Acting Pal vs Linus: Two AI Line Apps Compared

The short answer: Acting Pal and Linus are close cousins. Both read the other characters with AI voices, both wait for you to say your line, and both cost $9.99 a month for their Pro plan. The differences are in the details: how many voices and accents you get, how the app times the next cue, which devices it runs on, and what you can try before you pay. Our pick for most actors is a third app, where realistic voices read every other role, you choose Strict, Lenient, or Manual line matching, and a full-length play splits into scenes you can rehearse on your laptop and listen to on your phone.

Picture the moment: sides for a co-star role land at 9 p.m., the tape is due tomorrow at noon, and nobody is free to read. You want to open an app, drop the pages in, and start running the scene before the coffee goes cold. We judged Acting Pal and Linus, plus ScenePartner (another app with AI voices) and Offbook, our pick, on the same six questions, with prices from each app’s own listing.

How We Compared Them

An AI scene partner earns its place when you still reach for it on the twentieth run of a scene. These six questions decide whether you will.

• Who reads the other parts? AI voices, your own recordings, or a friend’s.
• How does it know it’s your turn? Listening for you to finish, a timed gap, or a tap.
• How does your script get in? Importing a PDF, a photo, or making it in the app.
• What memorization tools does it have? Hidden lines, first letters, looping, a teleprompter.
• Where does it run? iPhone, Android, a browser, or a laptop.
• What does it cost? What is free, how long the trial is, and the monthly price.

The Four Apps at a Glance

Each App on the Same Six Questions

Offbook

Our pick 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. One scene holds up to 50 pages or about 10,000 words, and the page picker splits up to 150 source pages into 10 scenes, so a full-length play fits. 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, it 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. For memorizing, hide your own lines, hide the whole script for a final test, or swap your lines for the first 1-8 letters of each word. The teleprompter highlights each word as you say it, and scene looping restarts the scene when it ends.

You rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere, with listen mode playing the whole scene aloud. You can set the playback speed of the other lines, too, for the whole scene or line by line.

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

Acting Pal

Acting Pal reads the other parts with AI voices; its website lists 106 voices in 20 accents. You can also record or import audio for your own lines and the cue lines. 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, and you can adjust how long the gap is.

Scripts come in as a PDF, with the text pulled out on the device, or you can create one in the app; its FAQ says it turns a PDF of sides into dialogue and a character list. It has a first-letter memorize mode, and scripts stay on your device by default. It runs on iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 or later) and Android, with a web app listed as coming soon. Its App Store listing describes self-tape recording with a teleprompter; its website marks that feature Android only.

Price: Acting Pal Pro is $9.99 a month on the US App Store, with a 3-day free trial. Best for: actors who like a timed Non-stop run, with a gap they set, on an iPhone or Android phone.

Linus

Linus reads the other parts with AI voices of real actors, who are paid when you rehearse with their voice. It waits for your cue, or you can tap to move on, and it works in 32+ languages. You can loop sections, hide your lines, and switch to first-letter prompts. The Linus pages we checked don’t say how scripts get in.

It has a teleprompter that scrolls as you go, and you can record takes, edit them, and save your favorites. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, and as a web app. Its Pro plan lists Linus Cloud and shareable links.

Price: the free tier covers a 1-page scene with up to 10 lines. On its pricing page, a 3-day pass is $1.99, Pro is $9.99 a month, and Premium is $19.99 a month. Best for: actors who rehearse in a language other than English.

ScenePartner

ScenePartner reads the other parts with AI voices and listens for your cue, and friends can record their own lines into a scene. It takes a PDF and can import only the pages you pick. For memorizing, you can hide lines, fade them, or show first letters, and it records self-tapes with a teleprompter. It runs on the web (laptop, tablet, or phone) and as an iOS app.

Price: free for 3 auditions with scripts up to 10 pages, no card. On its website, Plus is $12.99 a month (10 auditions) and Pro $29.99 a month (100 auditions, 150 pages); App Store prices are higher. Best for: actors who count their prep in auditions rather than scripts.

Voices and Accents: Pick the Plainest Reader

Acting Pal’s headline is choice: 106 voices in 20 accents. Linus’s is who the voices belong to: real actors, paid when you use them, in 32+ languages. Both are AI readers, so the useful question is which reading helps you rehearse.

The acting coach Joseph Pearlman’s advice on self-tape readers gives a good standard. A reader should be invested but restrained, because the emphasis is on you. He calls different voices for each character distracting, and warns against readers with odd cadences or accents. A monotone reader isn’t the answer either.

So whatever app you use, cast the other character with a clear voice that suits the scene, not the most colorful one in the menu. Save a strong accent for a scene where the character truly has one, and even then make sure you can catch every cue word.

How Each App Knows It’s Your Turn

Timing is where a line app feels like a partner or like a tape. If the next line arrives early, you rush. If it never comes, you stop acting and start waiting.

Acting Pal gives you two choices. Cue mode listens for you to finish. Non-stop mode leaves a gap of a length you set, then plays the next line. That’s handy for a fast scene once you know it, so set the gap to fit the pauses you plan to take. Linus waits for your cue and also lets you tap to move on, which helps when you want a long beat.

Our pick listens while you say your line and cues the next one when it hears you finish, or after a silence of 1 to 6 seconds if you set it. Strict mode suits the last week before an audition, Lenient while the words are still settling, and Manual when you want to hold a beat and press Enter. If cue pickups are your weak spot, our guide to picking up cues has drills for it.

Memorization Tools That Make You Recall

The tools worth paying for are the ones that make you pull a line out of memory rather than read it again. Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke showed why, in a study summarized by the APS. Students who tested themselves read the material about 3.4 times and recalled 61% a week later. Students who kept rereading read it about 14.2 times and recalled 40%, and felt more confident.

For an actor, that’s the case for hidden lines and first letters. Acting Pal has a first-letter memorize mode. Linus can hide your lines, show first-letter prompts, and loop a section. ScenePartner hides, fades, or shows first letters. You can try first-letter cues on any text with our free first-letter memorizer.

Whichever reader you use, say your lines out loud. A University of Waterloo study of 95 people compared reading silently, hearing someone else read, hearing a recording of yourself, and reading aloud in real time. Reading aloud yourself was remembered best, and the researchers credit the dual action of speaking and hearing yourself.

Don’t drill the words as a string of sounds, though. Helga and Tony Noice found that actors learn lines by working out what they mean for the character, which the APS Observer described as active experiencing. Lines learned with a movement were also remembered better. So walk the blocking while the app reads your cues.

Devices and Price

On devices, the two apps nearly match. Both run on iPhone, iPad, and Android. Linus also has a web app today; Acting Pal lists one as coming soon.

On price, the Pro plans are the same: $9.99 a month for Acting Pal Pro and for Linus Pro. The way in differs. Acting Pal offers a 3-day free trial. Linus has a free tier for a 1-page scene of up to 10 lines, and sells a 3-day pass for $1.99.

If you’re weighing a switch from either app, our Acting Pal comparison and Linus comparison go point by point. To see each app next to a reader where a friend can record the other part, read Acting Pal vs Counterpart and Linus vs Counterpart.

Get More Out of Any AI Scene Partner

An app is only the reader. The schedule is yours, and a few habits make every run count.

• Hide your lines from the first day you roughly know the scene. Getting a line wrong and checking it is the retrieval practice that makes it stick.
• Say every line out loud, at the volume and energy you’ll use in the room.
• Run the scene in the evening and again the next morning, so a night’s sleep falls between the two sessions.
• Write the character’s intention in the margin before you drill a speech, so you learn what each line is for.
• Do one run a day on your feet, moving the way you will on stage or on camera.

Pick a scene from our library of public-domain plays or a speech from the monologue collection to practice on, or try one of the classic scenes in our free run lines online tool, which reads the other part and waits for your line, with no account.

Questions Actors Ask

Is Acting Pal or Linus better for learning lines?

They overlap more than they differ: both read with AI voices, wait for your line, and offer first-letter prompts. Acting Pal has a timed Non-stop mode and lists 106 voices in 20 accents. Linus has hidden lines, looping, 32+ languages, and a web app today; Acting Pal’s web app is listed as coming soon. For Strict, Lenient, or Manual line matching and a full-length play split into scenes, our pick is the app we recommend.

How much do Acting Pal and Linus cost?

Acting Pal Pro is $9.99 a month on the US App Store, with a 3-day free trial. Linus is free for a 1-page scene of up to 10 lines, sells a 3-day pass for $1.99, and charges $9.99 a month for Pro and $19.99 for Premium. To try a reader that waits for your line without paying, our run lines online tool has classic scenes and needs no account.

Do Acting Pal and Linus work on Android and the web?

Both have Android apps alongside iPhone and iPad. Linus also runs as a web app; Acting Pal says its web app is coming soon. Our pick is built for the laptop: you rehearse out loud with cues in a laptop or desktop browser, on Mac or Windows, and on a phone you listen to your scenes, with playback that keeps going with the screen locked. The iPhone app is coming soon.

Which app has more AI voices, Acting Pal or Linus?

Acting Pal’s website gives a number: 106 voices in 20 accents. The Linus pages we checked don’t give a number; they describe its voices as AI voices of real actors, who are paid when you use them, in 32+ languages. Our pick casts from 12 voices on Free and Starter and from a larger catalog on Pro and Premium.

The Verdict

Our pick for most actors is Offbook. Realistic voices read every role but yours, and it listens while you say your line and cues the next one when it hears you finish, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching for how word-perfect you need to be. It takes the script as a PDF, a photo, or a text file, from one page of sides to a full-length play split into scenes. And you can hide your lines, show first letters, or loop the scene.

Between the two apps compared here, the choice comes down to small things. Acting Pal offers a large menu of accents and a timed Non-stop mode on phones and tablets. Linus reads with voices of real actors in 32+ languages, on phones and the web. For more apps judged the same way, see our guide to the best AI scene partner apps.

Offbook is made by the team behind this blog. Prices are from each app’s own listing.