How to return an Audible book and get your money back

Key Takeaways

Audible allows returns of audiobooks purchased with credits if you’re an Audible Premium Plus member in good standing.
There are no requirements regarding the percentage of the book that must be listened to for a return.
You can quickly return an eligible Audible book through the website or mobile app, but books purchased with credit or debit cards are likely not eligible for a return.

Audible is one of the most popular ways to listen to audiobooks. It has a massive selection of books to go through, and you can get new stuff to read monthly for a reasonable subscription. You can also decide to buy a book without signing up for an Audible plan, which might be preferable if you only plan to listen to the occasional book and not new ones every month.

What is Audible, how does it work, and how much does it cost?

Audible is the popular Amazon-owned audiobook and podcast service. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

But what if you used your Audible credit or purchased a book and decided it’s not right for you? How do you return the audiobook and get your money from the Amazon-owned company? Fear not; we’ll show you everything you need to know about returning a book to Audible and how to do it (there are some restrictions and catches, so read on to learn about those and everything else).

What are the requirements to return an Audible audiobook?

Surprisingly, Audible is very flexible with the requirements to return an audiobook. Compared to many other companies with short return windows, Audible will take a book back without much issue, but only if you’re an Audible Premium Plus subscriber. As long as you bought the book with credits from Audible Premium Plus, you’ll “get your money back” (aka credits) as long as you meet the following requirements:

You must have an active Audible Premium Plus member in good standing
You’re attempting to make the return within 365 days of its purchase date
You bought the title with an Audible credit

There’s no mention on the Audible support page about having read a certain percentage of the book (unlike game consoles, which tend to allow digital returns as long as you haven’t played too much of the game). This seems easy to exploit, as you could theoretically listen to the entire book and ask for your credits back, though we certainly don’t condone that since you’d be taking away from the authors of the book.

Audible does say that it has “the right to limit the number of returns or revoke return privileges at our discretion.” Presumably, if you’re consistently returning read books or gaming the system in other ways, the company would revoke your privileges and stop you from making more returns.

How to return an eligible Audible book

Fortunately, Audible makes it incredibly easy to return an eligible book (with eligible being the operative word).

Desktop

First, here’s to return an Audible audiobook from a desktop:

Go to Audible’s website.
Make sure you’re logged into your account.
Click your username from the site’s top navigation menu.
Click Account details on the page that opens.
Click Purchase history on the new page.
On the list of purchases that launches, click Return this title.

Mobile

If you’re an Audible user looking to do your return on mobile, fear not because the process is similar but with some slightly varied steps:

Open the Audible application on your device of choice.
Tap the main menu button.
Tap your username on the menu screen.
On the Your Account page that launches, tap Purchase history.
On the list of purchases that launches, tap Return this title.

Whichever device you use, you’ll receive one credit back into your Audible account shortly after submitting the return request. As mentioned in the previous section, you can only return an Audible book if you purchased it with an Audible Premium Plus account in good standing and you used a credit. In most cases, audiobooks purchased with money by non-subscribers aren’t eligible for returns.

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Is there a way to return a book purchased with a card?

Books purchased with Audible credits can only be returned

While Audible doesn’t officially support returning audiobooks purchased with a credit or debit card, you could try reaching out to the company’s customer service and requesting a refund.

According to a post from a Reddit user, they were able to email support and get a refund, though the support agent did say, “Please note that titles purchased after 10/17/22 with a debit or credit card, are not eligible for return. Titles purchased with Audible credits are returnable within 365 days of purchase.” However, this was said after they granted them a one-time refund for a book, so you might be able to get your money back if you have a good reason (maybe you bought a book by mistake).

I wouldn’t count on getting a refund in this way if you simply didn’t like the book, though, as Audible has clearly stated that its official policy is only to accept returns for audiobooks purchased with credits. This is interesting because regular Amazon is very generous with returns, but those are usually physical goods.