Cartesia pricing
What Cartesia charges per million characters, what that costs at real volumes, and when a cheaper or pay-once option makes sense.
Prices are list prices from the official pricing page of Cartesia, read October 8, 2026. They change; confirm before you decide. Source: https://www.cartesia.ai/pricing
What Cartesia charges
| Item | Price | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Text to speech, Sonic | 1 credit | per character | Break tags count as 1 credit each |
| Plans | Free $0 (20K credits), Pro $5 (100K), Startup $49 (1.25M), Scale $299 (8M) | monthly credits | Credits expire with the plan period; overage must be enabled |
| Overage | $65 / $45 / $38 | per 1M credits (Pro / Startup / Scale) | Requests are blocked when credits run out if overage is off |
| Speech to text, Ink | 3 credits | per second of audio | The page gives $0.39 per hour on Scale |
| Agents | $0.06 | per minute | Phone numbers cost $0.014 per minute extra |
| Voice cloning | Instant on Pro and above; Professional slots from Startup | plan feature | Free plan has none |
Cost at real volumes
| Model | 1M characters | 10M characters | 100M characters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic, Pro plan credits | $50 | $500 | $5,000 |
| Sonic, Scale overage | $38 | $380 | $3,800 |
| Speakvora catalog voices | $3 | $30 | $300 |
One million characters is very roughly 15 to 20 hours of speech. Cost only: these models sound different, and we do not claim ours match theirs. Listen to the free samples and decide.
What Cartesia offers
- Low-latency text to speech (Sonic)
- Speech to text (Ink)
- Instant and professional voice cloning on paid plans
- Voice agents with provisioned phone numbers
What we did not find in Cartesia's official material
- Curated industry phrase packs
- Downloadable ready-generated industry audio
- Searchable phrase catalog with stable identifiers
How it compares with Speakvora
Cartesia sells a credit system tied to monthly subscriptions and is built around low latency and phone agents. Speakvora bills in plain characters with no subscription plans (pay as you go), but we do not claim lower latency than Cartesia and have no phone-number product.
Pay once instead
If most of your audio repeats (greetings, confirmations, prompts), a one-time bundle plays offline with no per-play fee. See pay-once text to speech and the speech API alternative page.
More on Cartesia: · · cheapest text to speech API · .
Questions
How much does Cartesia cost?
For text to speech, Cartesia lists between $38 and $50 per million characters depending on the model, on its pricing page read October 8, 2026. Prices change, so confirm at the source: https://www.cartesia.ai/pricing.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Cartesia?
On list price per character, yes. Speakvora's catalog voices are $3 per million characters and your own voice is $6. That is a cost comparison only; the models, languages and voices differ, and we do not claim equal quality. Cartesia sells a credit system tied to monthly subscriptions and is built around low latency and phone agents. Speakvora bills in plain characters with no subscription plans (pay as you go), but we do not claim lower latency than Cartesia a
What does Cartesia do that Speakvora does not?
Cartesia offers: Low-latency text to speech (Sonic); Speech to text (Ink); Instant and professional voice cloning on paid plans. Speakvora is smaller, with fewer models and languages.
Can I pay once instead of per character?
For lines that repeat, yes. Speakvora sells ready-made voice bundles you buy once (audio from $14, or $214 to $399 with a local agent) and play offline with no per-play fee. If you generate a line once and keep the file, per-character pricing is already very cheap, and we say so on the comparison pages.