Counterpart vs coldRead: Which Rehearsal App Fits You?

Counterpart and coldRead look like twins at first. Both live on Apple devices. Both wait for the last word of your line, then play the next one (in Counterpart, that’s the cue word by default). Both can record your self-tape. If you’re choosing between them, the small print is where they part ways.

The big split is who does the reading and how the script gets in. coldRead plays back lines that you record (or a friend sends you as audio), and you build the scene line by line. Counterpart takes a PDF of your sides and lets the reader be your 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, listens while you say your line, and cues the next one when it detects you’ve finished.

Seven Questions That Decide It

A rehearsal app is only useful if it makes the hour you have tonight better than running lines alone in your head. These seven questions tell you whether it will.

• Who reads the other parts? Your own recordings, a friend’s, a synthetic voice, or realistic voices cast for you.
• How does it know you’re done? Listening for one cue word, or listening while you say the line.
• How does the script get in? A PDF, a photo, a text file, or typing and recording each line.
• What helps you memorize? Hidden lines, first letters, flashcards, a teleprompter, looping.
• Does it help with a self-tape? Recording inside the app, or reading while you film on another device.
• Where does it run? Phone, tablet, laptop, watch.
• What does it cost? What’s free, what a plan costs, and whether there’s a trial.

Offbook, Counterpart, and coldRead Side by Side

Each App, Judged the Same Way

Offbook

Offbook works from the pages you were sent. Upload a PDF, a photo of the sides (PNG or JPEG), or a text file, and it sorts the script into roles and lines and writes a title and summary for the scene. Pick your character, and realistic voices read everyone else. Free and Starter cast from 12 voices; Pro and Premium cast from a larger catalog. Nobody has to record anything before your first run.

In rehearsal, Offbook plays the other lines, listens through your microphone while you say yours, and cues the next line when it hears you finish. You can also press Enter or say “next line”. Strict keeps you close to the script, Lenient has a 0-100 slider for the weeks when you’re still finding the words, and Manual never moves on by itself. Speed is adjustable for the whole scene or a single line, and you can add a pause where the scene needs a beat.

For memorizing, hide your own lines while the rest stay on screen, 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, scene looping starts the scene over when it ends, and listen mode plays the whole scene aloud, your lines included. When you tape, Offbook reads off camera while you film on your phone or camera. 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 (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. Best for: actors who want no recording session first (pick your role and the voices read the rest), from a two-page audition to a full-length play.

Counterpart

Counterpart gives you a choice of reader. Its App Store listing describes three: your own recording, a friend’s recording, or AI text-to-speech. A friend can record their lines in a web browser without an account, and those takes become the other part.

It knows it’s your turn by listening for a cue word, the last word of your line by default, as its support page explains. It imports PDFs, including scanned or watermarked sides, reads them with OCR up to 10 pages at a time, and separates your dialogue from the other characters’ lines and the stage directions. You can hide your lines, run a scene on repeat, study 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 have a friend willing to record the other part.

coldRead

coldRead is built around your own voice. You record every line of the scene, or import audio a friend sends you, and add the text by typing or dictation, as its help page describes. There’s no PDF import. When you say the last word of your line, it plays the next one.

A teleprompter shows your text during your lines, and a self-tape mode records video with a self-timer. It needs no internet connection, no email, and no sign-up, and its App Store listing says recordings and 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 1 year in the US App Store. Best for: actors with short sides who are happy to record every line themselves.

Who Reads the Other Part

This is the biggest practical difference. With coldRead, the reader is you, or audio a friend recorded and sent over. Counterpart lets a friend record their lines in a web browser, with no account, and adds a text-to-speech option for when nobody’s free. Offbook casts realistic voices for every role but yours, so there’s no recording session first: pick your role and the voices read the rest.

Recording the other part yourself has a hidden cost beyond the time. You end up hearing your own reading of the scene partner, with your own guesses about how they’d say it. Whoever reads, the lines are meant for another person. Helga and Tony Noice, who study how actors learn roles, describe the process as active experiencing, using every channel to communicate meaning to another person, in this APS Observer summary.

How Each App Knows It’s Your Turn

Counterpart and coldRead both turn the page on a single word. In coldRead, it’s the last word of your line. In Counterpart, it’s the cue word, the last word of your line by default. Land the final word of every line clearly and you’ll get the most out of either one.

Offbook listens through your microphone while you say your line and cues the next one when it detects you’ve finished. You set how strict it is: Strict keeps you close to the script for the last week before the audition, Lenient while the words are still settling, or Manual when you want to hold a pause and press Enter. It can also move on after 1 to 6 seconds of silence, so your hands stay free. Our guide to picking up cues covers the timing side of this.

Getting the Script In

How the scene gets into the app decides how fast you’re rehearsing after the email with the sides lands. Counterpart takes a PDF, scanned sides included, up to ten pages at a time. coldRead has you type or dictate the text and record each line, which is fine for a short co-star scene and slower for a long one.

Offbook takes a PDF, a photo of the pages, or a text file. A single scene holds up to 50 pages or about 10,000 words, and the page picker splits up to 150 pages into 10 scenes. You can fix a line, move it to the right character, or add a pause after the upload.

Tools That Make You Recall, Not Reread

The tools worth having make you pull the line out of memory. In the study Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke ran, participants who practiced recalling a passage read it about 3.4 times and remembered 61% a week later. Participants who just reread it, about 14.2 times, remembered 40%, and felt more confident, as the APS Observer reports.

Counterpart’s hidden lines and flashcards push you to recall. coldRead’s teleprompter puts your text in front of you during your lines, which helps on day one; plan to rehearse without it before the audition. Offbook covers the whole climb: first-letter cues, then hidden lines, then the whole script hidden for a final test. You can try the first-letter step on any speech with our free line memorizer, no account needed.

Whatever 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 came out on top, an effect the researchers call the production effect.

Devices and the Self-Tape

Counterpart runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and coldRead on iPhone, iPad, and Apple silicon Macs; both record self-tapes. Counterpart records your self-tape while it voices the other roles. coldRead has a self-tape mode that records video with a self-timer, and an Apple Watch remote.

Offbook takes a different shape. You rehearse on a laptop or desktop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone on the way to the audition. When it’s time to tape, Offbook reads off camera while you film on your phone or camera. For the rest of the setup, see our guide to finding a self-tape reader.

Which One Fits Your Week

• Sides arrived tonight and the tape is due tomorrow: Offbook, because there’s no recording session first: pick your role and the voices read the rest.
• A long role in a play: Offbook, with up to 150 pages split into scenes and first-letter cues to work through them.
• You want a castmate rehearsing the same scene: Offbook, which shares a scene by email invitation on every paid plan, and free accounts can practice scenes shared with them.
• A short co-star scene and no budget yet: Offbook, starting with the free line memorizer on your own lines and the free run lines online tool on a classic scene (no account needed), then a 7-day free trial when you upload your own sides.

For more apps judged the same way, see our round-up of the best AI scene partner apps, or the head-to-heads Linus vs Counterpart and coldRead vs ScenePartner. If you’re weighing Offbook against one of these directly, we compare them point by point on Offbook vs Counterpart and Offbook vs coldRead.

Questions Actors Ask

What’s the difference between Counterpart and coldRead?

Both wait for the last word of your line and then play the next one; in Counterpart, that’s the cue word by default. Counterpart imports PDFs and lets the reader be your recording, a friend’s recording from a browser, or text-to-speech. coldRead plays back lines you record or a friend sends as audio, takes typed or dictated text instead of a PDF, and runs with no internet connection.

Does coldRead work on an iPhone or only on an iPad?

Both. coldRead runs on iPhone, iPad, and Macs with Apple silicon, and has an Apple Watch remote. Counterpart runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Offbook rehearses in a laptop or desktop browser, Mac or Windows, and you can listen to your scenes on your phone; the iPhone app is coming soon.

What does Counterpart cost?

Counterpart is a free download with in-app purchases, and Counterpart Studio is $6.99 a month or $58.99 a year in the US App Store. For comparison, coldRead’s unlimited access is $10.99 for a month, and Offbook’s Starter plan is $9.99 a month, or from $7.99 a month billed annually, with a 7-day free trial on every plan.

Can I use Counterpart or coldRead as a self-tape reader?

Both can help. Counterpart records a self-tape while it reads the other part, and coldRead has a self-tape mode that records video with a self-timer. Offbook reads off camera while you film on your phone or camera, with realistic voices for every other role.

Which rehearsal app is best?

Our pick is Offbook. It reads every role but yours with realistic voices, cues the next line when it detects you’ve finished yours, and takes PDFs, photos, and text files up to a full-length play. You can try its free run lines online tool with no account, and every plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

The Verdict

Our pick for most actors is Offbook. Realistic voices read every role but yours, so there’s no recording session between you and your first run. It listens while you say your line and cues the next one when it detects you’ve finished, and Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching fits how word-perfect you need to be that week. And it takes the script the way it arrives, as a PDF, a photo, or a text file, from two pages of sides to a full play split into scenes.

Between the two apps compared here, the split is in the reader and the script. Counterpart imports PDF sides and offers a friend’s voice or text-to-speech. coldRead keeps your recordings and speech recognition on your device and plays back lines you’ve recorded yourself.

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