Acting Pal vs Counterpart: Two Scene-Partner Apps Compared

The sides landed at 9 p.m., the tape is due tomorrow, and the only person awake is you. Acting Pal and Counterpart are two phone apps built for exactly that night. Each one reads the other characters, each one moves to your next cue on its own, and each one takes a PDF of the sides.

The differences show up once you start a run. Acting Pal gives you a cast of AI voices and two ways to pace the scene. Counterpart listens for one cue word and lets the reader be your own voice, a friend’s, or text-to-speech. We judged both apps, and Offbook, on the same seven questions, with prices checked in November 2026. Our pick for most actors is Offbook, which reads every other role with realistic voices and listens for you to finish each line; the reasons are below.

How We Compared Them

A scene partner app is only worth its subscription if you still open it the night before the next audition. These seven questions decide that.

• Who reads the other parts? AI voices, your own recordings, a friend’s, or a mix.
• How does it know it’s your turn? Listening for your whole line, for one cue word, or leaving a timed gap.
• How does your script get in? Which files it takes and what it does with them.
• What memorization tools does it have? Hidden lines, first letters, flashcards, looping, a teleprompter.
• Can it help with the tape? Recording inside the app, or reading for you while you film.
• Where does it run? Phone, tablet, laptop, or a browser.
• What does it cost? What’s free, what a plan costs, and what the trial looks like.

Offbook, Acting Pal, and Counterpart at a Glance

Each App on the Same Seven Points

Offbook

Offbook starts from the script you already have. Upload a PDF, a photo of the pages (PNG or JPEG), or a text file, and it sorts the pages into roles and lines and writes a title and summary for the scene. Pick your role, and realistic voices read every other character. Free and Starter cast from 12 voices; Pro and Premium cast from a larger catalog.

When you rehearse, Offbook plays the other lines, listens through your microphone while you say yours, and plays the next cue when it hears you finish. You can also press Enter or say “next line” to move on. Strict matching holds you close to the script, Lenient has a 0-100 slider, and Manual never moves on by itself. You can set the speed of the voices for the whole scene or for one line, and add a pause where the scene needs a beat.

For memorizing, hide your own lines while everyone else’s stay visible, hide the whole script for a final test, or swap your lines for the first 1-8 letters of each word. The teleprompter shows your line large and highlights each word as you say it, and scene looping starts the scene again when it ends. When you film, Offbook is the reader off camera while you record on your phone or camera. You rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere.

Price: Starter is $9.99 a month, Pro $14.99, and Premium $29.99, with annual billing from $7.99 a month. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial (it requires a card), paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts, generated voice audio has a monthly allowance of 50,000 characters on Starter, 100,000 on Pro, and 200,000 on Premium, and students and educators get 50% off with a valid .edu email. Best for: actors who want a reader that hears them finish, for anything from two pages of sides to a full-length play.

Acting Pal

Acting Pal reads the other parts with AI voices; its website lists 106 voices in 20 accents. If you’d rather hear a person, you can record or import audio for your own lines and the cue lines, according to its App Store listing.

It has two ways to run a scene. Cue mode listens and plays the next line when you finish yours. Non-stop mode leaves a timed gap for your line instead, and you can adjust how long. Acting Pal imports a PDF of sides and pulls out the dialogue, with the text extracted on your device, or you can write a script in the app. Scripts stay on the device by default, and a first-letter memorize mode helps you learn the words.

For the tape, the App Store listing describes self-tape recording with a built-in teleprompter, while the website has listed self-tape recording under Android. We could not verify whether recording works on iPhone today, so check it on your own device. Acting Pal runs on iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 or later) and on Android, and its website lists a web app as coming soon.

Price: Acting Pal Pro is $9.99 a month in the US App Store, with a 3-day free trial. We could not verify what the free version includes. Best for: actors on Android or iPhone who want a choice of accents for the other characters.

Counterpart

Counterpart is built around choosing who reads. The reader can be your own recording, a friend’s recording, or AI text-to-speech. A friend records their lines in a web browser with no account, and those recordings become the reader, according to its App Store listing.

It listens for a cue word, which is the last word of your line by default, as its support page describes. It imports PDFs, including scanned or watermarked sides, reads them with OCR up to 10 pages at a time, and sorts your dialogue, the other characters’ lines, and the stage directions. You can hide your lines, run a scene on repeat, drill flashcards, and record a self-tape while it reads.

Price: a free download with in-app purchases. Counterpart Studio is $6.99 a month or $58.99 a year in the US App Store. It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Best for: Apple users who want a friend’s real voice in the other chair.

Who Reads the Other Part

Both apps let a human voice in, but from different directions. Acting Pal starts with AI voices and lets you record or import audio on top. Counterpart starts with a choice: record the other lines yourself, have a friend record them in a web browser, no account needed, or use text-to-speech. Offbook casts realistic voices for every role but yours, from 12 voices on Starter up to a larger catalog on Pro and Premium, so a new scene is ready to run once the script is uploaded and you pick your role.

Whichever reader you pick, remember who has to do the talking. A University of Waterloo study by Noah Forrin and Colin MacLeod compared four ways 95 people learned written material: reading silently, hearing someone else read, hearing a recording of themselves, and reading aloud in real time. Reading aloud in real time was remembered best, which the researchers call the production effect.

That matters when you choose a reader. Hearing your own recorded lines played back was not the winner in that study; saying them was. Use any app’s playback of your own lines for a first listen, then switch to a mode where you say them yourself.

Cue Mode, Cue Words, and Timed Gaps

How an app decides it’s your turn changes how a run feels. Counterpart listens for one word, the last word of your line by default. That’s quick and predictable once you’re word-perfect, so land the last word of each line clearly.

Acting Pal gives you two choices. In Cue mode it listens and plays the next line when you finish. In Non-stop mode it plays the scene with a timed gap where your line goes, and you set the length. A timed gap is useful for one thing in particular: it keeps the scene moving whether you’ve remembered the line or not, so it tells you fast where you’re still reaching.

Offbook listens to the whole line and plays the next cue when it detects you’ve finished. You choose how strict it is: Strict for word-perfect work, Lenient (with a slider) while you’re still finding the words, or Manual when you want to hold a long pause and then press Enter. It can also move on after 1 to 6 seconds of silence, so you don’t have to touch anything between lines.

Getting the Sides In

Both apps take a PDF. Acting Pal extracts the text on your device and pulls out the dialogue, and it also lets you write a script in the app if you only have the lines in an email. Counterpart reads scanned or watermarked sides with OCR, up to 10 pages at a time, and separates your dialogue from the other characters’ lines and the stage directions.

Offbook takes a PDF, a photo of the pages, or a text file. One scene holds up to 50 pages or about 10,000 words, and the page picker splits up to 150 pages into 10 scenes, so a full-length play fits. You can edit the dialogue afterward, move a line to the right character, or add a pause. Before you start a long role, our free script line counter shows how many lines you have to learn.

Memorization Tools That Make You Recall

The useful tools make you pull the line out of memory instead of reading it again. Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke showed why in a study summarized by the APS. Students who tested themselves read the passages about 3.4 times and recalled 61% a week later. Students who kept rereading read them about 14.2 times and recalled 40%, and they felt more confident that they’d learned it.

Acting Pal’s first-letter mode shows only the first letter of each word, so you have to supply the rest. Counterpart hides your lines so you drill from the cue alone, runs a scene on repeat, and makes flashcards for silent review. Offbook hides your lines or the whole script, and its first-letter cues show the first 1-8 letters of each word or only the first word of each line. You can try first-letter cues on any text with our free first-letter memorizer.

Don’t learn the words as a string of sounds, though. Helga and Tony Noice found that actors learn lines by working out what the words mean and what the character is after, which the APS Observer described as active experiencing. Lines learned while making a related movement, such as crossing the stage, were also remembered better. Walk the blocking while the reader gives you your cues.

Laptops, Phones, and Self-Tapes

Acting Pal runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android, and lists a web app as coming soon. Counterpart runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

With Offbook, you rehearse in a laptop or desktop browser, on Mac or Windows, with the full script on a big screen. On your phone you listen to your scenes, with your own lines spoken, skipped, or left as silent gaps, and playback keeps going with the screen locked. A scene can also be saved as an MP3 for the commute.

Counterpart records a self-tape while it reads the other roles. Acting Pal’s App Store listing describes self-tape recording with a teleprompter, and its website has listed recording under Android. Offbook reads off camera while you film on your phone or camera, so the reader’s voice comes from the laptop beside the lens. For the whole setup, see how to self-tape alone.

What Your Situation Calls For

• You want a reader that hears you finish your whole line: Offbook, which listens and cues the next line, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching.
• You get new sides most weeks: Offbook, whose paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts.
• You’re learning a full-length play: Offbook, where the page picker splits up to 150 pages into scenes.
• You want to run a scene with a castmate: Offbook shares a scene by email invitation on every paid plan, or by public link on Pro and Premium, and free accounts can practice scenes shared with them.
• You want to go over a scene on a walk: Offbook’s listen mode plays the whole scene on your phone.
• You want to ask about the character, not just drill: Offbook’s Genie answers questions about motivation, scene context, and line interpretation.
• You want to try before you pay: Offbook’s free run lines online tool and first-letter memorizer need no account, and every plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

Need a scene to practice on first? Pick one from our library of public-domain plays or a speech from the monologue collection. Our free run lines online tool rehearses classic scenes and waits for your line. If you’re weighing a switch, our Acting Pal comparison and Counterpart comparison go into more detail, and Linus vs Counterpart puts Counterpart next to another reader app.

Questions Actors Ask

What is the difference between Acting Pal and Counterpart?

Acting Pal reads the other parts with AI voices (106 voices in 20 accents on its website), offers a listening Cue mode and a timed Non-stop mode, and runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Counterpart runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, listens for a cue word, and lets the reader be your recording, a friend’s, or text-to-speech. Our pick for most actors is Offbook, which reads every other role with realistic voices and listens for your whole line.

Which app reads the other lines for you?

All three do. Acting Pal uses AI voices, and you can record or import audio instead. Counterpart uses your recording, a friend’s recording made in a browser, or text-to-speech. Offbook reads every role but yours with realistic voices once the script is uploaded and you pick your role, so there’s no recording session before your first run.

Do Acting Pal and Counterpart work on a laptop?

Acting Pal runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android; its website lists a web app as coming soon. Counterpart runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Offbook runs in a laptop or desktop browser on Mac or Windows. On a phone, Offbook plays your scenes for listening, with the screen locked if you like, and the iPhone app is coming soon.

What do Acting Pal and Counterpart cost?

Acting Pal Pro is $9.99 a month in the US App Store, with a 3-day free trial. Counterpart is a free download, and Counterpart Studio costs $6.99 a month or $58.99 a year. Offbook’s Starter plan is $9.99 a month, annual billing starts at $7.99 a month, every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and its run lines and first-letter tools are free with no account.

Which scene partner app is best?

Our pick is Offbook. It reads every role but yours with realistic voices, listens for you to finish each line, takes PDFs, photos, and text files up to a full-length play, and lets you try its free tools with no account. For more apps judged the same way, see our guide to the best AI scene partner apps.

The Verdict

Our pick for most actors is Offbook. Realistic voices read every role but yours, so there is no recording session before you can run a scene. It listens for you to finish your line, not just one cue word, and Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching fits how word-perfect you need to be. And you rehearse on a laptop with the full script on a big screen, with paid plans that have no monthly cap on the number of scripts.

Between the two apps compared here, the split is in the reader and the devices. Acting Pal uses AI voices in many accents, adds a timed Non-stop mode, and runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Counterpart runs on Apple devices, listens for a cue word, and lets a friend record the other part from a browser. For the wider field, see our best AI scene partner apps guide.

Offbook is made by the team behind this blog. Prices as of November 2026.