So, you came here to choose either Playster or Audible. This post will explain the differences between the two platforms so that you can decide which one you will go with. Also, I will run a customer review analysis for Audible to discover how people think about Audible. Why not Playster? I’ve already done their customer review analysis in another post. I’ve put the link at the very bottom.
First, let’s find out what each service offers.
Playster
Playster is a subscription-based entertainment platform where you can enjoy music, audible books, ebooks, and games. All of their subscription plans offer unlimited access to what you subscribe to. So, if you start a plan for audiobooks, then you can enjoy unlimited audiobooks. If you choose ebooks, you can have unlimited books. Playster has a variety of subscription plans. You can choose an individual plan among Audiobooks, Books, Movies, or Games.
In addition to these basic individual plans, you can also consider a combo plan. Combo plan, as it indicates, includes all the options – Audiobooks, Books, Movies, Music, and Games. Regardless of the type of a plan, you pay a monthly subscription fee. Plus, there is a Family Plan. You can design your family plan by selecting the number of family members. What’s good about Playster is they offer a 1-month free trial. You can try their platform and cancel anytime you want.
Audible
Audible is an audiobook service platform that has audiobook plans only. Audible is an Amazon company that holds a massive collection of Audiobooks. Unlike Playster, Audible puts a limit on the number of audiobooks per month. As I accessed their website in Australia, they showed best-selling books on their front page. I believe that Audible is more international than Playster. Also, Playster offers diverse services while Audible focuses on audio books. This means that you can have wider options for the latest best-selling books.
Audible has a single monthly plan and also offers a 30-day free trial. During the trial period, you can have 1 audiobook and 2 Audible Originals. Audible Originals are produced by Audible. They explain that Audible Originals are created by celebrated writes in journalism and literature and performers in theater and comedy. After the free trial, you can have 3 titles per each month – 1 audiobook and 2 Audible Originals.
Playster vs. Audible
Now that we learned about both platforms, let’s see what major differences exist between them.
Contents Quality & Quantity
Playster describes that they have more than 100,000 titles that were read by award-winning narrators and celebrity voices. Audible, if they do not explicitly disclose the number of the titles in their library, should have enough number of titles. Surely, we will not be able to listen to 100,000 audios that Playster has. So, what we need is just the right number of audiobooks, and in that regard, Playster and Audible both have the right number of the titles in their storage.
How about the quality? As I tried them both, I learned that Playster has an older and less-popular list of titles compared to Audible. As I tried Audible, they had more best-selling and latest titles that I wanted to try. So, if you want to access more recent and popular titles, Audible can be a good choice for you. If you are a fan of classical books or if you want to discover new books, Playster could be a good candidate.
Price Plans Comparison
Their price plans are also different. First, to have an Audiobook plan, you need to choose one of the three plans, Audiobook only, Combo, or Family Plan.
- Audiobook only: $6.95 / month
- Playster Unlimited: $16.50 / month (Books, Audiobooks, Music, Movies, and Games)
- Family Plan: You plus one more – $22.50 / month
Audible, as mentioned, has a single plan.
- $14.95 per month after 30 days.
Compatible Devices
Both platforms support iOS and Android devices. But, since Audible is an Amazon firm, it has a more extensive list of support devices including Kindle, Alexa, iOS, and Android devices. To find more details on support devices, go check question lists here.
How Customers Think About Audible
We have found out the major differences between the two platforms. There can be pros and cons for those services. As I mentioned, I ran a customer review analysis on Playster in another blog post. Please scroll down to the bottom to find the link. But, for comparison, have a look at the customer review analysis on Audible first.
Background
When you see product introduction from a company, you will always hear great things about it. No company will reveal any weaknesses or defects of the product, obviously. So, as a consumer, it is wiser to doubt what they say and do your own research before making a final purchase decision. In this section, we will learn how actual users think about this platform. How can we measure these? We can do this by using data analysis techniques called sentiment analysis.
You don’t have to be scared by the technical term. I did the technical part and you can just look at pretty graphs. In this section, I will show you two types of graphs – word cloud and customer sentiment chart. For the analysis, I’ve compiled more than 300 customer reviews from sitejsbber and conducted analysis to summarize them. I will show you the result in a word cloud and a customer sentiments chart. And, lastly, I will share an Audible’s Google trend result that shows the level of interest from people.
Word Cloud
Word cloud is one of the great and fun ways to understand customer sentiments toward a product or a service. In a word cloud, you can see specific words in different sizes. The larger it is, the more people used that word to describe the product. For this word cloud, I used the titles of the reviews, since people put the essence of their opinions in the title. The 300+ reviews allowed me to generate an interesting word cloud that let me reach a positive conclusion. Take a look!
Understanding the word cloud is not difficult. You can just follow your eyes and see what you see. You will notice that the largest word, unfortunately, is “scam”. I found some other negative words like “rip”, “steal”, and more. There are also positive words as well such as “great”, “good”, “love”, and others. As I went through the customer reviews, I found that most of the negative feedbacks were related to payment. They started a subscription as a free trial, and after the period, they felt the difficulty of canceling their subscription.
Let’s go down deeper to find out what types of sentiments customers had toward the service.
Customer Sentiments
In the word cloud, we were able to observe what descriptive words people used to talk about Audible. As mentioned, the word cloud is based on the titles of customer reviews, but the sentiment analysis graph was generated by the contents of the reviews. In the sentiment analysis, we will see more specific types of feeling that people showed in their review. In the analysis, you can see 10 different sentiments such as positive, negative, trust, anticipation, joy, fear, sadness, anger, surprise, and disgust.
The technology behind the chart is straightforward. The analysis algorithm holds 10 different lists – each list containing words that are mapped to one of the 10 sentiments. When this algorithm runs, it checks and matches with one of the sentiments. When matched, it is counted as one and is categorized in one of the 10 sentiments. My analysis on the positive reviews appears as below.
The chart is also not difficult to understand. You can see that the negative sentiment is ranked number one. The first rank is followed by “positive”, “trust”, “anticipation”, “sadness” and “fear”. The types of sentiments are mixed in the rank, but “negative” took the highest position.
Playster vs Audible Google Trend
As the final chapter of analysis, let me share the trends of Playster and Audible. I used Google Trend to check how frequently “Playster” and “Audible” are searched on Google over the past 12 months. Google Trend is a useful tool to measure the interest of people. The more frequently people search on Google, the more popular or trendy it is.
The blue line is Audible and the redline is Playster. In terms of popularity and trendiness, Audible outperforms Playster far much more.
Comments on Analysis Result
When I choose a product to review, I always select the one that its customers had great experiences with the product. The biggest reason for doing it is to introduce great products to my readers. For this comparison post, however, I had to analyze customer sentiments on Audible. In contrast to my expectations, customers seem to have not had a great experience with Audible. As mentioned, most of the negative feedbacks were about subscription payment.
We cannot be certain that which side is to blame, but what is true is that all of my reviews have shown a very positive result. It is your decision to interpret this result. I know someone who is using Audible without a problem. Furthermore, the Audible customers did not complain about the quality or quantity of audiobooks that they provide. Plus, much more people have been showing an interest in Audible than in Playters.
Conclusion
So, if you want to have the latest and best-selling books and if you want to keep using the service, I would still recommend Audible. If you want to have unlimited access to a large audiobook collection (or movies, audios, games, and books) at a cheaper price, I would suggest Playster.
Useful Link
- Review on Playster: Playster Review
