How cloud voice minutes work
What counts against the cloud voice allowance in Narrator, what the trial and Pro include, and what happens when the minutes run out.
Narrator can read with the EP-1 voice on your Mac, which has no limit, or with a cloud voice. Cloud voices are metered in minutes of audio, because each minute costs Epilude money to make.
What the trial and Pro include
The free trial includes 5 minutes of cloud voice. They do not expire, and they are separate from the trial's 1,000 dictation words and 10 meeting notes: using them up leaves the other two untouched. Pro includes 60 minutes of cloud voice a month, on a UTC month that resets on the 1st.
The voice picker shows how much you have used under the cloud group, and Settings → Billing & Usage shows the same meter.
What counts
Only making new audio counts, and a minute is a minute of speech whatever the playback speed. Narrator keeps the audio it makes on your Mac for a week after you last play it, so listening again in that time costs nothing, and neither does sharing or exporting a narration you have heard all the way through. Sharing or exporting creates audio for any part you haven't listened to yet, and that part uses cloud minutes. Previewing a cloud voice plays a sample that costs nothing.
Narrator makes cloud audio only a short way ahead of what you are hearing, so stopping partway through a long article leaves little unheard audio on your meter.
When the minutes run out
The cloud voice stops at the end of the sentence it was reading and a card offers to continue with the EP-1 voice from the same place. On the trial the card also offers Pro. If the EP-1 voice is not on your Mac yet, the download starts when you choose it. Nothing switches voices without you choosing.
On an Intel Mac, which cannot run the EP-1 voice, the card offers Pro.
Pay Once does not include cloud voices. Narrator on Pay Once reads with the EP-1 voice, which has no allowance.