Reflecting Swift's adolescence, the songs document emotions of affection, grievance, and heartbreak, forming a loose concept album of unspoken confessions.

Music critics praised Swift's emotionally engaging songwriting in the album and the matured tone of her vocal performances, although the alteration to a lyric in the track "Better than Revenge" had a mixed response.

Speak Now (Taylor's Version) reached number one on albums charts of Australia, Canada, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, among others.

[9] The New York Times wrote in 2010 that the album's strong sales proved Swift "has transcended the limitations of genre and become a pop megastar".

[23] The songs on Speak Now (Taylor's Version) reflect on Swift's transition from adolescence to adulthood; they employ autobiographical songwriting to explore the sentiments stemming from love and life such as enchantment, heartbreak,[24] and teenage angst.

[25][26] All re-recorded tracks retain their original lyrics, except "Better than Revenge", whose line "She's better known for the things that she does on the mattress" in the chorus was replaced with "He was a moth to the flame, she was holding the matches".

[21][39] In the closing ballad "Timeless", Swift finds old photos of couples in an antique shop and superimposes herself in their lives,[26] imagining herself longing for a lover who has gone to war.

[20] On June 9, the French newspaper Ouest-France reported that a temporary worker from Le Mans, France, was arrested for stealing 10 vinyl records of Speak Now (Taylor's Version) from a warehouse and selling them on Leboncoin, a classified ads website.

[51] On July 13, 2023, Swift released a digital deluxe edition of the album, featuring live recordings of "Dear John" and "Last Kiss" from the Minneapolis and Kansas City shows of the Eras Tour, respectively.

[53] Maura Johnston of Rolling Stone stated, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) "expands our image of a landmark album", with grittier production quality.

[24] The same magazine's UK critic Mark Sutherland wrote, "the empowering, elemental force and simmering hurt that made the original Speak Now such a remarkable record remains strikingly intact.

"[32] Reviews from Annabel Nugent of The Independent,[37] Poppie Platt of The Daily Telegraph,[56] Jonathan Keefe of Slant Magazine,[57] Rachel Caroll of PopMatters,[35] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic,[55] and Will Hodgkinson of The Times praised the album's crisper production mix, emotional heft, added nuance of the vault songs, and Swift's strong and refined vocals.

[58] Alex Hopper of American Songwriter and Kelsey Barnes of The Line of Best Fit complimented the album's catharsis for an accurate portrayal of adolescence.

[38][33] Spin critic Bobby Olivier admired the album's "rock elegance" and Swift's "mature and textured vocal performance".

[60][34][57] The Guardian's Laura Snapes and Pitchfork's Vrinda Jagota said that Swift's voice, despite being "much richer" than in 2010, has lost its "youthful twang" and "teenage angst" but nevertheless considered the album's evolved songwriting and musical consistency impressive.

[62] Its first-week figures consisted of 716,000 album-equivalent units, including 507,000 sales, earning the largest week for a country album since December 2014.

[64] All 22 tracks from Speak Now (Taylor's Version) debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, bringing Swift's total career entries to 212 songs.

[67] In Australia, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) debuted atop the ARIA Albums Chart, displacing Swift's Midnights (2022) from the top spot.

[78] At the 2023 Billboard Music Awards, Speak Now (Taylor's Version) was nominated for Top Country Album but lost to Morgan Wallen's One Thing at a Time.