Tala vs. TouchChat HD: An Honest Comparison

TouchChat HD, from PRC-Saltillo, is one of the most widely used AAC apps in American schools and clinics. It's the app behind many dedicated speech devices, and its WordPower vocabulary sets are a staple of SLP practice. The base app costs $149.99, or $299.99 bundled with WordPower.

Tala takes a different path: a free 7-day trial then $9.99/month or $39.99/year, built around whole phrases instead of single words, and designed so a parent can set it up in minutes without training. Here's how they compare, honestly. (Weighing TouchChat against other established apps instead? See our head-to-heads: TouchChat vs. Proloquo2Go and TouchChat vs. TD Snap.)

“We’ve spent years trying different AAC apps, both at home and at school, with very limited success. I downloaded Tala a few days ago — within minutes, both my son and I were using it. For the first time in years, I feel like we have a tool that’s designed for families instead of specialists.”

— Aron, dad of an 11-year-old nonspeaking son with autism

	Tala	TouchChat HD
Price	Free 7-day trial, then $9.99/month or $39.99/year	$149.99, or $299.99 with WordPower (free 30-day Discover trial app)
Free for SLPs & teachers	Yes, free forever	No
Languages	29, with four natural voices in each	WordPower in English, Spanish, French and Mandarin
Whole-phrase cards (GLP)	Yes, by design	No, word-based
Platform	iPhone, iPad (iOS 17+), Android	iOS
Best for	Beginning communicators, gestalt language processors, families starting out	School teams, WordPower users, device continuity with PRC-Saltillo

Price and getting started

TouchChat HD is a one-time purchase of $149.99, or $299.99 if you want the WordPower vocabulary most SLPs recommend with it. A free 30-day Discover trial app lets you try it first; after that, the full experience requires the upfront purchase.

Tala starts with a free 7-day trial, then $9.99/month or $39.99/year, and it is free forever for speech-language pathologists and teachers. A full year costs a fraction of TouchChat's upfront price, and if you're not sure AAC will stick, the trial lets you find out at no cost.

Vocabulary approach

TouchChat with WordPower is a word-based system: children build sentences one word at a time from research-backed core vocabulary. It's powerful, and for many children it's the right model.

Tala's cards are whole phrases — "I want water", "Can I have a hug" — because many autistic children, especially gestalt language processors, learn language in chunks rather than single words. If your child repeats lines from songs or movies, whole-phrase AAC may match how they actually process language.

Languages

TouchChat's WordPower vocabularies come in English, Spanish, French and Mandarin. Tala supports 29 languages with four natural voices (woman, man, boy and girl) in every language, including Swedish, Italian, German, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Hindi, and Arabic. For families whose home language is not one of WordPower's four, this is often the deciding factor.

Who should choose what

Choose TouchChat HD if your school team already runs on TouchChat or WordPower, your SLP wants continuity with a PRC-Saltillo device, or your child is building single-word-based sentences with a word-by-word system.

Choose Tala if you want to start AAC without a $150–$300 upfront cost, your child learns through whole phrases, or your family speaks one of Tala's 29 supported languages.

The best AAC app is the one your child will actually use every day.