10 Free Ways to Practice Public Speaking (and When an App Is Worth It)

You can practice public speaking for free with three things you already have: your phone's voice recorder, a stopwatch and an audience of one. Below are ten free ways to practice, what each one trains, and an honest note on when a paid app is worth it. (We make Mic Buddy, a paid app, and we say so where it comes up.)

1. Record yourself with your phone

Your phone already has a voice recorder (Voice Memos on iPhone). Record yourself talking about anything for two minutes, then listen back once without stopping. You'll hear your pace, your filler words and the places you trail off, which is most of what a coach would point out first.

2. Time yourself with a stopwatch

Read your speech out loud with a stopwatch running. Then divide your word count by the minutes it took: that's your speaking rate. The speech length calculator does the math for you and shows how long any text takes to say.

3. Take the speaking rate test

The speaking rate test on this site is free: read a short passage out loud, tap stop, and see your words per minute and what counts as slow, typical or fast. Nothing is recorded.

4. Do a 60-second impromptu drill

Pick a random topic (an object on your desk, your favorite meal, the last movie you watched) and talk about it for exactly 60 seconds without stopping. It trains the thing most people fear: speaking without a script. Do one a day.

5. Read out loud every day

Read a page of a book or an article out loud for five minutes. Focus on finishing your sentences clearly and pausing at the periods. It builds a steady pace and clearer articulation without the pressure of your own words.

6. Ask a friend to count your fillers

Give a two-minute talk to a friend and ask them to make a tick mark every time you say um, uh, like or you know. Then try again and aim for fewer. It's the same idea as the Toastmasters Ah-Counter, at home. The list of filler words shows what to listen for.

7. Visit a Toastmasters club as a guest

Visiting a Toastmasters club is free, according to Toastmasters International, and many clubs meet online as well as in person. You'll see a meeting, hear speeches and evaluations, and sometimes get a chance to speak. Membership itself is not free: see what Toastmasters costs.

8. Volunteer to speak where you already are

Offer to give the update at your next team meeting, read the announcements at your club, or ask a question at a talk. Small, real audiences are the best practice there is, and they cost nothing.

9. Shadow a speaker you admire

Play a talk you like, pause after each sentence, and repeat it out loud, copying the rhythm, the pauses and the emphasis. It trains vocal variety and is especially useful if English isn't your first language.

10. Practice your answers to likely questions

Write down five questions you might get (in an interview, after a presentation, at a meeting) and answer each one out loud, recorded. Interview practice shows how to run a full mock interview on your own.

A free 15-minute routine

1. Two minutes: talk about a random topic and record it.
2. Three minutes: listen back and count your fillers.
3. Five minutes: read out loud, pausing at every period.
4. Five minutes: practice the opening of whatever you have coming up, three times.

When a paid app is worth it

Free methods work, but they take effort: you have to count your own fillers, time every take and remember last week's numbers. A practice app does that part for you, which matters if you practice often or have a big talk coming up.

Mic Buddy is a paid app for iPhone and iPad: after each take it shows your pace, filler words, pauses and clarity, with mock interviews, short drills and multi-day programs, and every take is analyzed on your device. It is not free: using it takes a subscription (a yearly, monthly or weekly plan), and there is no free tier. Other apps work differently; the best public speaking apps compares prices and free plans as of October 2026.

If you were using Google's Interview Warmup, note that Google retired it in 2026 (see Mic Buddy vs Google Interview Warmup).