Rime alternative with much lower per-character pricing
Rime prices conversational voices at $30 to $50 per million characters. If cost matters more than first-audio speed, this page covers switching.
What the same job costs
Text to speech billed per character, at list price. Rime charges $30.00 to $50.00 per million characters; Speakvora catalog voices are $0.70, which is 98% to 99% less for the same number of characters. Different models, so this compares cost, not voice quality.
| Voice | 1M characters | 10M a month | 100M a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rime Mist v3 | $30.00 | $300 | $3,000 |
| Rime Coda | $50.00 | $500 | $5,000 |
| Speakvora catalog voices | $0.70 | $7.00 | $70.00 |
| Speakvora your own voice | $6.00 | $60.00 | $600 |
Source: Rime official pricing, checked 2026-10-08. Prices change; confirm on the source. Speech to text, agents and plans are priced in other units, explained below.
Who switches
- Your bill is driven by characters
- You do not need the lowest possible first-audio time
- You repeat many prompts
What you gain
- A far lower list price per character
- Own voice at $6 per million
- A checked phrase library and packs
What you give up
- Rime's Mist v3 latency profile
- Coda voices
- Direct WAV or PCM streaming
The code change
Request shapes were taken from each provider's own documentation on 2026-10-08. Provider APIs change; check theirs before you migrate.
Rime text to speech (docs: docs.rime.ai)
curl -X POST https://users.rime.ai/v1/rime-tts \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $RIME_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: audio/wav" \
-d '{"text":"Hello, how can I help you today?","speaker":"celeste","modelId":"mistv3"}' --output prompt.wavSpeakvora text to speech
curl -X POST https://speakvora.com/api/v1/speak \
-H "x-api-key: $SPEAKVORA_KEY" -H "content-type: application/json" \
-d '{"text":"Hello, how can I help you today?","voice":"af_heart","lang":"en"}'
# JSON reply: {"url":"https://speakvora.com/...m4a","lang":"en","voice":"af_heart","characters":32,"format":"m4a"}
curl -s "$URL" --output prompt.m4a # second step: download (or play) the linkWhat changes in practice: Rime takes a bearer key, `speaker`, `text` and `modelId` plus an `Accept` header and returns WAV; Speakvora returns a link. The text limit is 500 characters per request, and Speakvora returns JSON with a url that you fetch or play. Library links are stable public files; custom-voice links last about five minutes.
A safe migration order
- Count monthly characters.
- Price them at both list rates.
- Keep latency-critical calls on Rime and move the rest.
Is it actually cheaper?
Rime's pricing page lists Mist v3 at $30 and Coda at $50 per million characters. Cloning is not priced on its Starter plan.
Full numbers, scenarios and sources: Speakvora vs Rime.
Test these before you commit
- Measure first-audio time from your servers; we do not claim to beat Rime.
- Check whether you need Coda voices.
- Use the free 100,000 characters first.
Speakvora is in early access with billing is live; questions to support@eyeguide.ai. Latency: see the speed page.