Aloud

Terms of Service

Updated 29 September 2026

The short version: Aloud is free to try for 7 days, then $3.99 a month or $29 once keeps the Kokoro voices, Option+Space and Option-select on your Macs, with the updates that follow. The rest of this page is the agreement that goes with it.

The agreement

These terms are an agreement between you and Kevin Xu, who makes Aloud ("I" and "me" below). They cover the Aloud app for Mac and the website aloud.work. By downloading, installing or using Aloud, or by buying a key, you agree to them. If you do not agree, please do not use Aloud.

The trial, and what you buy

• Aloud is free to try, all of it, for 7 days from the first time you open it. After that the library, the reader and every Apple voice stay free.
• One payment of $29, tax included, buys a key that unlocks the seven Kokoro voices, the Option+Space hotkey and Option-select (reading text you select with Option held) for good, with the updates that follow.
• Or subscribe for $3.99 a month, tax included, which unlocks the same for as long as you are subscribed. It renews every month on the day you subscribed until you cancel. Cancel anytime at link.com: Aloud stays unlocked to the end of the month you have paid for, then the Kokoro voices, Option+Space and Option-select lock again, and everything else stays free.
• While you are subscribed, Aloud checks with aloud.work near the end of each month that the subscription is still paid, and gets the key for the month ahead.
• There is no account.
• Aloud needs macOS 26 and a Mac with Apple silicon. The trial is the way to check, and the 30-day refund covers you if it does not run.
• Prices are in US dollars. If a price changes, it changes only for people who buy afterwards. A subscription's price changes only after I have emailed you at least 30 days ahead, and you can cancel before it does.

Your license

• Aloud is licensed to you, not sold. I give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install Aloud and use it, for your own purposes including your work, on any Mac you own or use yourself.
• Your key is yours alone. Use it on all of your own Macs, but please do not share it, or your thanks page, with other people.
• Aloud, its design and its code are my copyright. Every right these terms do not give you is reserved.

What you may not do

• Share, sell or publish your key, or use someone else's.
• Get around the trial, the key check, a subscription's renewal or any other limit in Aloud, or help anyone else to.
• Copy, redistribute, rent or sell Aloud, or offer it as a service. Sharing a link to aloud.work is always welcome.
• Decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer Aloud, except where the law gives you that right regardless of this term.
• Use Aloud or aloud.work to break the law or to harm the site.

Paying, and refunds

• The payment is taken by Link, a Stripe service, which acts as the seller of record and handles the payment, tax and your receipt under Link's terms. Your key comes from me, on the thanks page Link sends you to once you have paid.
• If Aloud is not right for you, write to me within 30 days of buying, or of your subscription's first payment, and you get that payment back, as the refunds page explains. Refunding a subscription's first payment also cancels it. After a refund, the key is no longer licensed to you.

Updates

• Your key covers the updates that follow. Aloud checks for them only if you let it, and installing one is always up to you.
• An update can add, change or remove features.
• If I ever stop making Aloud, a bought key keeps unlocking the versions you already have. It is checked on your Mac and depends on nothing of mine staying online.
• A subscription's key is renewed by aloud.work each month. If I ever stop making Aloud, I will cancel every subscription and give each subscriber a key that keeps the versions they have unlocked for good.

Your documents

What you read with Aloud stays yours and stays on your Mac. I claim no rights to it and never see it. It is up to you to have the right to the documents you open with it.

Other people's parts

Aloud includes open-source components and the Kokoro voice model, each under its own license, listed in Aloud's About window. Those licenses govern those parts, and nothing in these terms limits the rights they give you. The Apple voices are part of macOS, under Apple's terms.

No warranty

I work hard to make Aloud reliable, and I will always try to put right what goes wrong. But Aloud and aloud.work are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind. As far as the law allows, I disclaim every warranty, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. I do not promise that Aloud will be free of mistakes, that it will never be interrupted, or that it will say every word right.

Limit of liability

As far as the law allows, I am not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost data, profits or revenue, arising from Aloud or aloud.work, even if I was told they were possible. My total liability for any claim about Aloud or aloud.work is limited to what you paid for Aloud, or $29 if that is more.

Some places do not allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you. Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law does not allow to be limited, such as for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

Ending

You can stop using Aloud whenever you like, by deleting it. If you break these terms, your license ends, and you must stop using Aloud and delete it. The sections on warranty, liability and law keep applying after that.

Law and disputes

If something goes wrong, please write to me first: most problems end with an email. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and any dispute goes to the state or federal courts in Michigan. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory consumer law where you live, including any right to bring a claim in your own courts.

The rest

• These terms, the privacy policy and the refunds page are the whole agreement between us about Aloud. If any part of them cannot be enforced, the rest still applies, and my not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it.
• You may not transfer these terms or your key to anyone else. I may transfer them to whoever takes over Aloud, who would have to keep to them.
• If these terms change, the date at the top changes, and the terms you bought under still apply to your purchase.
• Questions go to kevxu@umich.edu.