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Soniox vs Cartesia TTS pricing

Compare Cartesia Sonic and Soniox TTS pricing by character, minute, hour, and monthly usage. See how much you could save with Soniox for voice agents, conversational AI, assistants, and other real-time audio applications.

Pricing calculator

Compare Soniox and Cartesia TTS cost

See how Soniox and Cartesia pricing compares at your expected speech generation volume. Choose your monthly usage to estimate your costs and see the potential savings with Soniox.

1,000 hours of speech / month

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Pricing assumptions

Based on public pay-as-you-go pricing. Enterprise discounts and committed-use contracts may differ. Some providers charge separately for certain features. The calculator uses the public price for the provider configuration that most closely matches Soniox.

How much does Cartesia TTS cost?

Cartesia Sonic 3.6 uses a credit-based pricing model, with approximately 1 credit required per character. The Scale plan costs $299 per month for 8 million credits, making it the lowest published per-credit price among the listed plans.

At that rate, Cartesia costs approximately $0.0374 per 1,000 characters, or about $1.87 per hour of generated speech using the same conversion assumption as this comparison.

For the same estimated speech volume, Soniox tts-rt-v2 costs approximately $0.014 per 1,000 characters, or $0.70 per hour.

Soniox

tts-rt-v2, updated June 2026

$0.70/hr

$0.014 per 1,000 characters

Cartesia

sonic-3.6, updated July 2026

$1.87/hr

$0.0374 per 1,000 characters

Smaller Cartesia plans have a higher cost per character, while usage beyond included credits can incur overage charges.

Cartesia cost per character, minute, and month

On the Cartesia Scale plan, Sonic 3.6 costs approximately $0.0374 per 1,000 characters, compared with approximately $0.014 per 1,000 characters for Soniox TTS.

Cartesia charges by character rather than by minute or hour. To make the comparison easier, we estimate approximately 50,000 characters as one hour of generated speech.

Sonioxtts-rt-v2Cartesiasonic-3.6
Estimated cost per minute$0.0117$0.0312
Cost per 1,000 characters$0.014$0.0374
Cost per hour$0.70$1.87
Cost per month at 1,000 hours$700$1,870

For API users, your total Cartesia cost depends on your plan and usage. At 1,000 hours of generated speech per month, the estimated cost is approximately $1,870 with Cartesia, compared with $700 with Soniox.

Monthly TTS cost at 1,000 hours of generated speech

Soniox

tts-rt-v2

$700

Cartesia

sonic-3.6

$1,870
Difference$1,170/month

Soniox vs Cartesia TTS

Compare Soniox tts-rt-v2 and Cartesia Sonic across the capabilities that matter when building real-time voice applications, including streaming, multilingual voices, voice cloning, timestamps, pronunciation control, and expressive control.

Sonioxtts-rt-v2Cartesiasonic-3.6
Streaming audio output
Streaming text input
Multilingual voice
Voice cloning
Timestamps
Character level timestamps
Pronunciation control
Expressive control
SupportedPartialNot supported

At 1,000 hours of generated speech per month, Soniox costs approximately $1,170 less per month based on the public pricing used in this comparison.

Cartesia TTS pricing FAQ

How much does Cartesia TTS cost?
Cartesia TTS uses a credit-based pricing model. On the Scale plan, $299 includes 8 million credits. At approximately 1 credit per character, this works out to about $0.0374 per 1,000 characters, or an estimated $1.87 per hour of generated speech.
What is Cartesia pricing for text to speech?
Cartesia offers TTS through monthly plans that include credits. Published plans range from a free plan to Pro at $5 per month, Startup at $49 per month, and Scale at $299 per month. Enterprise pricing is custom.
What is Cartesia pricing per minute?
Cartesia does not charge directly per minute. Using the comparison assumption of approximately 50,000 characters per hour of speech, Sonic 3.6 on the Scale plan works out to an estimated $0.0312 per minute, compared with $0.0117 per minute for Soniox.
What is the Cartesia cost per character?
Cartesia charges approximately 1 credit per character. On the Scale plan, that works out to approximately $0.0374 per 1,000 characters. Smaller plans have a higher cost per character.
What is the Cartesia cost per month?
Cartesia pricing is based on monthly plans and included credits, with Enterprise pricing available on a custom basis. At an estimated 1,000 hours of generated speech per month, Cartesia costs approximately $1,870, compared with $700 for Soniox.
What is the Cartesia API pricing?
Cartesia API usage is credit-based. TTS usage is approximately 1 credit per character, with credits provided through monthly plans. When overages are enabled, additional credits are billed according to the selected plan.
What is the Cartesia price per hour?
On the Scale plan, Cartesia Sonic 3.6 costs an estimated $1.87 per hour of generated speech, assuming approximately 50,000 characters per hour. Soniox tts-rt-v2 costs approximately $0.70 per hour.
How does Cartesia TTS pricing compare with Soniox?
Soniox tts-rt-v2 costs approximately $0.70 per hour of generated speech, compared with approximately $1.87 per hour for Cartesia Sonic 3.6 on the Scale plan. At 1,000 hours per month, that is approximately $700 with Soniox versus $1,870 with Cartesia.
What is Cartesia Sonic pricing?
Cartesia Sonic models use a credit-based pricing model, with approximately 1 credit per character for TTS. The current model referenced in this comparison is Sonic 3.6, which supports 44 languages.
What is Cartesia Sonic 3 pricing?
Sonic 3 uses the same credit-based pricing approach, with approximately 1 credit per character. Cartesia lists Sonic 3 as an older model and recommends Sonic 3.6.
What is Cartesia Sonic 3.5 pricing?
Cartesia Sonic 3.5 pricing is based on the same credit-based model used for its Sonic TTS products.
Is Cartesia pricing TTS only, or does it include STT?
Cartesia plan credits can be used for both TTS and STT, with each service billed at its applicable rate. Managed voice agents are priced separately.
Does Cartesia support voice cloning?
Yes. Cartesia offers instant voice cloning from the Pro plan, while professional voice cloning is available on higher plans. Professional voice clone speech is billed at 1 credit per character.

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