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 come with an allowance counted 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 up to 30 days after you last play it, so listening again in that time costs nothing, and neither does sharing, keeping on the web or exporting a narration you have heard all the way through. For any part you haven't heard yet, those actions make new audio, and that part uses cloud minutes. They tell you how many minutes they need before they make anything, for example "about 4 minutes. You have 52 cloud minutes left this month." Previewing a cloud voice plays a sample that costs nothing.
Narrator makes cloud audio only a short way ahead of what you are hearing, and counts the minutes as it makes that audio, not as you hear it. Pausing makes nothing new, so stopping partway through a long article leaves little unheard audio on your meter. Starting, resuming or jumping into the middle of a narration makes audio from about where you start, not from the beginning of the passage. Up Next never starts a cloud narration by itself, so minutes are only used after you press Play.
If a share, keep or export needs more minutes than you have left, Narrator says so and makes nothing. It offers the EP-1 voice when that voice is installed for the narration's language, Get more minutes on the trial, and on Pro the date your minutes reset. A narration that is already fully made needs no minutes and asks nothing.
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.