Enabling Third-Party Text-to-Speech Services

The Real Voice plugin can optionally use third-party services to perform the text-to-speech conversion.

It’s important to note that if you configure a third-party service from the plugin settings and perform text-to-speech conversions using the tools provided by the plugin or by enabling the automatic text-to-speech conversion of the posts, the third-party service will charge you according to their terms.

When the third-party service “Amazon Polly” is enabled

The plugin will use the Amazon Polly third-party service to perform the text-to-speech conversion when these conditions are met:

  • Amazon Polly (Cloud service) is selected with the Text-to-speech Converter option available in the Text-to-Speech -> General section of the plugin.
  • A valid key is provided in the Access Key ID option available in the Text-to-Speech -> Amazon Polly section of the plugin options.
  • A valid key is provided in the Secret Access Key option available in the Text-to-Speech -> Amazon Polly section of the plugin options.

The terms of service of Amazon Web Services are available in the link below:

https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/

When the third-party service “Text-to-Speech AI” from Google Cloud is enabled

The plugin will use the Text-to-Speech AI from Google Cloud third-party service to perform the text-to-speech conversion when these conditions are met:

  • Google Cloud Text-to-Speech AI is selected with the Text-to-speech Converter option available in the Text-to-Speech -> General section of the plugin.
  • A valid key is provided in the Google Cloud Secret Access Key option available in the Text-to-Speech -> Google Cloud Text-to-Speech AI section of the plugin options.

The Terms of Service of the Google Cloud Platform are available in the link below:

https://cloud.google.com/terms

When the third-party service “Text to speech” from Microsoft Azure is enabled

The plugin will use the Text to speech from Microsoft Azure third-party service to perform the text-to-speech conversion when these conditions are met:

  • Azure Text to Speech (Cloud service) is selected with the Text-to-speech Converter option available in the Text-to-Speech -> General section of the plugin.
  • A valid key is provided in the Azure Speech Resource Key option available in the Text-to-Speech -> Azure Text-to-speech section of the plugin options.

Legal information for Text to speech by Microsoft Azure:

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/legal/

When the third-party service “ElevenLabs” is enabled

The plugin will use the ElevenLabs third-party service to perform the text-to-speech conversion when these conditions are met:

  • ElevenLabs (Cloud service) is selected with the Text-to-speech Converter option available in the Text-to-Speech -> General section of the plugin.
  • A valid key is provided in the API Key option available in the Text-to-Speech -> Azure Text-to-speech section of the plugin options.

The ElevenLabs terms of service are available in the link below:

https://elevenlabs.io/terms

When the plugin performs a text-to-speech conversion

In the contexts described below, the plugin performs a text-to-speech conversion. Note that with a third-party service enabled, this involves sending text/SSML to the third-party service API (on a remote server) to retrieve the audio data.

Manual text-to-speech conversions

Text-to-speech conversions are performed when you click the Generate file button in the Audio File post sidebar section. For Classic Editor users, the text-to-speech conversions are performed when you click the Generate file button in the Audio File meta box.

Automatic text-to-speech conversions

If you enable the Generate Audio on Post View option available in the Advanced section of the plugin options, the text-to-speech conversion is performed automatically when a post is viewed on the front end of the site.

More in detail, with this option enabled, the plugin performs a text-to-speech conversion in the following cases:

  • When a post is viewed on the front end, and the corresponding audio file is not present.
  • When a post is viewed on the front end, and the existing audio file doesn’t match the current content of the post. (Technical note: The plugin uses hashing to compare the current post content with the post content used to generate the audio file. In practical terms, a post-content update followed by a visit to the post will trigger a new text-to-speech conversion.)

It’s important to note that enabling the Generate Audio on Post View option available in the Advanced section of the plugin options might result in relevant charges from the third-party services configured to perform the text-to-speech conversion. For example, if you enable this option on a website with 100,000 articles and these posts receive visits from users or bots, a third-party service that adopts a pay-as-you-go model will charge you for the conversion of 100,000 articles.

Accessing the plugin options

You can access the plugin options anytime from the Real Voice menu on your WordPress dashboard. Please note that this menu is available only for WordPress users who own the manage_options capability.

Disclaimer

To the extent permissible under applicable laws, in no event shall DAEXT di A. D. (the company that developed this plugin) or its employees be liable to you for problems associated with using the third-party services supported by this plugin (E.g., Unexpected charges, violations of the third-party terms of services, etc.).

We recommend that you enable the third-party services included in this plugin only under the following conditions:

  • Your site is secure, and only authorized users can access the WordPress administrative pages where the text-to-speech conversion is performed or configured.
  • The third-party service is configured by a professional.
  • This WordPress plugin is configured by a professional.
  • The costs for the use of third-party services are constantly monitored by a professional.
  • You can afford the costs associated with the use of a third-party service.
  • We do not guarantee an implementation free of errors, and this WordPress plugin (both in terms of features and codebase) should be evaluated by a professional before being configured to use a third-party service.