How to judge a French text-to-speech tool.
We will not draw up a comparison table against other vendors: judge and jury, it would be worth nothing. We are giving you something better, the grid we would use if we were in your place, with the questions to ask and the answers to insist on.
Apply it to every tool you look at, including ours. Our answers are below, and they can be checked before you buy anything.
The demo trap
Every demo runs on clean text: sentences, punctuation, not a single figure. On that ground every serious tool sounds good, ours included, and you cannot decide anything.
The real test is elsewhere. Take your most awkward article, the one with a score, a date, an amount, an acronym and a decree number, and have it read out. One listen tells you whether your newsroom can publish without checking every audio.
Le 1er mars à 20 h 30, le conseil a voté 1,5 M€ pour la CAF. L'OL s'était imposé 2-1 la veille, par 12 °C. Arrêté n° 2026-114, art. L. 121-1. Reportage à voir sur M6 et dans Le 20 Heures.
The seven questions to ask
Each question says why it matters, the answer to insist on from any vendor, and ours.
01How do you read numbers, dates and acronyms in French?
Why this question mattersThis is the question that decides everything, and it is almost never asked. A beautiful voice that reads a date or a score wrong forces you to listen back to every article, so you give up on automation, so you stop using the tool.
The answer to insist onAn explanation of the method, not a claim. If the answer is « our model handles it », be careful: a model that guesses can read the same sentence two different ways, and you will have no way to correct it.
OursA layer of written French rules turns the text into a reading, then the voice says that reading. A rule can be read, tested and fixed. We publish the record of the cases we hold, failures included.
See how we read French02Can I check your claims before paying?
Why this question mattersEvery product page claims the same things. What separates them is whether you can check the claim without subscribing, without a sales call, and without handing over a card.
The answer to insist onA trial with no card, and a record or a demo on hard cases. A demo on clean text proves nothing: every serious tool passes it.
OursFree account with no card, 5 credits free (one credit is 1,000 characters), ready in two minutes. The public record lists reading cases one by one, with what is written, what is spoken, and the mistake the case usually triggers.
Open a free account03How do you fix a mispronounced proper noun?
Why this question mattersNo rule and no model guesses Ploërmel, Cysoing or Guebwiller. On a regional title this is the first complaint the newsroom will make, and it lands in the first week.
The answer to insist onA pronunciation lexicon you maintain yourself, applying to later articles and to all your sites, without going through the vendor's support. Ask too whether already published articles can be fixed without a full regeneration.
OursA pronunciation lexicon editable from WordPress or the client area. The fix applies to all later articles and all your sites. On an article already online, targeted correction resynthesises only the passage concerned.
See targeted correction04What happens to my text, and does it train a model?
Why this question mattersMany newsrooms have published an AI charter, and it binds them. A service that rewrites your texts or reuses them to train a model can put you in breach of your own charter.
The answer to insist onA written commitment on how texts are used, and the ability to prove that no language model rewrote your content. Ask whether the guarantee is verifiable or merely asserted.
OursYour text is used only to produce the audio and trains no model. Charter mode guarantees that no language model touched the text, only its voicing, and every article has a provenance page documenting it.
Understand charter mode05How long does it take to connect, and who has to be involved?
Why this question mattersA project that needs an available developer never reaches production in a newsroom. The question is not « is it technically possible » but « can the person pushing the project do it ».
The answer to insist onA no-development path for WordPress, and a path with no access to your server for everything else. Ask whether an API key has to be copied, and what happens on a staging site unreachable from outside.
OursA WordPress extension that connects with no key to copy, about six minutes end to end. Otherwise an API, or a plain RSS feed that needs no access to your server.
See the WordPress path06What do you collect about my listeners?
Why this question mattersThe audio player runs on your pages, so what it collects becomes your responsibility: consent banner, records of processing, impact assessment. A tool that sets an identifier adds legal work to your plate.
The answer to insist onA precise answer on cookies, IP addresses and persistent identifiers. If the answer is vague, assume collection happens and that it will have to appear in your documentation.
OursNo listener data. No IP address kept, no cookie, no profile: only aggregated anonymous counts, which cannot be cross-referenced to follow a person.
See our security page07How do you leave, and what is left if you do?
Why this question mattersThis is the question that comes up when signing, and the one nobody dares ask. A subscription you do not know how to leave is one you hesitate to take, and audio hosted at the vendor disappears with them.
The answer to insist onCancellation with no reason to give and no phone call, a written rule on volume changes, and a clear answer on what happens to audio files already published.
OursCancellation in two clicks, with no reason form. Volume change rules are written on the pricing page, including what does not carry over. Your audio and your lexicon are exportable at any time, including on the way out.
Read the subscription rules
Where we are not the right choice
If you have read this far, you deserve this section. Better to know now than after three months of subscription.
You want a huge voice catalogue
We offer 327 voices, kept from 870 surveyed, because each one is listened to by a human before it can be enabled.
Our position: The choice is wider elsewhere. Here, no voice that has not been listened to is offered, and that ceiling is deliberate.
You want very broad self-service
Our offer is focused on audio for published text. Some adjacent needs are not yet in the self-service subscription.
Our position: Those are handled case by case today, with support from us. Tell us about yours: if it recurs, we are interested.
Your ad model needs fine-grained data
A tool that sets an identifier on every listener knows things we never will: journey, return, device, cross-referencing with your ad stack.
Our position: That is the accepted price of collecting nothing. Our figures are counts, and counts they will stay.
You require end-to-end sovereign hosting
Hosting is European, but the full chain is not yet European along its whole length. The sovereign tier is in preparation.
Our position: We will only announce it as available on the day it is, and the product checks that itself before displaying it. Until then, this is written down.
You want well-known references
We are starting out. We have no wall of client logos to show you, and no established user community.
Our position: That is precisely why we publish a verifiable technical record rather than testimonials. Judge the product, not our address book.
The test protocol, in half an hour
Almost every tool on the market, ours included, offers a trial with no card. Here is how to get a decision out of it rather than an impression.
- 015 min
Prepare a trap text
Take a real article from your site, the most awkward one you have: a council report, a sports result, a decree. Not a clean text.
- 0210 min
Open two or three free trials
No card, no sales call. If a tool demands a demo before letting you try, note it: that is information.
- 0310 min
Listen to the same text everywhere
Write down each error next to its cause: ordinal, abbreviated time, acronym, score, unit, proper noun containing a digit. Count, do not feel.
- 043 min
Test the correction path
Take the hardest proper noun in your area and try to fix its pronunciation yourself, without writing to support. Time it.
- 052 min
Read the exit terms
Look for how you cancel and what happens to the audio. If you cannot find it in two minutes, assume that is deliberate.
Do not believe us. Listen.
Send us your most awkward article, the one you would not dare put in a demo. It is the only test that counts, and it needs neither a card nor a meeting.