coldRead vs ScenePartner: Which Line App Fits You?

coldRead and ScenePartner both promise the same thing: a reader that waits for you, says the next line when you finish yours, and never gets tired of running the scene. They get there in opposite ways. coldRead plays back lines you record yourself, on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, with no internet needed. ScenePartner reads the other parts with AI voices, in a browser or its iOS app, and charges by the number of auditions you prepare.

That one difference, who reads the other parts, decides most of what follows: setup time, how the scene sounds, which scripts fit, and what you pay. We judged both apps, and Offbook, on the same six 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 your line; the reasons are in the comparison below.

How We Compared Them

A line app earns its place the week before your off-book date, when you’re running a scene for the twentieth time. These are the six questions that decide whether you’re still using it then.

• Who reads the other parts? Your own recordings, a friend’s recordings, or computer voices.
• How does it know it’s your turn? A fixed gap, a tap, or listening for you to finish.
• How does your script get in? Typing, dictating, or importing a PDF.
• What memorization tools does it have? Hiding your lines, first letters, a teleprompter.
• Where does it run? iPhone, Mac, a laptop browser, or a phone browser.
• What does it cost? What is free, how long the trial is, and how the plans are counted.

Offbook, coldRead, and ScenePartner at a Glance

Each App on the Same Six Points

Offbook

Offbook starts from your script. You upload a PDF, a photo of the pages (PNG or JPEG), or a text file, and it sorts the pages into roles and lines. 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.

For memorizing, you can hide your own lines while everyone else’s stay visible, hide the whole script for a final test, or replace your lines with the first 1-8 letters of each word. The teleprompter shows your line large and highlights each word as you say it. 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, and students and educators get 50% off with a valid .edu email. Best for: actors who want a reader that hears them, with nothing to record, for anything from audition sides to a full-length play.

coldRead

coldRead is built around your own voice. You record every line of the scene, the other characters’ included, or import audio a friend recorded. When you say the last word of your line, it plays the next one. There is no PDF import: text goes in by typing or dictation.

A teleprompter shows your line while it’s your turn, and the app can record a video self-tape with a self-timer. It needs no internet, email, or sign-up, and your recordings and its speech recognition stay on the device. It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Macs, with an Apple Watch remote.

Price: free for scripts up to 8 lines, with a 1-week free trial of unlimited access. Unlimited is $10.99 for 1 month, $26.99 for 3 months, or $83.99 for a year on the US App Store. Best for: short sides on Apple devices, when you’d rather hear your own reading than a computer voice.

ScenePartner

ScenePartner reads the other parts with AI voices and listens for your cue. Friends can record their lines too, so you can rehearse with their real voices. It takes a PDF, and you can hide your lines, fade them, or show only first letters.

It records self-tapes with a teleprompter, and its iOS app added rear-camera recording and an eyeline guide in version 1.9. It runs on the web, on a laptop, tablet, or phone, and as an iOS app.

Price: ScenePartner counts auditions. On its pricing page, Free covers 3 auditions with scripts up to 10 pages, Plus is $12.99 a month for 10 auditions, and Pro is $29.99 a month for 100 auditions with scripts up to 150 pages. In the App Store the same plans cost more: Plus $19.99 a month and Pro $44.99. Best for: actors preparing a handful of audition sides a month who buy on the website.

Who Reads the Other Parts, and Why It Matters

This is the difference to settle first. coldRead’s reader is you, or a friend, played back from recordings. ScenePartner’s reader is a set of AI voices, plus any friends who record. Offbook’s reader is a cast of realistic voices, with nothing to record.

Recording your own cues takes setup time that grows with every line in the scene. And memory research points at your own voice. A University of Waterloo study compared four ways of learning text: reading silently, hearing someone else read, hearing a recording of yourself, and reading aloud in real time. Reading aloud yourself, right then, was remembered best: speaking the words and hearing yourself say them.

So say your own lines out loud every time, whatever is reading the cues. What the cues need to do is come in on time and sound like someone talking to you. The acting coach Joseph Pearlman’s advice on readers says a good one is clear, invested in the scene, and restrained, never flat or robotic. Hold any app’s voices to that same standard.

How Each App Knows It’s Your Turn

Timing is where line apps feel either like a partner or like a tape. If the next line comes too soon you rush; if it never comes you stop acting and start waiting.

coldRead waits for one word: the last word of your line. Say it and the next recording plays. That makes the last word of each speech matter a great deal, so learn your line endings as firmly as the beginnings.

ScenePartner listens for your cue and reads the next line. 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 take a long pause and move on with Enter. It can also move on after a silence of 1 to 6 seconds.

Getting Your Script In

Setup is the hidden cost of any line app. If it takes an hour to get a scene in, you won’t do it the night the sides arrive.

coldRead has no PDF import. You type or dictate the text and record the lines, so plan for setup that grows with the scene. ScenePartner takes a PDF, up to 10 pages on its Free plan and up to 150 on Pro.

Offbook takes a PDF, photos of the pages, or a text file, and turns them into roles and lines. 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 dialogue, reassign a line to another character, and add pauses where the scene needs them. 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 tools worth having are the ones that 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 felt more confident about it.

For actors, that means hidden lines and first-letter cues beat staring at the page. ScenePartner can hide your lines, fade them, or show first letters. coldRead’s teleprompter shows your line while it’s your turn, which helps early on, before you want the line gone. 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 drill the words as a string of sounds, though. Helga and Tony Noice found that actors learn lines by working out what the words mean for the character and what the character wants, which the APS Observer described as active experiencing. Their research also found that lines learned while making a fitting movement were remembered better. Walk the blocking while the app reads your cues.

Self-Tapes, Devices, and Price

Both coldRead and ScenePartner record video self-tapes inside the app. coldRead has a self-timer; ScenePartner has a teleprompter, rear-camera recording, and an eyeline guide. For the whole setup, see how to self-tape alone.

Devices split the three cleanly. coldRead is Apple only (iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Mac, plus a Watch remote) and works with no internet. ScenePartner runs in a browser on any laptop, tablet, or phone, and as an iOS app. With Offbook, you rehearse in a laptop or desktop browser and listen to your scenes on your phone, even with the screen locked.

On price, the plans are counted differently, so compare them against your actual work. coldRead’s free tier stops at 8 lines; ScenePartner’s at 3 auditions of up to 10 pages. ScenePartner’s Plus plan costs $12.99 a month on the website and $19.99 in the App Store, so check where you subscribe. Offbook’s 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. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

What Your Situation Calls For

• You want a reader that hears you finish your line, with nothing to record: Offbook, where realistic voices read every other role.
• You’re learning a full-length play: Offbook, where the page picker splits up to 150 pages into scenes.
• You get new audition sides every week: Offbook, whose paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts.
• You want to run lines on a walk or a commute: Offbook’s listen mode plays the whole scene on your phone, and a scene can be saved as an MP3.
• You need to be word-perfect: Offbook’s Strict matching holds you close to the script.
• You want your castmates on the same scene: Offbook shares a scene by email invitation on every paid plan, or by public link on Pro and Premium.
• 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.

Want a scene to practice on before you commit to any app? Pick one from our library of public-domain plays or a speech from the monologue collection, and run it in our free run lines online tool, which reads the other part and waits for your line, with no account. If you’re weighing a switch, our coldRead comparison and ScenePartner comparison go into more detail.

Get More Out of Any Line App

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

• Run each scene with your lines hidden from the first day you know roughly what happens. Getting it wrong and checking is the retrieval practice that makes it stick.
• Say every line out loud, at the volume and energy you’ll use in the room.
• Practice in the evening and again the next morning. In a study reported by the APS, people who slept between two sessions needed about half as many tries to relearn a word list as people who stayed awake, and remembered more a week later.
• Learn what each line is for, not just how it sounds. Write the character’s intention in the margin before you drill a speech.
• Do one run a day standing up and moving, as you will on stage or on camera.

Questions Actors Ask

Is coldRead or ScenePartner better?

For most actors, Offbook: realistic voices read every other role with nothing to record, and it listens and cues the next line when you finish yours. Between the two, the split is the reader. coldRead plays back lines you record yourself, offline on Apple devices. ScenePartner reads with AI voices on the web and iOS and counts auditions.

What is the difference between coldRead and ScenePartner?

coldRead uses recordings of your own voice (or a friend’s), has no PDF import, runs on iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Mac, and needs no internet. ScenePartner uses AI voices, takes a PDF, runs in a browser and on iOS, and its plans are counted in auditions per month.

Does coldRead use AI voices?

No. You record every line yourself, the other characters’ included, or import audio a friend sent. When you say the last word of your line, it plays the next recording.

Is ScenePartner free?

Its free plan covers 3 auditions with scripts up to 10 pages. Offbook’s run lines online tool and first-letter memorizer are free with no account, and every Offbook plan starts with a 7-day free trial. After ScenePartner’s free plan, Plus is $12.99 a month for 10 auditions and Pro $29.99 a month for 100 on the website; in the App Store, Plus is $19.99 and Pro $44.99.

Can I rehearse with Offbook on my phone?

You rehearse out loud with cues in a laptop or desktop browser, on Mac or Windows, with the full script on a big screen. On your phone you can upload a script and listen to your scenes, with your own lines spoken, skipped, or left as silent gaps, and playback keeps going with the screen locked. The iPhone app is coming soon.

The Verdict

Our pick for most actors is Offbook. It gives you a cast of realistic voices, with nothing to record, reading every other role. It listens for you to finish your line and cues the next one, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching to fit how word-perfect you need to be. And it takes the whole script, from one page of sides to a full-length play split into scenes with the page picker.

Between the two apps compared here, the choice comes down to who reads the cues. coldRead plays back your own recordings, offline on Apple devices, and is free up to 8 lines. ScenePartner reads with AI voices on the web and iOS and counts auditions, with 3 free. 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 as of November 2026.