Amazon turns Kindle Unlimited into Kindle+ and adds AI audiobooks

Amazon has renamed its Kindle Unlimited subscription Kindle+, retaining its $11.99 monthly price while adding thousands of audiobooks to the U.S. catalogue. The rebrand leaves the core service intact: subscribers can borrow up to 20 eligible ebooks, comics, manga and magazines at a time, with no return dates. The renamed service is separate from Amazon Prime and continues to offer unlimited access to a selected Kindle catalogue. New subscribers can receive a 30-day free trial. The principal change is broader audiobook access. Kindle+ now includes thousands of U.S. audiobooks at no additional charge, including books narrated by people through Audible’s Audiobook Creation Exchange, or ACX, and titles read using Amazon’s Virtual Voice AI technology. Subscribers can switch between reading and listening, resuming at the point where they stopped. The Verge reported that the name change reflected the addition of thousands of audiobooks to the existing reading service. Some Kindle Unlimited ebooks had previously included professionally narrated editions, but availability was not universal. The expanded audio benefit initially applies only in the United States. Amazon has said it will bring Kindle+ audiobooks to more marketplaces over time, without providing a timetable. In Canada, the subscription remains priced at $11.99 a month, but the audio catalogue is not initially available; Kindle Unlimited’s Canadian price rose from $9.99 to $11.99 in 2025. The change also gives self-publishing authors a new route into the subscription catalogue. Amazon offers Virtual Voice free through Kindle Direct Publishing, allowing authors to make AI-narrated versions of eligible books without paying for production. Newly enrolled KDP Select titles with Virtual Voice audiobooks are automatically made available in Kindle+, while authors may opt in previously published titles. That automation means an author who does not want a Virtual Voice edition in Kindle+ must unpublish the audiobook. Human-narrated ACX titles can be enrolled separately if they meet Amazon’s stated eligibility requirements, including Audible exclusivity, the Pay for Production model and Whispersync for Voice. Authors are paid from the KDP Select Global Fund when subscribers first read or listen to a page. Amazon says it is adding money to the fund so audiobook payments do not reduce ebook payouts. Where a subscriber reads and listens to the same page, the author receives the higher applicable rate. Virtual Voice began as a KDP beta intended to create audiobooks from ebooks using synthetic speech. Only 4% of KDP self-published titles had an audiobook available, according to an Amazon spokesperson, underscoring the potential pool of books that could acquire narrated editions. The AI-produced audiobooks are labeled and include customer samples.