# MemoCoach vs Scriptmate: Two Ways to Learn Lines on a Phone > MemoCoach hides your words while you read them aloud, and nothing speaks back. Scriptmate reads the other parts and listens for your line. We judged both, plus Script Rehearser and Offbook, on who reads the cues, how each knows it is your turn, script import, memory tools, devices, and price as of November 2026. Our pick for most actors is Offbook. - URL: https://www.offbook.com/blog/memocoach-vs-scriptmate - Published: 2026-11-15 - Last updated: 2026-11-15 You have sides on your phone and a callback on Thursday, and two app names keep showing up when you search: MemoCoach and Scriptmate. Both live on an iPhone. Both promise to get the words into your head. Open them side by side, though, and they're built on opposite ideas. MemoCoach is a quiet drill. It has no audio cues: you read your text aloud while it hides words, lines, or first letters step by step. Scriptmate is a reader. It speaks the other character's lines, follows you as you say yours, and answers when you finish. So the choice is really between testing yourself on the words and hearing the scene. We put both through the same six questions, along with Script Rehearser and Offbook. Our pick for most actors is Offbook: realistic voices read every role but yours, it listens for the end of your line, and the memory drills sit inside the scene. ## How We Judged Them A line app is only worth the space on your phone if it helps on the night you actually have to be off book. These are the points we judged every app on, in the same order. - Who says the other characters' lines: a generated voice, your own recording, or no one? - How does the app know it's your turn: it listens, it waits for a tap, or it doesn't need to know? - How does the script get in, and does the app work out which lines are yours? - What does it give you for memorizing, beyond seeing the words again? - Which devices does it run on: iPhone, iPad, Android, a Mac, or a browser? - What does it cost to start, and what does it cost to keep? ## Offbook, MemoCoach, Scriptmate, and Script Rehearser Side by Side | App | Other parts read by | Your turn | Script in | Memory tools | Runs on | Price (US) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Offbook | Realistic voices for every character but yours; speed set for the scene or per line | Listens and plays the next cue when you finish; Strict, Lenient, or Manual; Enter or "next line" also advance | PDF, PNG, JPEG, or TXT, parsed into roles and lines; up to 50 pages a scene, and the page picker splits up to 150 pages into 10 scenes | Hide your lines or the whole script, first-letter cues, teleprompter, listen mode, scene looping | Rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere | 7-day free trial; Starter $9.99/month, annual from $7.99/month; 50% off with a .edu email | | MemoCoach | No one: no audio cues | You read aloud while the app hides the text step by step | PDF, TXT, RTF, HTML, or pasted text | Hides words, lines, or first letters step by step; actor mode practices only your lines | iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro | Free for up to 10 texts; Premium in-app purchase unlocks more methods | | Scriptmate | Natural voices in six languages, the iPhone's own voices for others, or your recording of any line | Follows your speech word by word and answers when you finish | PDF screenplays or photos of paper sides; marks your lines automatically | Focus mode blocks the apps you pick while you rehearse | iPhone | Pro $9.99/month or $69.99/year after a 7-day free trial; no account needed | | Script Rehearser | Device voices or Engram's own English voices; with Pro, your own recordings and a voice per character | Wait For Me pauses at each of your lines until you're ready; no speech recognition | PDF with real text, TXT, or typed lines | Show or hide your lines, or show the first letter of each word | iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Mac, Vision Pro, Android | Free download; Pro $7.99 a year or $29.99 unlimited; 30-day Pro trial | ## Each App, Judged the Same Way ### Offbook Offbook starts from the pages you were sent. Upload a PDF, a photo of the script (PNG or JPEG), or a text file, and it sorts everything into roles and lines, then writes a title and a short summary of the scene. Choose your character, and realistic voices read all the others. Free and Starter cast from 12 voices; Pro and Premium cast from a larger catalog. In a run, Offbook plays the other lines, listens through your microphone while you say yours, and gives you the next cue when it hears you finish. For memorizing, hide your own lines while the rest 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. 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, or from $7.99 a month billed annually. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial (a card is required), students and educators get 50% off with a valid .edu email, and paid plans have no monthly cap on scripts. Suits actors who want the scene spoken and the memory drills in one place, from a two-page side to a full-length play. ### MemoCoach MemoCoach comes from Cosmic Taps. You paste in your text or import a PDF, TXT, RTF, or HTML file and read it aloud while the app hides words, lines, or first letters step by step, as the [MemoCoach tutorial](https://www.cosmictaps.com/memocoach/help/tutorial/) walks through. An actor mode practices only your own lines. MemoCoach has no audio cues. Your scene partner's lines stay as text on the screen. Price: free for up to 10 texts, with a Premium in-app purchase that adds more methods, per its [App Store listing](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/-/id1220188894). It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro, as the [MemoCoach site](https://www.cosmictaps.com/memocoach) lists, with no Mac or Android version. Suits actors drilling a monologue, a poem, or a speech. ### Scriptmate [Scriptmate](https://scriptmateapp.com/), from Peter Lavskiy, reads the other part and listens. Import a PDF screenplay or a photo of your paper sides, and it marks your lines for you. Its speech recognition tracks you word by word through the whole line, not only the last word, so it keeps up if you paraphrase or start over, and the reader answers when you finish. Its [line reader page](https://scriptmateapp.com/line-reader-app-for-actors/) lists natural voices for English, Spanish, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Italian, with ten American and British voices for English; once they're prepared, they play offline. Other languages use the iPhone's own voices, and you can long-press any reader line to record it yourself. A Focus mode blocks the apps you choose while you rehearse. Price: Pro is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a 7-day free trial, and there's no account to create, per its [App Store listing](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6761671635). The website says it's an iPhone app with no iPad or Android version yet. Suits iPhone users who want a spoken reader that follows them. ### Script Rehearser [Script Rehearser](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/script-rehearser/id1441908800), from Engram, reads the other parts with your device's voices or Engram's own English voices. With Pro you can record your own voice and choose a voice for each character. Its Wait For Me mode pauses at each of your lines until you're ready to go on; it doesn't use speech recognition to hear you finish. It takes a PDF with real text (not a scan), a TXT file, or lines you type. For memorizing, you can show or hide your lines, or show the first letter of each word. Price: a free download, with Pro as a $7.99 annual subscription or a $29.99 unlimited upgrade, and a 30-day Pro trial that doesn't turn into a paid plan. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple silicon Macs, Vision Pro, and [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rehearser.rehearser3free). Suits actors who want spoken cues on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Android phone and are happy to set the pace themselves. ## Silent Drill or Spoken Cue This is the real split between MemoCoach and Scriptmate. In MemoCoach the cue is printed on the screen. In Scriptmate, a voice says it. Script Rehearser speaks too, with device voices or Engram's English voices. Offbook speaks every other role in realistic voices, with no recording session first, and you can slow a voice down for a tricky line or speed up the whole scene. Why the difference matters: in rehearsal and on set you don't read your cue, you hear it, at another actor's pace and with their inflection. A line you can recite perfectly from a page can still stall when the cue arrives out loud. So run the scene with the cue spoken at least some of the time, not only read. For a monologue there's no cue to hear, and testing yourself on the text is the work. Whatever you use, say each pass out loud rather than mouthing it. Our free [first-letter memorizer](https://www.offbook.com/tools/first-letter-memorizer) turns any speech into first-letter cues, no account needed, and our [monologue library](https://www.offbook.com/monologues) has pieces to practice on. ## How Each One Knows You're Done MemoCoach has no audio cues, so there is no cue to wait for: you read aloud while the app hides the text step by step. Script Rehearser's Wait For Me mode pauses at your line until you're ready to continue, so you control the pace by hand. Scriptmate listens. It follows your words through the line and has the reader answer when you finish, even if you paraphrase or restart. Offbook listens too, and lets you decide how strict it is: Strict keeps you close to the script, Lenient has a 0-100 slider for when you're still finding the words, and Manual never moves on by itself, for when you want to hold a long pause and press Enter. It can also advance after 1 to 6 seconds of silence, so your hands stay free for props. **Tip:** start loose and tighten as the date gets closer. Early on you want the scene to keep moving while you find the words; in the last few days, switch Offbook to Strict so small paraphrases stop slipping through. ## Getting the Script Into the App MemoCoach takes pasted text or a PDF, TXT, RTF, or HTML file. Its actor mode drills only your own lines. Scriptmate takes a PDF screenplay or a photo of paper sides and marks your lines automatically, which helps when your sides arrive as a printout. Script Rehearser needs a PDF with real text, a TXT file, or typed lines. Offbook takes a PDF, a photo of the pages, or a text file and parses it into roles and lines. A 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. You can then edit dialogue and stage directions, move a line to the right character, or add a pause where your director wants one. ## What Actually Makes Lines Stick Rereading feels like learning, and it mostly isn't. In a review of ten common study techniques, John Dunlosky and colleagues rated [practice testing and spaced practice](https://www.aft.org/ae/fall2013/dunlosky) the most effective, and put rereading and highlighting in the less useful group. Any app that makes you pull the line from memory, instead of reading it again, is doing the useful thing. The size of the gap is striking. In Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke's study, [summarized by the APS](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/test-enhanced-learning), students who tested themselves recalled 61% of a passage a week later, against 40% for students who kept rereading, even though the rereaders had read it far more often. MemoCoach's step-by-step hiding is this kind of test. So are Offbook's hidden lines and first-letter cues, with the difference that the voices keep giving you the cue while you recall. Say it, don't think it. A [University of Waterloo study](https://uwaterloo.ca/news/news/study-finds-reading-information-aloud-yourself-improves) compared reading silently, hearing someone else read, hearing your own recording, and reading aloud yourself; reading aloud was remembered best. So whichever app you use, say your lines in your full voice, not a mumble. And work on meaning, not sound. Helga and Tony Noice found that actors rarely learn by rote; they work out what each line is doing and what the character wants, as [the APS Observer reported](https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/to-be-or-or-um-line). Lines learned with a related movement were remembered better too, so stand up and walk the blocking while the cues come. Offbook's Genie can help with the meaning part: ask it about a character's motivation or what a line is doing in the scene. ## iPhone, iPad, Android, or Laptop With Offbook, rehearse on your laptop with the full script on a big screen, and listen to your scenes on your phone anywhere. On the phone, your own lines can be spoken, skipped, or left as silent gaps, playback keeps going with the screen locked, and you can save a scene as an MP3 for the bus. MemoCoach runs on iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro. Scriptmate is an iPhone app, and its website says there's no iPad or Android version yet. Script Rehearser runs on Apple devices and has an Android version on Google Play. ## Which One Costs Less MemoCoach is free for up to 10 texts, with a Premium in-app purchase for more methods. Scriptmate Pro is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a 7-day free trial. Script Rehearser is a free download with Pro at $7.99 a year or $29.99 unlimited. Offbook's Starter plan is $9.99 a month, or from $7.99 a month billed annually, after a 7-day free trial, with 50% off for students and educators. Price only tells you part of it. Count what the money buys: a voice that reads your cues, an app that hears you finish, and drills that test you rather than show you the words again. ## What Your Situation Calls For - You want every cue spoken without recording anything: Offbook, where realistic voices read every role but yours. - You want the reader to wait for you and know when you're done: Offbook listens and plays the next cue, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual matching. - You want to test yourself on the words while the scene plays: Offbook hides your lines, hides the whole script, or shows first-letter cues while the voices read. - You're learning a full-length play: Offbook's page picker splits up to 150 pages into scenes. - You want to talk through what a line means: Offbook's Genie answers questions about motivation, scene context, and interpretation. For more on either app, see our [Scriptmate comparison](https://www.offbook.com/scriptmate-alternative) and our guide to [MemoCoach alternatives](https://www.offbook.com/blog/memocoach-alternatives). For each one against a recording app, read [MemoCoach vs LineLearner](https://www.offbook.com/blog/memocoach-vs-linelearner) and [LineLearner vs Scriptmate](https://www.offbook.com/blog/linelearner-vs-scriptmate), or see more apps judged the same way in the [best line learning apps](https://www.offbook.com/blog/best-line-learning-apps). ## Questions Actors Ask ### Is MemoCoach better than Scriptmate? They do different jobs. MemoCoach hides your text step by step while you read it aloud, with no audio cues, which suits a monologue or speech. Scriptmate reads the other part aloud and answers when you finish your line. For most actors learning a scene, our pick is Offbook, which reads every other role in realistic voices, listens for you, and keeps hidden-line and first-letter drills in the same run. ### Which is cheaper, MemoCoach or Scriptmate? MemoCoach is free for up to 10 texts, with a Premium in-app purchase for more methods. Scriptmate Pro is $9.99 a month or $69.99 a year after a 7-day free trial. If you want to start free, Offbook's run lines tool and first-letter memorizer need no account, free accounts can practice scenes shared with them, and every Offbook plan starts with a 7-day free trial. ### Do MemoCoach and Scriptmate read your cues aloud? Scriptmate does, with natural voices in six languages or the iPhone's own voices, and you can record any reader line yourself. MemoCoach has no audio cues; you read the text. Offbook reads every character but yours in realistic voices, and you can set their speed for the scene or a single line. ### Do MemoCoach and Scriptmate work on Android? No. MemoCoach runs on iPhone, iPad, and Vision Pro, and Scriptmate's website says there's no Android version yet. Offbook's rehearsal runs in a laptop or desktop browser, on Mac or Windows; on a phone you can listen to your scenes, with your own lines spoken, skipped, or left as silent gaps. ## The Verdict Our pick for most actors is Offbook. Realistic voices read every role but yours, so you hear each cue out loud from the first run. It listens for the end of your line and lets you set how closely, with Strict, Lenient, or Manual. And the drills that make lines stick, hidden lines and first-letter cues, work inside a spoken scene, from two pages of sides to a full-length play. Between the two, MemoCoach is a silent text drill on iPhone and iPad, free for up to 10 texts. Scriptmate is a spoken reader on the iPhone that follows your line as you say it. Script Rehearser reads the other parts on Apple devices and Android and waits at your lines until you go on. Offbook is made by the team behind this blog. Prices as of November 2026.