The AI speech generator alternative that interviews you first
Paste a paragraph into a generator and a speech comes back in seconds. It'll be fluent. It'll also be true of almost anybody, because a paragraph is all it had. Here's what changes when the tool asks questions first — and where free is the better call.
One-time payment · No account needed · No subscription
The verdict, before the argument
Two-minute toast at a rehearsal dinner? A send-off for a colleague you hardly know? Use a free one-prompt generator. Nobody in that room is waiting for a revelation.
If the speech carries weight — best man, maid of honour, the one for your mother — the free route hits a wall. It only has what you paste, and most people paste three sentences. SayItTrue asks six to nine questions first, and pushes when an answer comes back thin.
Would you rather not answer questions about the person? Take the free option. We mean that, and there's a section on it below.
What a one-prompt generator is
A one-prompt speech generator is a tool that writes a speech from a single block of text you paste in, usually a few sentences about the person. It never asks a follow-up, so the remaining 500 words come from the model's defaults rather than your memories. A guided interview asks between six and nine questions first, then writes.
That's the whole disagreement, and it isn't about which model is cleverer. Give any writer ninety words about a stranger and ask for four minutes of speech, and they'll invent the other four hundred and thirty — the average of every wedding speech ever written. A better model makes that smoother. It doesn't make it yours.
Four ways to get a speech written
Four routes, compared on what each one asks you to hand over and what it can build from that. Approaches, not products — how this comparison was made says why.
| Approach | What it asks you for | What it costs | What you get back | Best for | Wrong for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One-prompt AI generator | A paragraph, pasted in one go. No follow-ups, no second pass. | Usually free, sometimes behind a plan | A fluent draft that fills the gap between your paragraph and the word count with plausible filler | Short, low-stakes speaking slots you need in the next ten minutes | Anywhere a specific memory has to land in a specific room |
| Free template or fill-in-the-blanks | Nothing. You bring every word. | Free | A running order with gaps in it, and sometimes a stock opening line | People who know what they want to say and want an order to say it in | A blank document at one in the morning |
|
Our approach Guided interview (SayItTrue) |
6 to 9 questions, one at a time, with a follow-up when an answer comes back thin | $24, paid once | A speech at your chosen length in your phrasing, plus cue cards, a teleprompter with a pace timer, and a note saying which of your stories each section used | A speech that has to sound like you and mention things only you know | Anyone who'd rather not answer questions about the person |
| Human speechwriter | A call or a long questionnaire, then a wait | A quoted fee, usually the most expensive option here | A draft written by a person, with revision rounds by arrangement | High stakes with weeks of runway, or a speaker who wants coaching too | Thursday night, with the wedding on Saturday |
Pricing basis: one speech, one time. The $24 covers unlimited revisions, cue cards, the teleprompter, a night-before tips sheet and a private link. Two add-ons sit at checkout, neither pre-ticked — a second speech for $10, human review for $29. More on the pricing page.
The same subject, two inputs
Arguing this in the abstract is useless. Same brother, same wedding, same model writing. Only the input changes.
What a paragraph can support
What gets pasted
What that input can produce
"Ben has always been the kind of person who lights up a room. His sense of humour is legendary among everyone lucky enough to know him, and when he met Priya it was obvious he'd found someone special.
They say you don't choose your family. If I could, I'd choose Ben every time."
Illustration, written for this page. Every sentence in it survives if you swap the names.
What five questions turn up
What gets asked, and answered
- How did you two meet? "We didn't. He's my brother." Thin answer — the follow-up pushes: what's the first thing you remember about him?
- What's a story their friends always tell about them? "The time he drove to Bristol at two in the morning."
- What actually happened in that story — the bit people skip? "Priya's car died on the M32. Six weeks in. He had work at seven. He drove two hours, sat in a service station car park until the recovery truck came, then went to the office in yesterday's shirt. He never mentioned it."
- What changed about them when they met their partner? "He started answering his phone."
- What would you say to them if it were just the two of you? "That I've copied him more than he knows."
The line that only exists now
"Ben, you drove two hours through the night for a girl you'd known six weeks, sat in a car park until dawn, then went to work in yesterday's shirt and told nobody.
That isn't a grand gesture. That's just what you're like."
Illustration, written for this page. Ben and Priya are the same invented family as in the annotated best man speech for a brother.
The right-hand line isn't better writing. It's the same writing with something to hold on to. Nothing on the left is wrong — it just can't reach the service station, because nobody mentioned the service station.
What the interview actually asks
Four occasions, each with its own interview: a wedding asks 9 questions, a eulogy 8, a retirement 7, a milestone birthday 6. Five roles at a wedding, five for a eulogy, three each at a retirement and a birthday — 16 occasion-and-role interviews, different questions in every one.
Every question carries a hidden note on what a usable answer contains. When one comes back thin, the follow-up knows what's missing and asks for that, instead of saying "tell me more". A few of the real ones:
- Best man: "What actually happened in that story — the bit people skip?"
- Eulogy: "Describe an ordinary day with them. Not a birthday or a holiday — a Tuesday."
- Retirement: "What will people notice is missing on Monday?"
- Milestone birthday: "What's the most them thing they've ever done?"
Every interview also asks who's in the room and what's off limits, and exclusions are honoured absolutely. Answers go into four slots: hook, story, heart, toast — the guide to writing a best man speech pulls that shape apart, and the annotated maid of honour speech shows it filled.
When free is genuinely fine
Plenty of speaking slots don't need any of this. Use a free generator, or write two lines on your phone, if any of these is you.
- A two-minute rehearsal-dinner toast. About 260 words at speaking pace, half of it thanking people for coming.
- A send-off for someone you barely know. You got asked because you speak up in meetings. You don't have the material, and pretending to is worse than a warm generic minute.
- A speech you've already written. Tightening it is an editing job. Paste it somewhere free and ask for shorter — the guide to speech length and timing will tell you what to cut.
- No memories to supply. The honest one. If you can't recall a specific story, or you'd rather not go looking, the interview has nothing to work with either. Nine questions, nine shrugs, and what comes back is as general as the free version — except you paid $24.
Same answer if being asked questions about someone puts you off. That's a preference, not a failure. The interview is the product; if you don't want it, you don't want us.
How this comparison was made
This is not a lab test. Nobody ran fifty speeches through five products and scored them. What's compared is what each approach asks you for as input and what it can produce from that input — an argument about structure, which you can check against the demonstration above.
- No product names. We haven't tested any specific generator, and putting a verdict next to a company's name on that basis would be making it up. The table describes the pattern instead.
- No scores. A mark out of ten implies a measurement. There isn't one behind this page.
- No prices but ours. Prices move. $24 is the only figure we'll stand behind, because it's ours.
Test it yourself. Paste your paragraph into a free generator and look for one sentence that couldn't be said about somebody else.
Four questions that decide it
Is there a story only you can tell?
Not a nice memory — a specific one, with a place in it, that half the room hasn't heard. If yes, the input makes the speech. If no, a generator does the same job for nothing.
How long do you have to fill?
Two minutes is about 260 words and forgives a lot. Four minutes is 520 and doesn't. Filler starts to show around ninety seconds in.
Will you mind being asked about them?
Six to nine questions, some of them pointed. Most people find that the easiest part. Some don't want to go there at all, especially soon after a death.
Do you need a draft, or a second opinion?
A blank page is our problem. A finished speech you're nervous about is a different job — human review, $29, where a person reads it and sends notes back inside 24 hours.
The objections worth answering
It's still a model writing it
Yes. What's different is everything that happens before the writing starts. The questions are the product — 16 interviews built to pull out the detail people leave out when they summarise somebody they love.
And you can audit it: the draft names which of your answers each section used, and what it left out. Most people feel weird about this. Then they read their draft.
$24 against free
Free is a real price and it's hard to beat. Plainly: free gives you something true of anybody, and $24 gives back something only you could have said, in exchange for answering six to nine questions. If that trade isn't worth it for your slot, it isn't.
What if I don't like the draft
Ask for another. Revisions are unlimited and included, phrased as moves rather than a blank box: funnier, warmer, shorter, more me, add a callback, decliché, change the length. You can paste in a writing sample too — an old text message is enough.
Do I need an account
No. No sign-up, no password, nothing to cancel. The speech lives at a private link that keeps working, so you can open it on your phone at the venue.
Common questions
Is an AI speech generator any good?
For short, low-stakes slots, yes — the prose is fluent and the structure holds. The limit isn't the writing, it's the input: a tool that only sees a pasted paragraph has to invent everything else, so the speech ends up true of anyone.
Will people be able to tell?
A room doesn't notice sentence quality. It notices whether anything specific got said. Generic lines land as generic whoever wrote them, and a speech full of details only you know reads as yours. They'll notice if there's nothing real in it.
What's the difference between a prompt and an interview?
A prompt is one message: you paste what you can think of and the tool writes from that. An interview is 6 to 9 questions asked one at a time, each carrying a hidden note on what a usable answer contains, so a thin answer gets a follow-up.
Is there a free option?
Plenty, and for some speeches they're the right choice: a two-minute rehearsal-dinner toast, a colleague you barely know, or tightening something you've already written. Use one if you'd rather not answer questions about the person, as well — the interview needs real memories and can't supply them for you.
How long does the interview take?
Six to nine questions depending on the occasion: 9 for a wedding, 8 for a eulogy, 7 for a retirement, 6 for a milestone birthday. There's no timer. Stop halfway and come back through your private link.
Can I edit the draft?
Yes, and revisions are unlimited and included in the $24. Ask for funnier, warmer, shorter, more me, a callback, a decliché pass, or a different length. Stage directions are stored apart from the prose, so a "pause here" never eats into your spoken time.
What does it cost?
$24, paid once: the speech, unlimited revisions, printable cue cards, a teleprompter with a pace timer, a night-before tips sheet and a private link. No subscription, and no account needed to buy.
Two add-ons sit at checkout, neither pre-ticked — a second speech from the same interview for $10 more, human review with notes back inside 24 hours for $29 more.
Answer the questions. Then read what comes back.
Nine questions for a wedding, eight for a eulogy, seven for a retirement, six for a birthday. One at a time, and it pushes when you're being vague.
One-time payment · No account needed · Unlimited revisions