# Async review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Chat-based video editor with AI voices, dubbing and music Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Async, formerly Podcastle, is an AI creative suite built around a chat-based video editor. Alongside editing it generates video, images, voices, music and sound effects, and includes text to speech, voice cloning, subtitles, dubbing and lip sync. The older podcast recording and hosting studio now sits inside the same product, and usage is metered in monthly credits. - **Category:** AI Voices & Text to Speech - **Made by:** Async - **Website:** https://async.com - **Runs on:** Web, iOS - **Who should skip it:** Tight if you stay free: allowances are lifetime, not monthly, at 1 hour and 10 credits. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Async has a free plan, and paid plans start at $11.99 per month, billed annually. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** 1 hour of media for the AI chat and 10 AI credits, both one-time. - **Free trial:** A free trial is offered on the paid plans; the page does not state its length. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | 1 hour of media uploaded to AI chat (lifetime) and 10 AI credits (lifetime). | | Essentials | $11.99 per month, billed annually | 450 credits a month, 4 hours of recording, 2 hours of text to speech, 20 GB of storage and English-only AI subtitles. | | Pro | $23.99 per month, billed annually | 1,200 credits a month, 20 hours of recording, 10 hours of text to speech, 120 GB of storage and AI video enhancement. | | Teams | $49.99 per creator / month, billed annually | 3,000 credits a month, 40 hours of text to speech, 1 TB of storage, dubbing and lip sync, brand kit and basic user management. | | Business | Custom | Custom credits, hours and storage, advanced user management, priority support and security and compliance. Sold through sales. | Read from https://async.com/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Async before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Save 40% with yearly plans** (Annual discount): The pricing page shows a Yearly toggle labelled 40% off, and shows savings of $96 on Essentials, $192 on Pro and $420 on Teams per year. Source: https://async.com/pricing ## Key features - **Chat-based video editing:** You tell the editor what to cut, pace or polish and it makes the edit, including removing filler and pauses, syncing cuts to music, and adding captions. - **Text to speech and voice cloning:** Voices can be generated in chat or through the standalone text-to-speech and voice cloning tools. Paid plans include monthly text-to-speech hours. - **Dubbing and lip sync:** AI dubbing and lip sync, with multilingual voices, are listed from the Teams plan. - **Video, image, music and sound effects generation:** Credits are spent on third-party models such as Kling, Veo, Seedance, Nano Banana and GPT Image; the pricing page lists credit costs per video or image. - **Recording, audio cleanup and hosting:** The former Podcastle studio records remote guests, removes noise with Magic Dust, edits audio by transcript and publishes to Spotify, Apple and YouTube. - **Clips and subtitles:** Finds strong moments to turn into short clips for social platforms and adds subtitles, English only on lower plans. ## Good for - Creators who want voices, editing and clips in one tool - Podcasters and video makers moving from Podcastle - Small teams producing short-form video and ads ## Worth knowing - Everything AI is metered in credits, and a single video from a premium model can use dozens; Essentials' 450 credits is about 61 Kling 3.0 videos or 900 Nano Banana 2 images. - The Free plan's credits and media hours are lifetime allowances, not monthly ones. - Dubbing and lip sync start on the Teams plan, and subtitles are English only on Essentials and Pro. - The prices read are for yearly billing; the monthly-billing prices were not shown in the page text. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.2 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Async is a chat-based video editor with AI voices, dubbing and music. But everything AI is metered in credits that a single premium video can eat dozens of, dubbing and lip sync don't start until the $49.99 Teams plan, and the free plan is lifetime allowances. - **Value for money: C.** Essentials is $11.99 a month billed yearly, above the voices middle of $10. Credits meter all AI use, and 450 credits is about 61 videos from one premium model. - **Free plan and trial: C.** The Free plan is 1 hour of media for AI chat and 10 AI credits, both lifetime. Paid plans have a free trial of unstated length. - **Features: C.** Chat editing, text to speech, voice cloning, generation, recording and clips. Dubbing and lip sync start at Teams, and subtitles are English only on Essentials and Pro. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You learn the credits and which model to spend them on. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web and iPhone, with Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Async's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among AI voice generators - Async's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 18 of the 43 other AI voice generators we grade, and level with 9. - It stands best on platforms and integrations (B, above 20 of 43) and worst on features (C, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $11.99 a month, against a middle price of $10 for the category: 21 of the 33 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 6 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/ai-voices ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Async you would be making a voice model, which you can rent by the minute but not make. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It costs $143.88 a year. - You could not: A voice model, which you can rent by the minute but not make. - You could not: A voice model trained on your recordings. - You could not: A video editor. - You could not: A video model, which you can rent by the second but not make. - You could not: An image model, which you can rent by the picture but not make. - You could not: Speech turned into text you can trust. - You could not: A real app for iOS. Something home-made would be a web page. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## What people say - **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.2 out of 5 from 546 ratings in the United States, read Nov 13, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1576384002 ## Works with Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube **Tags:** Text to speech, Voice cloning, Video editing, Video generation, Image generation, Transcription ## Alternatives - [ElevenLabs](https://toolgpa.com/tools/elevenlabs): AI voice platform for speech, voice cloning, dubbing and voice agents. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/async-vs-elevenlabs) - [Murf](https://toolgpa.com/tools/murf): AI voiceover studio with dubbing, translation and a speech API. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/async-vs-murf) - [Fliki](https://toolgpa.com/tools/fliki): AI video and voiceover maker with voice cloning in 80+ languages. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/async-vs-fliki) - [Speechify](https://toolgpa.com/tools/speechify): Text-to-speech reader for listening to documents and web pages. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/async-vs-speechify) - [Rask AI](https://toolgpa.com/tools/rask-ai): AI video dubbing and translation with voice cloning. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/async-vs-rask-ai) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://async.com/pricing - https://async.com Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/async Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).