For paid newsletters & serialized writing
Your subscribers pay to read you.
Now they can press play.
Crier turns every issue you publish into a checked, narrated episode — delivered to your paying subscribers in the podcast app they already use, in a voice you chose and approved.
Substack will read your posts aloud — inside their app, in a stock voice you don't pick, whether you like it or not. beehiiv's AI audio plays only in the web post. Neither ever reaches your subscribers' podcast apps, and neither is gated to the people who pay you.
Your audio edition should live where your subscribers already listen — and sound like something you shipped on purpose.
What an audio edition costs today
A human narrator runs $75–$500 per episode before editing. Recording it yourself costs the one thing you budget hardest: a writing day, every issue, forever. So most paid newsletters ship no audio at all — while 82% of Substack's top 250 publish audio or video. Audio is what the top of your category already looks like.
| Option | Per issue | Your time |
|---|---|---|
| Human narrator | $75–$500 | Briefing + review |
| Record it yourself | $0 | Half a writing day |
| Platform robot voice | $0 | None — and it shows |
| Crier, checked edition | ≈ $7.50 (at $390/yr, weekly) | Approve & publish |
The Checked Edition — narration a writer can stand behind
Push-button TTS mangles exactly the things your writing lives on: names, numbers, tables, sponsor blocks, the em-dash you meant. Every Crier episode ships as a checked edition:
- A narration manuscript you approve before render — you see exactly what will be read, and what will be skipped.
- Your pronunciation sheet — the names, terms, and tickers your beat depends on, said right, every episode.
- A QA note disclosing every normalization we made — no silent rewrites.
- A full transcript, yours to publish or archive.
Delivered as a private podcast feed your paying subscribers add once and keep — Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts — or as finished audio attached to your platform's native paid feed. You own the audio and can export everything, always.
The Founding 25
The 7-Day Audio Edition Launch
Twenty-five founding publications. Your audio edition live and announced to your subscribers within 7 days, then every issue narrated, checked, and delivered for a year. Includes:
- Every issue as a checked edition (manuscript, pronunciation sheet, QA note, transcript)
- Private, subscriber-gated podcast feed — or finished audio for your platform's native paid feed
- A co-drafted launch email to announce it to your list
- Founder onboarding call, and a human reading your first-week listener numbers with you
- Back-Catalog Launch Pack — your last 90 days of issues narrated free, so the feed launches full, not empty ($199 value, founding only)
Prepaid annual only during founding. The monthly door opens to the public later, at $59 — founding seats keep $390/yr for life.
The Empty-Room Guarantee
If, 60 days after launch, fewer than max(5, your paid subscribers ÷ 50) listeners have activated your feed, we refund your founding fee in full. Two conditions, both things you'd do anyway: send the launch email we draft together, and attach the feed to at least 3 issues. If the room is empty after that, the loss is ours — not yours.
Not ready for the year?
First Checked Issue
One complete checked issue from your archive — up to 20 minutes of finished audio, one revision pass, transcript and QA note included. Hear exactly what your publication sounds like before you commit. Upgrade within 30 days and the $49 comes off the $390.
Get your first checked issue — $49One question before you buy
What did platform narration get wrong for you? A name it butchered, a table it read cell by cell, a sponsor block it narrated with a straight face — tell us the failure and we'll open your demo with that exact passage, fixed. If nothing's ever bothered you about push-button audio, Crier is probably not your tool — and we'd rather you know that now.
Questions writers ask
- Who owns the audio?
- You do. Every episode and transcript is yours to export, host elsewhere, or take with you if you leave. We keep a permission record for every manuscript we narrate — we only ever narrate what you own and hand us.
- What do you do with my content?
- Your content is processed solely to generate your audio — never sold, never used to train AI models, deleted on request. AI features are opt-in and metered. The long version is in plain English in our privacy policy.
- Which platforms does this work with?
- Substack, Ghost, beehiiv, Patreon, Mailchimp — anywhere you publish issues. If your platform has a native paid podcast feed (Substack does), we deliver finished audio into it; otherwise your subscribers get a private Crier feed.
- Can it be my voice?
- Founding editions narrate in a professional voice you pick from our catalog. Voice cloning (your voice, with your documented consent) ships as the Studio tier — founding members get first access.
- What if I want out?
- The Empty-Room Guarantee above, and a plain refund policy. No dark patterns; email us and it's done.