Where to buy DRM-free audiobooks

What DRM-free means

Most audiobook stores sell you a licence to play a book inside their app. The files are locked with DRM (digital rights management), so they play only where the store allows, and if the store closes or you leave it, the books stay behind. A DRM-free audiobook is ordinary MP3 or M4B files. You download them, they are yours, and any player can open them.

Not every shop below is DRM-free for every title, and not every one hands you the files by default. Each entry says which.

At a glance

Checked against each shop's own help pages in October 2026. Prices are in US dollars unless noted. Shops change their terms; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.

Libro.fm

Libro.fm is the closest thing to a DRM-free Audible: over 750,000 titles from the big publishers (though not Audible's own exclusives), a monthly credit, and every audiobook DRM-free. Part of every sale goes to an independent bookshop you choose.

• Files: from your library on the website, download a zip of MP3s or the whole book as a single M4B. The M4B is the tidier choice for Kithara.
• Paying: a membership of one credit a month ($14.99 in the US), an annual plan, or buy any book outright. Credits never expire, and members get 30% off books bought without one.
• Where: sold internationally, in US, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars, euros and pounds. Publishers limit some titles by country, and the book's page tells you if one is not available where you are.

AudiobookSTORE

AudiobookSTORE.com says its whole catalogue is DRM-free, and you can play your purchases on as many of your own devices as you like.

• Files: standard MP3, downloaded from your library as zip files (long books come in several).
• Paying: buy at the regular price with no membership, or join FlexPass ($11.95 a month) for member prices on every title. It is not a credit system, so there is nothing to use up or lose.
• Where: takes US and international orders; checkout tells you if a publisher has not licensed a title for your country.

AudiobooksNow

AudiobooksNow says over 95% of its catalogue is DRM-free, and it labels every title so you can tell before you buy.

• Look for: "Digital Audiobook Download" is DRM-free. Skip anything marked "Digital Audiobook (DRM Protected)".
• Files: MP3, downloaded as zip files. Its free audiobooks are the exception: those play only in its app.
• Paying: buy per book with no plan, or join Club Pricing ($4.99 a month after a 30-day trial) for discounts.
• Where: available worldwide, with some titles limited by region.

Downpour

Downpour, run by the audiobook publisher Blackstone, says much of its catalogue is DRM-free, but not all of it. Its own FAQ says some publishers require DRM, and those titles play only in Downpour's apps.

• Before you buy: the product pages do not clearly mark which titles carry DRM, so if a particular book matters, ask Downpour first.
• Paying: a membership of one credit a month ($12.99), or buy titles without one. Credits expire after 12 months, and not every title can be bought with a credit.

GraphicAudio

GraphicAudio makes full-cast dramatisations of books, with music and sound effects. The catch is at checkout: the standard purchase is for listening in GraphicAudio's own app and browser player, with no files.

• Choose a download option when you buy: a zip of MP3s, a single M4B, or FLAC. On the title we checked that added $2 for MP3 or M4B and $3 for FLAC. Those are ordinary files that play anywhere.
• Download them promptly and keep a backup: the download links can expire, after which it takes a support ticket to get them back.
• Where: graphicaudio.net serves the United States and Canada; most other countries buy from GraphicAudio International, though not every title is sold everywhere.

Big Finish

Big Finish produces full-cast audio drama, best known for Doctor Who, and sells it directly as DRM-free downloads, most in both MP3 and M4B. A small number of productions are not sold as downloads, for contractual reasons.

Humble Bundle

Humble Bundle now and then runs audiobook bundles: a set of titles for a price you choose above a minimum, with part of it going to charity. Past audiobook bundles have been DRM-free MP3 downloads. Bundles are occasional and time-limited, so they are a bonus rather than a shop; there was none running when we checked.

LibriVox

LibriVox is free: volunteer recordings of public-domain books, hosted by the Internet Archive. Each book comes as a zip of MP3s and separate MP3s per chapter, and most also have an M4B. The recordings are public domain in the United States; elsewhere, check the book's status where you live.

You do not need to download anything for Kithara: LibriVox is built in, to search, stream and download from inside the app.

Other places worth knowing

• Authors selling direct. Many independent authors sell audiobooks from their own sites, often through BookFunnel. Whether you get a download is the author's choice there, so look for "DRM-free MP3" on the listing.
• Google Play Books. Most of its audiobooks can be exported as files from a computer; a book's details page says if one cannot. Google does not say whether the exported files are DRM-free, but buyers report them playing in other apps, so check one before buying many.
• CDs. Second-hand audiobook CDs are cheap, and many countries let you copy a disc you own for your own listening; check the rules where you live. A box set becomes a folder of files in an afternoon.

Not DRM-free

These are good services, but their audiobooks stay inside their own apps, so a book bought there will not open in Kithara or any other player:

• Audible, Apple Books, Kobo, Audiobooks.com, Spotify and Chirp: listening happens in their apps (or, for some, their website).
• Libby and other library apps: loans, not purchases, and played only in the library's app.

Leaving one of them? What you keep when you leave Audible covers it.

Getting the files into Kithara

1. Unzip the download if it came as a zip. Long books sometimes come as several zips; put them all in the same folder.
2. One folder per book. A folder of numbered MP3s plays as one book on one timeline, and a single M4B is a book on its own. Author/Book/ keeps a large library tidy.
3. Put the folder where Kithara looks: a folder on the phone you have added as a library, or your Audiobookshelf or Kithara Server library to stream it to every device.
4. Chapters. Kithara reads the chapter marks inside M4B and MP3 files, and cue sheets beside them. Files without marks become one chapter each; if those are numbered parts, Kithara Pro can name the chapters by listening to the narrator, or add them yourself.

More on what Kithara reads in Formats and chapters.