a listen for offline playback on a commute or a flight
- Resume playback exactly where you stopped, on any device
- Sort listens into folders and tags, and filter the library by folder
- Open the verbatim transcript of any listen alongside the audio
When to use Liso / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Liso is the right fit.
When to use Liso
- Heavy readers of newsletters and Substack posts who never reach the bottom of their reading list
- Commuters, walkers and gym-goers who would rather listen than stare at a screen
- Students and researchers working through long articles, papers and pasted documents
- Journalists, writers and marketers who process a large daily reading list
- Chrome users who want one-click capture from any page, with no copy-paste
When not to use Liso
- Developers looking for an API or a programmatic text-to-speech pipeline: none is offered
- Mobile-first users expecting a native iOS or Android app, since Liso is a web app added to the home screen
- People working outside Chrome, as no Firefox, Safari or Edge extension is announced
- Teams handling confidential or NDA-bound material, because the selected text is sent to OpenAI for synthesis
- Anyone needing a language other than English, the only interface language announced
How to use Liso
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Open the Liso site and create a free account through Continue with Google, the only sign-in method offered
- Install the Liso extension from the Chrome Web Store, or load it unpacked
- Open Settings in Liso and generate a pairing code, valid for ten minutes
- Paste that code into the extension popup to link the extension to your account
- Select text on any web page, right-click and choose Listen with Liso
- Or use New highlight inside the app and paste your text, adding a title and source URL if you wish
- Wait a few seconds while the audio is generated; the toolbar badge counts the listens waiting
- Choose your default voice and playback speed in Settings
- Play, download for offline listening, and let Liso remember where you stopped
- File your listens into folders and tags, and open the transcript when you need the text
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Capture takes one right-click from any page, with no copy-paste
- A permanent free plan of five listens a month, with no card required
- Nine voices and speed control from 0.75x to 2x
- Offline downloads and playback that picks up across devices
- The terms state plainly that customer content is not used to train models
- The providers handling data are named: OpenAI, Convex and Stripe
- The twelve-month plan is aggressive at 107 USD, advertised as 8.92 USD a month
Cons
- No legal entity, postal address or hosting country is published anywhere on the site
- No GDPR statement, no DPA, no formal subprocessor list and no security certification
- A single mailbox handles support, legal questions and account deletion
- No API, no native mobile app and no browser other than Chrome
- The free plan is narrow: five listens a month, with no carry-over
- The three-day trial covers only the six- and twelve-month plans and requires a card, while monthly Diamond is billed immediately
- A very young product, with a domain registered in July 2026 and barely any public reviews
Pricing & Plans
Liso offers a permanent free plan limited to five listens per calendar month, with no card required and no carry-over of the unused allowance. The lowest paid entry point is the Diamond plan at 17.00 USD per month, billed monthly and cancellable at any time. Longer commitments lower the effective monthly rate: 88 USD for six months and 107 USD for twelve months, the latter advertised at 8.92 USD per month. All prices are displayed in US dollars and billed in advance through Stripe.
- five listens per calendar month
- no card required
- allowance reset each month and not carried over
- 17 USD per month
- billed monthly
- unlimited listens
- every premium AI voice
- offline downloads
- 0.75x to 2x playback
- Chrome extension
- cancel anytime
- 88 USD for six months
- or 14.67 USD per month
- unlimited listens
- every premium voice
- offline downloads
- speed control
- resume across devices
- Chrome extension
- 107 USD for twelve months
- or 8.92 USD per month
- everything in Titanium plus the lowest monthly rate
- 69 USD saved a year against the six-month plan and priority support
- marked Best value
- three-day free trial
- redeemed with an AppSumo code
- 100 listens for life plus every premium feature
- single use and non-transferable
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Liso handles your data.
GDPR overview
There is no GDPR implementation to report. Across every page collected, including the privacy policy dated 11 July 2026 and the terms dated 29 July 2026, the words GDPR, CCPA, data processing agreement and subprocessor never appear. No Article 27 EU representative is designated, no data protection officer is named, and no legal entity, postal address or hosting jurisdiction is published; a single mailbox, hello@getliso.app, serves support, legal questions and account deletion. The privacy policy does state that data is shared only with named providers, that personal information is not sold, and that account deletion is available on request. On the Chrome Web Store the developer is flagged as a non-trader, which explicitly places EU consumer rights outside the contract.
Who owns the data?
Liso's terms state that the text you send remains yours and that the company claims no ownership of it. You grant only the limited permission needed to run the service: transmitting your text to the text-to-speech provider, generating audio from it, storing that audio and playing it back to you. You are responsible for holding the rights to whatever you send. On the collection side, the privacy policy lists the account details taken from your Google sign-in, namely name, email address and profile image, the text you submit, the optional page title and source URL, the generated audio and your settings. Liso states that it does not sell personal information.
Reuse rights
The audio Liso generates from your own text is yours to use inside the service: you can play it, download it for offline listening, keep it in folders and tags, read the verbatim transcript and share a listen through a link that gives anyone holding it access to the full audio. No further permission is required for that personal reuse. The terms do set two limits: you may not generate audio from text you have no right to use, nor systematically republish someone else's work, and you may not scrape, resell or redistribute the generated audio as your own commercial text-to-speech product. The terms also state that customer content is not used to train models.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Liso publishes no hosting jurisdiction. Neither the privacy policy nor the terms name a country or a region where user data is stored, and there is no trust or security page. What is disclosed is the chain of providers: OpenAI generates the speech from the text you send, Convex hosts the backend and the database, Stripe handles subscription billing, and an unnamed email provider sends digest and account messages. Convex endpoints are visible in the application bundle. The site itself resolves to 216.198.79.1, an anycast address geolocated in the United States on Amazon's AS16509, which says where the site is served rather than where listener data lives. Client-side analytics from PostHog, Vercel Web Analytics and Sentry are loaded in the browser. Anyone with a data residency requirement should therefore treat the hosting location as unknown and ask before subscribing.
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Liso.
- Every text you send is transmitted to OpenAI to be synthesised, so confidential or NDA-bound material does not belong in Liso
- You remain responsible for holding the rights to the text you capture, and the terms forbid systematically republishing someone else's work
- A share link exposes the full audio of a listen to anyone who holds it
- The three-day trial on the six- and twelve-month plans requires a card and renews automatically unless cancelled in time
- With no company name, postal address or hosting country published, there is no clear place to send a complaint or a legal request
- The Chrome Web Store non-trader flag means EU consumer rights are explicitly excluded from the contract
- Listening instead of reading is comfortable, but it makes skimming, annotating and re-reading harder, and a growing library can quietly become another backlog
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Setup is straightforward and requires no technical skill. There is no server to install, no API key and no configuration: you sign in with Google, then either paste text into the app or add the Chrome extension. Pairing the extension is the only step with a small catch, since the code generated in Settings expires after ten minutes. A guided onboarding walks you through choosing an interest, picking a voice from a sample and creating a first listen, and the library tour can be replayed later.
Deployment
Supported languages
Behind Liso
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Liso.
Frequently asked questions
What is Liso?
What can I turn into audio?
Do I need the Chrome extension?
Which voices are available, and can I change the speed?
Can I listen offline?
Is Liso free?
Is there an iPhone or Android app?
Does Liso use my content to train AI models?
How do I delete my account and my data?
How do I cancel a paid plan?
Should you pick Liso?
Liso does one thing and does it neatly: it turns the text you highlight on the web into audio you can actually get through. The capture flow, select then right-click then Listen with Liso, removes the copy-paste friction that makes most read-aloud tools tiring, and the playback side is more complete than the simplicity suggests, with nine voices, speed control from 0.75x to 2x, offline downloads, cross-device resume, folders, tags and a verbatim transcript beside every listen.
The pricing is legible. A permanent free tier of five listens a month lets you test the workflow without a card, Diamond costs 17 USD a month with no commitment, and the twelve-month Platinum plan brings the effective rate down to 8.92 USD a month. A three-day trial covers the longer plans, while the monthly plan is billed straight away.
What holds the tool back is not the product but its transparency. No legal entity, no postal address, no hosting country and no mention of GDPR, a data processing agreement, a formal subprocessor list or any security certification appear anywhere on the site, and a single mailbox handles support, legal questions and account deletion. The Chrome Web Store listing flags the developer as a non-trader, which explicitly removes EU consumer rights from the contract. Set against that, the terms do state that customer content is not used to train models, and the privacy policy names the providers involved: OpenAI, Convex and Stripe.
Liso is worth trying if you read a lot on the web in Chrome and would rather listen on the move. It is not the right tool for confidential documents, for teams that need a data processing agreement, or for anyone who needs an API, a native mobile app or a language other than English.
- Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
- Opens in a new window.