# Linus vs ScenePartner: Which AI Scene Partner Fits You? > Linus and ScenePartner both read the other parts with AI voices and wait for your cue, but they price, count, and run on different devices. We judged both, and Offbook, on the same seven points, with prices checked in November 2026. Our pick for most actors is Offbook. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/linus-vs-scenepartner - Published: 2026-11-10 - Last updated: 2026-11-10 The sides came in at six, the tape is due tomorrow at noon, and there's no one around to read with you. That's the moment Linus and ScenePartner were built for. Both read the other parts with AI voices, both wait for you to finish your line before they answer, and both will record your self-tape once the scene is in your body. On paper they look like twins. In practice they differ in where the voices come from, how you pay, what counts against your plan, and which devices they run on. 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 An AI scene partner is worth paying for only if you're still opening it the night before the audition, and the night before the next one. These seven questions decide that. - **Who reads the other parts?** Which voices you get, and where they come from. - **How does it know it's your turn?** Listening for your cue, a tap, or a setting you choose. - **How does your script get in?** Which files it takes and how long a script can be. - **What memorization tools does it have?** Hidden lines, first letters, 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 browser, or all three. - **What does it cost, and what counts?** Free limits, passes, monthly plans, and what each plan meters. ## Offbook, Linus, and ScenePartner at a Glance | App | Other parts read by | Your turn | Script in | Memory tools | Runs on | Price (US) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Offbook | Realistic voices for every role but yours | Listens and cues the next line when you finish; Strict, Lenient, or Manual | PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TXT; up to 50 pages a scene, 150 with the page picker | Hide your lines or the whole script, first-letter cues, teleprompter, scene looping | Laptop or desktop browser to rehearse; phone to listen | 7-day free trial; Starter $9.99/month, annual from $7.99/month | | Linus | AI voices of real actors, who are paid when you rehearse with their voice; 32+ languages | Waits for your cue; tap-to-advance option | We could not verify how scripts get in | Loop sections, hide lines, first-letter prompts, scrolling teleprompter | iPhone, iPad, Android, and web | Free 1-page scene of up to 10 lines; 3-day pass $1.99; Pro $9.99/month | | ScenePartner | AI voices; friends can record their lines | Listens for your cue | PDF; up to 10 pages on Free, 150 on Pro | Hide lines, fade lines, first letters | Web (laptop, tablet, phone) and iOS | Free for 3 auditions; Plus $12.99/month on the website | ## 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 slow a voice down for one line or the whole scene, 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, 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 a reader that hears them finish, for anything from two pages of sides to a full-length play. ### Linus [Linus](https://getlinus.app/) reads the other parts with AI voices of real actors, and those actors are paid when you rehearse with their voice. It waits for your cue before it answers, and if you'd rather control the pace yourself, there's a tap-to-advance option. It works in more than 32 languages. Its memory tools are looping a section, hiding lines, and first-letter prompts. A teleprompter scrolls as you go, and you can record your takes, edit them, and save your favorites, all in the app, according to its [App Store listing](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/linus-learn-lines-self-tape/id6742599484). It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Android, and as a web app. **Price:** free for a 1-page scene with up to 10 lines. A 3-day pass is $1.99, Pro is $9.99 a month, and Premium is $19.99 a month on its [pricing page](https://getlinus.app/pricing). Pro lists Linus Cloud and shareable links; the page does not describe what a link lets a castmate do. **Best for:** actors who rehearse on iPhone, iPad, or Android and want a short pass. ### ScenePartner [ScenePartner](https://scenepartner.club/) reads the other parts with AI voices and listens for your cue. Friends can record their lines too. It takes a PDF of your sides, 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](https://scenepartner.club/pricing), 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](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/scenepartner-ai-line-reader/id6737419907) the same plans cost more: Plus $19.99 a month and Pro $44.99. **Best for:** a handful of audition sides a month, bought on the website. ## Voices: Whose Read You're Acting Against All three apps put a voice in the other chair, so the question is what that voice is doing. Linus uses the voices of real actors and pays them when you rehearse with their voice, and it covers 32+ languages. ScenePartner uses AI voices and lets friends record their own lines. Offbook casts realistic voices for every role but yours, from 12 on Starter up to a larger catalog on Pro and Premium. Whatever the app, hold its reader to the standard a coach would hold a human one. The acting coach Joseph Pearlman's [advice on readers](https://josephpearlman.com/articles/2018/7/30/why-your-reader-can-make-or-break-your-self-tape-auditions) says a good one is invested but restrained, because the emphasis is on you. He warns against a flat, robotic read. Then remember who has to do the talking. A [University of Waterloo study](https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/study-finds-reading-information-aloud-yourself-improves) 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. The voices are there to give you cues; the learning happens when you say your lines out loud. **Tip:** if a voice sounds wrong for the scene, try another one before you've run the scene twenty times. You'll start to play against whatever you hear every night. ## Taking Your Turn: Cues, Taps, and Silence Timing decides whether an app feels like a partner or a tape. Answer too soon and you rush your line; wait too long and you stop acting and start waiting. Linus waits for your cue, and you can switch to tap-to-advance when you'd rather set the pace yourself, say, while you're working on one speech. 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 a long pause and then Enter. It can also move on after 1 to 6 seconds of silence, so you don't have to press anything when you finish; switch to Manual for long held moments. ## Scripts, Pages, and What Counts Against Your Plan Every app meters something, and the meter matters more than the headline price. Linus's free tier stops at a 1-page scene with up to 10 lines, so you can try it on a short exchange. Its 3-day pass covers three days, and Pro and Premium are monthly. ScenePartner counts auditions: 3 on Free, 10 a month on Plus, and 100 a month on Pro, with scripts up to 10 pages on Free and 150 on Pro. If you're sent new sides most weeks, count your last month's auditions before you choose a plan. Offbook's paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts. What has an allowance is generated voice audio: 50,000 characters a month on Starter, 100,000 on Pro, and 200,000 on Premium. One scene holds up to 50 pages or about 10,000 words, and the page picker splits up to 150 pages into 10 scenes. Before you start a long role, our free [script line counter](https://www.offbook.com/tools/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](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/test-enhanced-learning). 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. So hidden lines and first letters beat staring at the page. Linus hides lines, shows first-letter prompts, and loops a section so you can drill one hard exchange. ScenePartner hides lines, fades them, or shows first letters. 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](https://www.offbook.com/tools/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 for the character and what the character is after, which [the APS Observer described](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/to-be-or-or-um-line) as active experiencing. Lines learned while making a movement were also remembered better. Walk the blocking while the voices read your cues. ## Self-Tapes and Devices Both Linus and ScenePartner record your self-tape inside the app. Linus has a teleprompter that scrolls as you go and lets you edit takes and save your favorites. ScenePartner records with a teleprompter, and its iOS app can now use the rear camera, with an eyeline guide. For the whole setup, see [how to self-tape alone](https://www.offbook.com/blog/how-to-self-tape-alone). On devices, Linus runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, and as a web app. ScenePartner runs in a browser on a laptop, tablet, or phone, and as an iOS app. With Offbook, you rehearse in a laptop or desktop browser with the full script on a big screen, and on your phone you listen to your scenes, even with the screen locked, or save a scene as an MP3 for the commute. ## 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 go over a scene on a walk:** Offbook's listen mode plays the whole scene on your phone, and a scene can be saved as an MP3. - **Your castmates should run 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 ask about the character, not just drill:** Offbook's Genie answers questions about motivation, scene context, and line interpretation, and you can highlight a line for a targeted answer. - **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 first? Pick one from our [library of public-domain plays](https://www.offbook.com/plays) or a speech from the [monologue collection](https://www.offbook.com/monologues), and run it in our free [run lines online](https://www.offbook.com/tools/run-lines-online) tool, which reads the other part and waits for your line. If you're weighing a switch, our [Linus comparison](https://www.offbook.com/linus-alternative) and [ScenePartner comparison](https://www.offbook.com/scenepartner-alternative) go into more detail. ## Get More Out of Any AI Scene Partner The app is only the reader. How you schedule the runs decides how much sticks. - Spread your runs out. A [2013 review of ten learning techniques](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/which-study-strategies-make-the-grade.html) by John Dunlosky and colleagues rated practice testing and spacing practice over time the most useful, and rereading and highlighting among the least. - Hide your lines from the first day you know roughly what happens in the scene. Testing yourself, not rereading, is the practice that makes it stick. - Say every line out loud, at the volume and energy you'll use on tape. - Write the character's intention next to each speech before you drill it, so you're learning what the line does, not just how it sounds. - Do your last run standing, moving through the space as you will when you film. ## Questions Actors Ask ### Is Linus or ScenePartner better? For most actors, Offbook: realistic voices read every other role, it listens and cues the next line when you finish yours, and its paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts. Between the two, Linus uses voices of real actors, runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, and the web, and sells a 3-day pass. ScenePartner counts auditions and runs on the web and iOS. ### How much does Linus cost? Linus is free for a 1-page scene with up to 10 lines. A 3-day pass costs $1.99, Pro is $9.99 a month, and Premium is $19.99 a month on its pricing page. For comparison, Offbook's Starter plan is $9.99 a month, annual billing starts at $7.99 a month, and every plan starts with a 7-day free trial. ### Does ScenePartner work on a computer? Yes. ScenePartner runs on the web on a laptop, tablet, or phone, and also has an iOS app. Offbook runs in a laptop or desktop browser too, on Mac or Windows, with the full script on a big screen. ### Which AI 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](https://www.offbook.com/blog/best-ai-scene-partner-apps). ### Can I rehearse with Offbook on my phone? You rehearse out loud with cues in a laptop or desktop browser, on Mac or Windows. 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. Realistic voices read every role but yours, and it listens for you to finish the whole line before it cues the next, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching to fit how word-perfect you need to be. Its paid plans have no monthly cap on the number of scripts, so a week of new sides never runs into a script count. And it takes the whole script, from two pages of sides to a full-length play split into scenes. Between the two apps compared here, the split is in the details. Linus reads with the voices of real actors, runs on iPhone, iPad, Android, and the web, and sells a 3-day pass. ScenePartner counts auditions, with 3 free, and costs more in the App Store than on its website. For the wider field, see our [best AI scene partner apps](https://www.offbook.com/blog/best-ai-scene-partner-apps) guide. Offbook is made by the team behind this blog. Prices as of November 2026.