A Cheaper Audible Alternative? An Honest Everand Review (Big Update!)

If you are an avid reader, you likely want all the books in all the ways — audiobooks, ebooks, hardbacks, paperbacks, direct injection to your blood stream. But it can be hard to keep up with all the subscriptions that are out there that allow you access to the books you most want to read.

Everand is among the newer services (well, it started out as just Scribd, but now it’s Everand, and much has changed). I’d actually never heard of it until they reached out to me directly, and so I have been doing the hard work of testing and researching, all to save you the time, effort, and money.

Based on my own use of the Everand subscription for the last 5 months, many deep dives into Reddit and other internet forums, and my direct communications with the company, I’ve put together my detailed and honest thoughts on the subscription. I’ll let you know how it works, how much it costs, and my detailed analysis of the pros and cons of membership.

Because to be honest, the selection of books is among the best I’ve seen on any service, and Everand has quickly become one of the regular ways I consume books and audiobooks on a daily basis. But, I do have some issues with the company and the service that seem to be a shared experience with lots other users, and I think they’re worth pointing out when you’re considering whether or not it’s worth it.

Update 10/24/24: This week, Everand announced it is making changes to its plan structure. Time will tell how these big changes work out, but they *may* address some of the most prominent issues people have with the service. I’ll detail these below.

In This Post

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Update 2/5/25: Now that the dust has settled on the Everand membership overhaul, many users who got used to the “Netflix of audiobooks” are not happy with the new plan system. I myself am disappointed on several levels, but I do think that one membership option is still worth considering. See below for my opinion why.

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Whenever possible, I recommend buying books at local bookshops or through Bookshop.org, because shopping there puts the profits right into the hands of indie bookstores all over the country.

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Disclosures / summary of my experience with Everand

I was contacted by someone who works at Everand and invited to be an affiliate for their company. I had never heard of the service (at the time, I didn’t realize it was the new name and adjusted service formerly known as Scribd), and I thanked them and let them know that I don’t join affiliate programs or promote products or services I haven’t used myself. 

They offered me an extended, 6-month free trial offer so I could try out their service and join the affiliate program if I wanted.

I have been using the free trial for about 5 months now, thoroughly testing it out in all its capabilities and limitations. I have also extensively searched forums and reviews from other users to make this a thoroughly researched and helpful review of the service to help you decide if it is for you.

In summary, I did end up deciding to join their affiliate network and will likely continue using the service beyond my free trial period, barring any unforseable unpleasant experiences. However, I do have *some* reservations about the company, which I think consumers should be aware of as they decide.

I’ll go into that in more detail throughout this post. I’ll also address common frustrations people have with the service. After my research, I contacted the company with specific questions about these concerns, and I share their responses with me in this post. 

I did not test out the SlideShare access that’s included in membership, so I won’t go into that in this review. 

Tip: if you use the Acorns investment app, you can get up to $2.25 deposited in your investment account when you sign up. 

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What is Everand? The subscription at a glance

Everand is a monthly subscription service for bibliophiles that includes access to stream their catalog of audiobooks and ebooks. It also includes access to Scribd (a document-sharing platform), SlideShare, and some magazines and podcasts.

Content is streamed, not owned like on credit-based services like Audible or Libro fm.

• Cost: $11.99 USD/month or €10,99/month after a 30-day free trial  /
  • UPDATE 10/24/24: Starting on 10/28/24, there will now be two plan options — $11.99 for the standard plan and $16.99 for the Plus plan

• Apps available on Apple devices, Google Play store

• Also online browser access 

UPDATE 10/24/24

Everand announced some recent changes to their plan structure. The lower price plan now includes 1 “unlock” of a “Premium” audiobook or ebook title per month (including best sellers and new releases) and unlimited access to the remaining, “non-Premium” 20,000+ titles.

For the more expensive plan, you will receive 3 “Premium” title unlocks monthly, plus unlimited access to the rest of the catalogue. This is a huge change in how the subscription service works, and one I’ll discuss more below.

Scribd → Everand

In November, 2023, the popular subscription known as Scribd became Everand. Everand is now the parent subscription of distinct products: Scribd (for document sharing), SlideShare, and Everand (ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines).

If you were an existing Scribd subscriber, you would now automatically get access to all Everand services, using the same login and paying the same subscription price. Honestly, it’s kind of a confusing rebrand, but for all intents and purposes, Everand is essentially an updated an expanded version of Scribd.

Now, you can access documents on the Scribd app, but any ebooks or audiobooks have to be accessed on the Everand app.

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Related: Looking for some good audiobooks? The reader can make or break an audiobook experience, so check out my roundup of the best audiobook narrators out there. 

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My thoughts in summary

Not up for a long read and want the tldr;? Here ya go:

For those who read lots of ebooks and audiobooks each month, an Everand subscription might be a worthwhile cost to expand your current library. That is the case for me, and I will likely continue to subscribe until any of the issues I detail below makes it no longer worth it. 

Update 2/5/25: Many former Everand subscribers are leaving the service due to frustration with how the new subscription works, and rightly so on some levels. It’s a big change from having semi-unlimited access to content to now only having access to a few titles. I think if you’re going to subscribe to Everand, the only plan that really makes it worth the expense is the Plus plan for $16.99 a month. I don’t see the cost:benefit ratio working out for the Standard membership at $11.99 a month. Despite frustrations with the service, I do see the Plus plan as a worthwhile option to consider for frequent audiobook listeners.

If you primarily want the subscription for ebooks but want to send it to your Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo, or other ereader, this won’t be the membership for you. If you don’t mind reading ebooks on your phone or tablet, you will likely enjoy the vast selection of ebooks available. 

Readers with diverse interests who aren’t always seeking out only the latest titles will likely get their money’s worth. Those reading only the hottest books and newest releases will likely be frustrated with the “throttling” of content. 

Previous Update 10/24/24: The new plan structure definitely changes things and will likely cause less frustration with content throttling. Only time will tell how well the “premium” title distinction works and how many titles fall under that category.

All potential consumers should be aware that some past consumers have reported issues with getting billed after canceling their subscription. 

Pros:

• Low monthly price
• Easy to use (with good audiobook controls)
• Huge selection available (better than any other service in my opinion), with lots of new releases and a great selection of non-fiction
• Downloadable audiobooks and ebooks for offline consumption
• Better-than-most recommendation algorithm 
  • UPDATE 10/24/24: Now with an AI-powered book discovery tool (something I haven’t yet tested but will update when I have)

Cons:

• eBooks can’t be sent to an ereader device 
• Access to certain titles can suddenly be “throttled,” ie you are locked out of some content until your next billing cycle
  • UPDATE 10/24/24: This is no longer the case, though access to “premium” titles (read: most titles) will be limited.
• Lack of company transparency about the throttling algorithm and other concerns
  • UPDATE 10/24/24: The new plan structure addresses the issues of transparency with throttling, though there are still some other more minor concerns they haven’t addressed
• No “samples” of books
• Some cancellation issues reported from previous users

If you want more information about each of these points, please see my detailed experiences and research in the rest of this article. Or, maybe you already want to jump in and try the free trial.  

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Related: Looking for recommendations of good books on Everand? Many of my picks for books set in bookstores are available with your subscription.

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Everand for ebooks

Let me start off by saying the selection of ebooks on Everand is vast and honestly impressive. The selection exceeds that of Kindle Unlimited or Kobo Plus by a long shot.

The downside is that the Everand ebooks are not compatible with ereaders. That means if you want to read the books in the library, you’re limited to either the Everand app or a computer screen. Personally, I hate reading on blue light screens and only read ebooks on my ereaders. So for me it’s kind of a tease to have so many awesome ebooks at my disposal but not be able to take full advantage of that.

So for me, Everand has become primarily an audiobook listening subscription. If you’re someone who doesn’t mind reading books on a traditional screen, obviously that won’t be a factor for you. 

That being said, I still have found myself utilizing my subscription for certain types of ebooks on Everand — specifically, non-fiction. I have found tons of great nonfiction titles in the Everand ebook library, titles that I’m not necessarily going to read cover-to-cover, so I don’t mind so much reading sections of them on a computer or phone screen.

For me, I most often utilize the library for non-fiction reference books, like books I have used to research and write articles here (including my recent article on lesser-known facts about the Globe Theatre). This has been immensely helpful to me and has allowed me to access research materials that otherwise would’ve been logistically tricky to obtain.

The other types of non-fiction books I’ve used my Everand subscription for are travel guide books and recipe books. The travel guides I’ve seen haven’t necessarily been the very latest releases —typically a few years old— but have still been really useful in planning my many travels around Europe. 

The access to recipe books is pretty self-explanatory. It’s allowed me to expand my typical cooking without buying a new cookbook or scrolling endless recipe blogs. 

Update 2/5/25: Most of even the obscure non-fiction titles are now considered Premium, so I think this is no longer an appealing benefit of the plan. For me, these titles are not worth using an “unlock” to access, so this benefit is pretty much moot now.

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Related: On the fence about investing in a Kindle Paperwhite? Check out my detailed breakdown of the Kindle Paperwhite 10th Generation.

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Everand for Audiobooks

For me, Everand is at its best in its selection of audiobooks. That alone can make the monthly subscription price worthwhile to avid audiobook listeners. The library available to users is massive and far exceeds those in the Audible Plus library or Kobo Plus. 

I’ve been able to listen to books from every genre, and even access multiple titles that weren’t available through any of my libraries via Libby. To me, this is a huge benefit and makes my Everand subscription worthwhile as a complement to my other audiobook listening services (currently, Libby and Audible). 

The app is smooth and easy-to-use for audiobook listening, and you can speed up or slow down the narration. I also appreciate that the estimated time remaining adapts depending on your listening speed – a seemingly small detail, but it’s very helpful for those of use who bump up our audiobook speeds. 

You can also download audiobooks to listen to offline, something I utilize a lot during travel. 

My biggest gripe with using Everand for audiobooks is a small one — for some reason, audiobooks “jump” back, like it will go back and repeat a certain sentence or phrase that’s already been read. This is an interesting quirk that seems to happen a few times in every audiobook I’ve listened to and isn’t specific to any particular recording. That said, it’s a very minor annoyance and one that doesn’t bother me too much. 

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Related: If you’re an audiobook listener, you’ll want to check out my in-depth Audible review and review of Spotify audiobooks. 

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Everand for other uses

Everand now includes your subscription to both Scribd and SlideShare. Scribd is a document-sharing platform, where you can download docs shared by other users and also print them. It’s not a service I’ve used too much, apart from occasionally downloading some piano sheet music. Since it’s not a large part of the service for me, I won’t be reviewing it in depth here.

The same goes for the SlideShare subscription. It’s not something I’ve used or am very interested in using, but I mention it here in case other potential customers are interested. 

Some magazines are available on the Everand subscription, though the search interface on magazines makes it hard to find, and the offerings aren’t very extensive. 

Update 2/5/25: As of January 28th, Everand no longer includes access to magazines or sheet music.

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The Drawbacks

Honestly, Everand has so much potential as a service, and overall, I really like it, but there are a few issues that have driven many people away, and this would not be a complete review in the least were I not to address these. 

So let’s get into it. 

Extremely Limited “Unlimited” Library (Feb. 2025 update)

This is the biggest drawback of the newest gripe that Everand subscribers have with the service. When the company announced their plans for the new subscription structure, I was hopeful that many of my reads would be included in the “unlimited” library and that the “premium” library that requires unlocks would be made up of the newest releases.

Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Everand advertises a library of over 1.5 million ebooks and audiobooks. Of those, only 20,000 are part of the unlimited library.

That means that nearly every title on Everand requires a monthly unlock (then it’s yours to listen/read as much as you want as long as your plan is still active).

The “Premium” designation on the vast majority of titles then is pretty misleading. The ratio is so distinct that rather than marking the premium titles as premium, they just mark the Unlimited titles instead. And at the time of writing, the Unlimited library is far from impressive (and really doesn’t compare to the Audible Plus library).

Now, bear in mind that it took Audible years before they introduced the Audible Plus library, so it’s possible that Everand will really put in some work to expand theirs as well. As for now, I’d say the “unlimited” library is essentially a moot point, and not at all a draw for new subscribers.

(Resolved): Content “Throttling”

UPDATE 10/24/24: I’ll leave the below in place for historical reference, but as of the new announced plan changes, the throttling issue is being addressed, though time will tell how effectively. It seems that Everand is listening to the complaints of customers and figured out a way to be more transparent about their throttling algorithm. Now, titles will be separated into “Premium” and non-premium titles, with the former limited according to your plan type (either 1 or 3 monthly), and the latter unlimited. I think this is hugely promising and will address many people’s concerns with the service. The greatest unknown will be how liberally they apply the “Premium” label to titles. Still, customers will be able to access 1 premium title a month + unlimited other titles for less than the monthly price of Audible (though notably without lifetime access to the title).

9/19/24:

The marketing of Everand as a sort of unlimited streaming service like Netflix isn’t entirely accurate. Your ability to read or listen to some content is subject to “throttling” depending on your use. What is throttling? Basically, it means that access to certain titles might be temporarily revoked until the start of your next billing cycle. 

When does your access get throttled? Well, that’s the big problem. Nobody really knows. Everand has a secret algorithm they use to throttle content, and they aren’t giving anyone any details about it. Here’s what they say on their website:

“For certain ebooks and audiobooks, there are monthly limits. One benefit of our diverse library is that we will always have something you can read in the meantime. Your subscription will unlock access to a selection of original titles published by Everand, magazines, articles, and unlimited podcasts.” 

Endless customers have reported on various internet forums that any attempt to get clarity on the algorithm is declined. As the company had reached out to me to be a part of their program, I decided to email them some questions in the hopes they would answer me. 

Here’s what I asked:

“Can you give any more insight into the content limits and how they work? That seems to be most people’s frustration with the service. The information on the website is pretty vague. Many people express that they wish they’d know ahead of time which titles will limit their access to others. Any more detail on how this works is very appreciated.”

The company representative got back to me and said, “The team let me know they will be passing on providing insights to these questions” (I’ll get to the “other questions” in a bit). 

This seems to be the number one frustration people have with their Everand subscriptions, because they can’t predict when the throttling will occur or what triggers it. Multiple people take to Reddit and other places to say they were cut off in the middle of a book or even in the middle of a sentence. 

People have all kinds of theories of what triggers the algorithm to throttle you. I’ve scoured every forum post I could find where users talked about this, and here are my summary findings of other users’ experiences and theories:

• Content seems to get throttled if you listen to or read a lot of new releases or books by the same publisher or author (Notably, this can be a frustration if you are trying to read a series)
• There aren’t samples of books, so at a certain point in an ebook or audiobook, it counts as “read” even if you don’t finish. Many people theorize this happens around the 10-20% mark for an ebook and the 25% mark for an audiobook. 
• Many theorize that books are on a tier system. Once you reach a certain amount of tier one books, all tier one books will get locked out, and you will have access only to tiers two and three. Then, you may also get locked out of tier two at a certain point. 
• You won’t ever get locked out of Everand originals.

The number of titles people read or listen to before getting throttled varies dramatically, from only 2 titles to 10+ titles without getting throttled. Most people tend to agree that you can typically listen to or read any 2-3 titles you want at the beginning of your billing cycle before getting throttled. 

I have been using Everand for 5 months and have never run into an issue with my content being throttled. I listen to multiple audiobooks a month through the service (I’d say probably 4-6 a month) and access on average between 5-10 (mostly nonfiction) ebook titles a month. 

I typically am not using the service to access the latest releases or bestsellers, which likely plays into it. I also am curious if the throttling works differently when you are in a free trial versus the paid subscription. I still have one more month on the free trial and plan to continue the service after. I will come back and update this post if I notice any changes in my experiences once I switch to the traditional paid membership. 

Related: Are you a book ebook reader? Check out my detailed Kobo Clara Colour review, one of Kindle’s main competitors (and way more affordable).

Cancellation Issues

I’ve seen across multiple forums that some people have issues when canceling their Everand subscription with continuing to get charged. Naturally, this is a frustration thing to have happen, and I’ve seen the comment enough times to think it’s worth mentioning if you’re considering signing up. 

One way to avoid the issue if you are concerned is to sign up for subscriptions with a prepaid VISA card so the card will automatically decline once the balance has been used. If you sign up with your regular credit card and keep getting charged, you can always work with your credit card company to mark the claim as fraudulent. 

This was another issue I asked the people at Everand to respond to. Here’s what I asked:

“In researching what other people have to say about Everand, I came across a lot of comments across the web about people having a hard time canceling their subscription and still getting charged after their cancellation. Has this issue been addressed, and how? Can you speak more to this? People are naturally hesitant to sign up for a service with known billing issues like this.”

Again, the company declined to comment: “The team…will be passing on providing insights to these questions.”

So make of that whatever you will. Regardless, I think this is something to be aware of. 

Not compatible with ereaders

As I addressed in the section about using Everand for ebooks, you can’t send ebooks to your Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo, or other ereader. To me, this is a huge drawback if you’re planning to use it to read a lot of ebooks. 

I asked the company about this as well and to find out if they are working with these companies to make them compatible. Here’s what I asked:

“Are there any plans to make Everand ebooks compatible with common ereaders, like Kindle, Nook, or Kobo? If not, can you expand on why?”

Again, the response was the very helpful, “The team…will be passing on providing insights to these questions.”

(Semi-resolved): Lack of transparency

Honestly, I think the lack of transparency is the biggest drawback to Everand. Users want a transparent look at how the throttling algorithm works so they can make more informed decisions about the books they read each month. And in general, I don’t love that when given the opportunity to clear the air about these common complaints and frustrations, they chose to respond with, essentially, “no comment.”

I hope that they take their consumer base’s concerns to heart and rethink their level of transparency to build trust with customers. 

UPDATE 10/24/24: As previously detailed, the transparency with throttling is being addressed in a very significant and promising way. We can only hope that the company continues to listen to customer concerns and to address the other issues more transparently.

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Summary: is Everand Worth it? (Feb. 2025 Update)

So, is Everand worth signing up for? My answer: Maybe.

Bear in mind that I’m reviewing this primarily as an audiobook listening subscription because I don’t like the lack of compatibility with ereaders.

But to sum it up, I think:

The standard plan at $11.99/month is generally not worth it (only 1 title unlock + the very uninspiring unlimited collection)

The Plus plan is still worth the $16.99/month IF you want to read or listen to lots of new titles… in general, books with a lengthy wait on Libby, or books that your library doesn’t have available. Yes, Audible has a better Plus library of titles you can listen to for free, but being able to listen to 3 new releases or “hot” titles a month for $16.99 is still a really good deal.

Because I have to say, waiting for my audiobook on Libby for months is sometimes a real buzz kill (and really interferes with being able to read my book club selections on time).

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Have you ever used Everand? If you have more feedback or insight into the service, please feel free to email me through my contact form and let me know! I’ll keep this post updated as I get new information.

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