How much does an audio guide cost? 2026 pricing models compared

How much does an audio guide cost? Ask three vendors and you will get three quotes you cannot compare. One prices devices. One prices an annual licence. One wants a share of your ticket revenue. The question is simple. The answers are not.

This guide is for museum directors, curators and visitor experience managers who need to budget for a new audio guide, or replace an old one. You will find the four most common cost models, the public prices we could verify, the costs that rarely make it into a quote, and a cost template you can fill in with your own numbers.

One honest caveat. Few vendors in this sector publish their prices. Where no public figure exists, we will not make one up. We will tell you what to ask instead.

How much does an audio guide cost? The short answer

It depends less on technology than you might think. The total cost of a museum audio guide almost always comes down to five lines:

• Delivery: dedicated handsets, a downloadable app, or a web app on the visitor's own phone.
• Scripts: written in-house or by a professional writer.
• Voice: studio narrator, staff voice or synthetic voice.
• Languages: each one multiplies translation, review and recording.
• Running costs: updates, temporary exhibitions, maintenance and staff time.

Delivery is the most visible line. It is rarely the biggest. That is why you should compare the three-year total cost, not the first-year price.

Let's go through the models one by one.

Model 1: dedicated devices, bought or rented

This is the classic audio guide: a handset handed out at the front desk, with headphones. You can buy the devices or rent them from a supplier.

Hardware suppliers rarely publish price lists, so you will need a quote. You can still see what you are paying for by reading a public tender. The 2023 tender for Milan's Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM) requires, among other things:

• at least 30 working handsets at all times, with batteries, chargers and docking units
• batteries lasting at least 10 hours of continuous use, plus CE and RoHS certification
• single-use headphones or earbuds, replaced for every visitor
• cleaning of each handset after every rental
• repair or replacement within 5 days of a fault
• replacement of the whole fleet if the technology becomes obsolete

Every line of that list is a cost. Some are one-off, like the purchase. Others recur every day, like charging, hygiene and desk staff time.

When it makes sense: high visitor volumes, staffed front desks, and audiences who would rather not use their own phones.

What to ask: price per unit, warranty length, cost of spare batteries, who pays for breakage and theft, and how much a content update costs.

We looked at the day-to-day limits of handsets in The device problem: why museums are abandoning traditional audio guides.

Model 2: the concession, where the operator pays

In a concession model, the museum buys nothing. An external operator invests in devices and content, rents the guide to visitors, and pays the museum a share of revenue.

The same Milan tender shows how this works in practice:

• the operator pays base royalties of 3% of annual turnover, plus whatever uplift it offers in the bid
• it pays no royalties in the first year
• it covers devices, maintenance, recordings, and English and French translations by certified professionals
• the rental price for visitors is capped at €5, VAT and headphones included
• translations and recordings become the city's property at the end of the contract

One detail matters here. In that tender, the audio guide is an add-on to the museum shop. The estimated value of €571,769 over six years covers the whole concession, not the audio guide alone.

How big can this revenue be? In Italy, the Ministry of Culture's statistics office reports that in 2023 the 46 audio guide services in state museums, monuments and archaeological sites issued 1,517,343 receipts and took about €8.12 million in gross revenue. The share that went to the institutions was about €1.23 million, or roughly 15% (our calculation from the table).

Some large museums take a third route: sponsorship. The British Museum's multimedia guide has been sponsored by Korean Air since 2009. In Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum app was made possible by its chief sponsor KPN, and its audio tours by the VSBfonds. If you have a corporate partner or a foundation in your network, an audio guide is a concrete, visible project to fund.

The key point: a concession costs you nothing upfront, but it is not free. Visitors pay, the museum keeps a minority share, and control over content is often defined by the contract. It works for large paying audiences, rarely for small museums.

Model 3: a native app

An app on the App Store and Google Play can do a lot: offline content, maps, games. But the cost does not stop at development. You also pay for updates when operating systems change, store publishing, and maintenance over the years.

There are no reliable public price lists for museum app development, because every project is bespoke. The number that matters more is how many people will actually download it.

The Brooklyn Museum was refreshingly frank about this. Its ASK app had stalled at a 1–2% use rate, and evaluation pointed to reluctance to download an app as the biggest barrier. For comparison, British Museum researchers described a take-up of around 3% as standard across the sector for permanent-collection guides. When costs are fixed and usage is low, your cost per listen goes up.

When it makes sense: museum networks, very large collections, and content meant for use before and after the visit.

Model 4: a QR code web app on a subscription

This is the model that has grown fastest. Visitors scan a QR code and listen in their phone's browser, with nothing to install. The museum pays a platform subscription, sometimes plus a fee on each paid access sold.

Here, at least, some vendors publish prices. One example, checked in October 2026:

• Smartify offers a free plan for uploading one tour and three annual plans: Starter at £1,800, Branded at £3,500 and Premium at £9,500. Production services are priced separately on the same page: a content workshop costs £500, while script writing, audio production and translation are quoted on request.

Even a public price list needs careful reading: annual plans, production services priced separately, different thresholds. Before you compare quotes, bring them all to the same three-year horizon and the same visitor numbers.

What to ask: how many guides, stops and languages are included, whether synthetic voices and translations are included, whether you can edit content yourself, whether you can export it when the contract ends, and whether there are fees on paid access.

What scripts, voice and translation really cost

Whatever delivery model you choose, someone has to produce the content. It is often the biggest cost, and the most underestimated.

Scripts

If your team writes them, the cost is staff time. If you hire a writer, the price depends on the number of stops and the research involved. The Milan tender gives a sense of scale for a full project: three tours, up to 100 pages of text for adults and 60 for the young people's tour. If you are writing in-house, our guide on how to write an audio guide script will help.

Voice

A professional narrator is paid per session, and every change means another recording. Synthetic voices have changed the maths. On the Google Cloud Text-to-Speech price list, for example, Chirp 3 HD voices cost $30 per million characters, with the first million free each month.

Illustrative example: a 20-stop tour at about 150 words per stop comes to roughly 18,000–20,000 characters. The raw synthesis cost stays below €1 per language. The real cost is not generating the audio. It is the review: pronunciation of names, pacing, and a check by someone who knows the collection.

Translation

Professional translation is usually priced per word, and it multiplies with every language. Machine translation has lowered the entry barrier a lot, but your main languages still deserve a human review. The real challenge comes after launch: every time you change a script, every language needs updating.

The hidden costs most quotes leave out

These are the lines that break the budget in year two. Get them in writing before you sign:

• Signage and QR codes: entrance signs, labels next to objects, printed materials.
• Connectivity: a web app needs a signal. If your galleries have poor coverage, you need Wi-Fi or an offline mode.
• Staff time: handing out devices, helping visitors, uploading content.
• Temporary exhibitions: with many models, each exhibition is a new project with a new quote.
• Accessibility: transcripts and audio description for blind and partially sighted visitors.
• Payment fees: if you sell access, your payment provider takes its cut.
• VAT: many price lists exclude it. Always check.
• Exit costs: what it takes to get your scripts and audio back if you switch vendors.

Cost template: estimate your audio guide budget

Use this table to compare two or three quotes on the same basis. Fill in one column per vendor.

• Platform or devices: Licence, purchase or rental? What is included?
• Setup and training: Is there a setup fee? How many hours of training?
• Scripts: Who writes them? How many stops and tours?
• Voice: Narrator, staff voice or synthetic? Are changes charged?
• Translation: How many languages? Who reviews them? Are updates included?
• Signage and QR codes: Who designs and prints the materials?
• Connectivity: Do you need Wi-Fi? Is there an offline mode?
• Maintenance and updates: Who updates content, and how fast?
• Temporary exhibitions: Is a new exhibition included, or a new project?
• Internal staff time: How many hours a month will your team need?
• Fees on sales: What percentage or fee per access?
• Exit: Can you export scripts and audio? At what cost?

Then apply a simple formula:

Three-year total cost = one-off costs + (annual costs × 3) − any revenue from selling access

Hypothetical example, just to show the maths: a museum spends €2,000 one-off on scripts, signage and setup, plus €1,200 a year on the platform. The three-year cost is 2,000 + (1,200 × 3) = €5,600, before any revenue. Divide that by your expected visitors over three years and you get a cost per visitor, the most useful number for comparing very different models.

The last part of the formula, revenue, depends on a separate decision: whether to give the guide away or charge for it. We cover that in Paid or free audio guide? How to choose the right price.

How to choose the right model for your museum

Three questions will narrow it down:

1. How many visitors do you have? With large paying audiences, concessions and devices can pay for themselves. With small or mid-sized audiences, a hardware-free model lowers your risk.
2. How often does your display change? If you run many temporary exhibitions, ease of updating matters more than the entry price.
3. Who will run it? If nobody on your team has time, budget for vendor support. If you have in-house staff, pick a tool they can use on their own.

For the full process, from goals to launch, see our guide on how to create a museum audio guide.

And what does Museoo cost?

Since people ask, here are our prices as published on our pricing page in October 2026. Plans range from Free (one audio guide) to Starter at €39 a month, Growth at €89 and Scale at €149, plus a tailored Enterprise plan for large organisations and museum networks. AI-assisted scripts, translations and voices are included in every plan, within each plan's credits and languages.

Every guide can be free for visitors or paid, using a non-transferable QR code. On paid guides, the fee per code sold ranges from €1.00 on the Free plan to €0.70 on Scale. You pay the higher of the plan fee and the commissions, never both. Prices exclude VAT.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Comparing first-year prices: a model that is cheap to start can cost more over three years.
• Forgetting content: scripts, voice and translation often cost more than the platform.
• Underestimating staff time: even a "free" concession device has to be handed out, charged and cleaned.
• Not asking about updates: every temporary exhibition can turn into a new quote.
• Ignoring exit terms: if you don't own your scripts and audio, switching vendors means starting again.
• Leaving out VAT and payment fees when you estimate revenue from paid access.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an audio guide cost for a small museum?

It depends on the model. Today there are free plans and QR web app subscriptions from a few tens of euros a month, plus scripts, translation and signage. Dedicated devices almost always need a custom quote.

Should we buy or rent devices?

Buying only makes sense with high, steady visitor numbers and staff to manage them. Renting moves maintenance and obsolescence to the supplier. Either way, daily running costs matter as much as the purchase price.

Is a concession really free for the museum?

Upfront, yes. But the museum gives up most of the revenue. In Italy's state museums in 2023, institutions received about 15% of gross audio guide revenue, according to the Ministry of Culture.

How much does it cost to translate an audio guide?

Professional translation is usually priced per word and multiplies with each language. Machine translation plus human review brings the cost down considerably. Remember to budget for future updates too.

Is a synthetic voice good enough?

For many museums, yes, especially for the main narration. Generation costs are minimal, but pronunciation and pacing should always be checked by someone who knows the collection.

Want an estimate for your collection?

Tell us how many galleries, objects and languages you have in mind. In a demo, we'll show you how a guide is built from your own materials and what it would really cost in your case.

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Free resource

Free checklist: launch your museum's audio guide in 6 steps

A checklist to print and fill in with your team: every step from the route to your first statistics, timings for each phase, common mistakes and price benchmarks. 8-page PDF, free.

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