Sayella is here: an affordable AAC app, now on the App Store

Editor's update: Sayella is now live. You can download Sayella free on the App Store today, with Google Play on the way.

I am writing this in launch week, and I still half expect to wake up and find it is not quite real. It is. Sayella is live, free to download on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, with Google Play on the way. If you have been waiting for an affordable, genuinely cross-platform way for someone you love to be heard, the wait is over. You can download Sayella free on the App Store right now.

I want to use this post to tell you why Sayella exists, what it does, what it costs, and, because trust is the only thing that matters in this small community, exactly what is ready and what is still rolling out. No spin. The straight version.

Why I built this

Sayella started at my own kitchen table. My daughter Isla is nonverbal and autistic. She was diagnosed at four, and at her school we saw AAC done properly for the first time: symbols, core words, a device that spoke for children who could not.

Then we looked at what it would cost to have that at home. The well-known apps run from £250 to £550. The funded routes exist, but the waits are long and the assessments are longer, and all the while your child is four, then five, then six, without a voice at the kitchen table. And more and more of these apps now sit behind subscriptions, which means that if money gets tight and a payment lapses, a person can lose the words they rely on to be understood.

That last part is the one I could not get past. The idea that my daughter's voice, anyone's voice, could be switched off because a card expired felt wrong in a way I could not let go of. I build software for a living, so I built the thing our family needed and could not find: affordable, working on the device a family already owns, and impossible for anyone to switch off.

That is Sayella. It is a communication and education tool, not a medical device, and I make no diagnostic or treatment claims. But it is built with care, in UK English, informed by the published AAC evidence base, for nonverbal and minimally-verbal people across the whole journey, from a child's very first symbol through to literate teens and adults.

What Sayella does

At its heart, Sayella is a board of words and symbols that speaks aloud when a person taps them, with switch scanning planned for a later update. What makes it different is how it is built to grow with the person using it.

You choose a board size that suits the person, and the full set of core words for that size is always shown, with nothing hidden or greyed out. Buttons stay where they are as you use the board. That matters more than it might sound. When a button stays where it is, a person can find their words by muscle memory, and you choose a bigger board as they grow without pulling the rug out from under what they already know. The same app, the same account and the same core vocabulary carry someone from their first handful of words all the way to a larger board and on to literate, text-based communication. It is never babyish for a teenager or an adult.

Words are colour-coded by their part of speech using a modified Fitzgerald key, with red reserved for stop, no and help. Colour is never the only signal, every button pairs a symbol with text, so it works for readers and pre-readers alike. Screen readers and a high-contrast highlight are built in from the start, not bolted on, with switch access, scanning and auditory scanning on our roadmap. And there is a published WCAG accessibility statement, because accessibility should be documented, not just assumed.

The three promises

Everything about Sayella comes back to three promises I am not willing to break.

• Cross-platform. One account works on iPhone and iPad today, with the web version and Android on Google Play both on the way. The same board follows the person between home, school and everywhere in between, on the devices a family already has. Most of the premium apps families are told to buy run on only one kind of device. Sayella does not make you buy the right brand of tablet to be heard.
• No forced subscription. There is always a one-off, lifetime way to own Sayella. If you choose an optional subscription and it ever lapses, the app simply degrades to local-only. It never switches off a voice the user already had. That is a hard line, not a marketing line.
• Your data is portable. You can import and export in Open Board Format any time. Coming from Proloquo or TD Snap? You can bring your boards with you. There is no lock-in, ever, and if Sayella is ever not right for you, your words leave with you.

What it costs

Plain numbers, no buried add-ons:

• Free, forever: the full core vocabulary board and modelling tools, one device, a limited vocabulary, offline speech, and no card required. This is a real, usable app, not a locked demo.
• Monthly £7.99 or Yearly £59 (about £4.92 a month): cloud sync, multi-device, team and therapist accounts, AI symbol generation and analytics, with premium UK voices coming soon. The free tier includes 2 free AI symbol generations too, so you can try it before paying anything.
• Lifetime £189, one-off: the app, every local feature and the AI add-ons owned for good with no app subscription (premium UK voices included when they arrive), plus cloud sync and multi-device for 5 years (then a small cloud-only renewal keeps sync on), and grant and charity eligible.

For context, the apps families are usually pointed toward tend to land somewhere between roughly £240 and £550, often on one device only. Sayella starts free and tops out at a one-off £189 that you own for good.

What is ready, and what is rolling out

I promised the straight version, so here it is.

Live today: the free app on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, the core vocabulary board and modelling tools, offline speech, Open Board Format import and export, touch and screen-reader access, the published accessibility statement, cloud sync across devices, and AI symbol generation, with 2 free generations on every free account and more with Premium. You can download it now, build a board and start communicating, without paying anything.

Still rolling out: premium UK voices are coming soon, the web version is on the way, and the Android app is coming to Google Play. Switch access, scanning and auditory scanning are planned for a later update: the engine is built, and we are holding it back until we have tested it with real physical switches. I would rather tell you a feature is rolling out than pretend it is finished. When something a person relies on holds their voice, "nearly working" is not good enough, and I would rather show you the seams while I am closing them.

I am also forming a clinical advisory group of UK speech and language therapists. When members are confirmed and have consented, I will name them. I will not invent endorsements to fill the gap in the meantime. School and multi-user licensing is coming too, and I will publish real numbers when they are real, not before.

Be part of day one

If affordable, cross-platform communication that nobody can switch off is what your family or your caseload has been waiting for, the doors are open. Download Sayella free on the App Store, build a board at the kitchen table, and hear a voice that grows with the person using it.

This is also a conversation, not a broadcast. I am reading every comment and every message through launch week and in the days that follow. Tell me what you need, tell me what would help, and help shape where Sayella goes next. The whole point of building this in the open is that you can see it improve, week by week, with you in the room.

Sayella is live on the App Store, with Google Play on the way. Download Sayella free today. Free to start, no card needed.

Sayella. Every voice deserves to be heard.