Understand Audible’s Family Plan in 3 Min (Quick Guide)

Many services these days offer special family plans or add a “family sharing” feature to their normal functionality. This can be convenient if you want to share access to this service with your family, roommates, and so on.

So how does Audible stack up when it comes to family sharing? If you want to find out, keep reading because that’s exactly what we’re looking to answer today!

Here’s How Family Sharing Works with Audible:

Audible, a subsidiary of Amazon, offers two membership plans: Audible Plus and Audible Premium Plus. There is no dedicated family plan; however, Audible Premium Plus members can share their library (except the Audible Plus catalog) through the “Amazon Household” feature.

How Do You Share Audible with Family Members?

To share any books from your library with someone, you must have an active Audible Premium Plus account, and the person(s) you wish to share with must share your physical address. That second part is noteworthy because Audible, like many streaming services lately, is trying to prevent people from sharing their accounts with anyone who doesn’t live at the same address.

You can use the “Amazon Household” feature to share with someone you live with. You’re able to add one other adult (18+), up to four teens (13-17), and four children (12 and under) to your Amazon Household.

Amazon Household also lets you share Amazon Prime benefits between both adult members, as well as with teen accounts. Of course, you can share your Audible library as well.

As far as we know, you can share your Audible library with the other adult and all teen and child accounts in your household. That is, except for the Audible Plus Catalog. You’re not allowed to share that for whatever reason.

This is why we said an Audible Premium Plus account would be required to share anything since the Plus Catalog seems to be off-limits for sharing, and with Audible Plus, that’s all you get.

The “Nuclear Family” Problem:

It’s also worth noting that the Amazon Household setup is very much geared toward the “nuclear family” model, with two parents and any number of teens and children.

This means that if you live with extended family such as grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc., or if you want to share your account with multiple adult roommates, you might have a hard time.

Likewise, if your child remains in your household after their 18th birthday, they may no longer be able to use their Teen account, forcing adult children living at home to pay for their accounts.

This can be particularly irritating in recent times when it’s becoming more and more normal for many family members to pool resources. To share your account with more than one adult household member, the additional adults would have to lie about their age to use the (more limited) teen or child accounts.

Doubtless, Amazon would prefer that any additional adults, even if they share a residence, all purchase their accounts and make sharing difficult outside the traditional nuclear family.

Does Audible Have a Dedicated Plan Specifically for Families?

Audible only has two plans: Audible Plus and Audible Premium Plus.

On top of that, only one of those—Audible Premium Plus—seems to be eligible for sharing since the Audible Plus catalog, which is all you get with the eponymous plan, is off-limits.

While no dedicated Family Plan exists, the Amazon Household feature discussed in the above section does allow you to share your library with one additional adult and several children/teens.

Can You Add Family Members to Your Audible Account?

You will remain the sole account holder of your Audible account, but you can share access to everything except the Plus catalog through the Amazon Household feature.

Amazon Household effectively adds multiple additional members to your Amazon account, with configurable limitations on their access. Amazon owns audible, and your Audible account is thus connected to your global Amazon account.

While you can’t directly add another account holder to your Audible account, members of your Amazon Household will be able to access your Audible library through this connection.

Can You Share Books on Audible with Your Kids?

Child (12 and under) accounts have the most limited access to your Amazon account’s features, but ebooks and audiobooks are among the things you are allowed to share.

This means that all members of your Amazon household should be able to access your Audible library of audiobooks, except the Audible Plus Catalog.

Amazon Household offers up to four teenager and four child accounts, so unless you have an unusually large immediate family, there should be enough slots for everyone.

Can You Give Kids Access to Audible for a Road Trip?

There is no specific “road trip” setting or temporary sharing feature, but if you’ve set up Amazon Household in advance, you absolutely can.

While, of course, you won’t physically be at home during a road trip, as long as you share an address, members of your Amazon Household should be able to use the feature on the go.

This means members of your Amazon Household should be able to access your library through Wi-Fi or mobile data.

In the case of a long road trip where you won’t always have a signal, though, you might want to plan and tell your kids to download any audiobooks they’ll want in advance.

Sources:

What Is Family Library Sharing?

What Is Amazon Household?

Audible Membership Plans