AI Voice & TTS
AI voice tools, compared by what they actually cost.
Voice quality is subjective, but cost is not. We line up every tool by price and, where it is usage-based, the real cost per million characters. No opinions on the columns you can measure.
AI voice tools split into two families: subscription apps for creators (ElevenLabs, Murf, LOVO, Speechify) and pay-as-you-go APIs for developers (Amazon Polly, Google, Cartesia). We line them all up by price and, where billing is usage-based, by the real cost per million characters, so you can see what you will actually pay.
Quality between the top tools is close and hard to measure objectively, so we focus on the numbers you can trust: price, free tier and cost per character.
| # | Tool | Cost / 1M chars | From | Free | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Cartesia Low-latency text-to-speech API (Sonic), subscription with credits. | $39 | $5/mo | — | Visit |
| 02 | ElevenLabs AI voice generation and cloning, with a developer API and an app. | — | $6/mo | — | Visit |
| 03 | Speechify Text-to-speech app that reads documents and articles aloud. | — | $11.58/mo | — | Visit |
| 04 | Murf AI AI voiceover studio for videos, presentations and e-learning. | — | $19/mo | — | Visit |
| 05 | LOVO AI AI voice generator and text-to-speech with a large voice library. | — | $29/mo | — | Visit |
| 06 | Amazon Polly Pay-as-you-go text-to-speech API from AWS, priced per character. | $16 | — | Yes | Visit |
| 07 | Google Cloud TTS Google Cloud text-to-speech API, priced per character. | $16 | — | Yes | Visit |
Cost per 1M characters applies to usage-based APIs (Amazon Polly, Google, Cartesia). Subscription tools show their cheapest paid tier. Prices may change. Some links are affiliate links.
Popular comparisons
How we compare
For usage-based APIs we report the cost per one million characters, the standard unit for text-to-speech billing. For subscription tools we show the cheapest paid monthly tier, since they bundle a character or minute allowance instead of charging per unit.
We do not rank tools by voice quality, because that is subjective and depends on the voice and language you choose. Prices come from each tool's live pricing page and are normalized to US dollars.
Frequently asked
What is the cheapest AI voice tool?+
For pay-as-you-go, Amazon Polly and Google Cloud both run about 16 dollars per million characters for neural voices. Among subscription apps, Cartesia starts at 5 dollars per month and ElevenLabs at 6, both with a free tier.
Is there a free AI voice generator?+
Yes. ElevenLabs, Murf, LOVO, Speechify, Amazon Polly, Google and Cartesia all offer a free tier or free credits. ElevenLabs gives 10,000 characters a month free, and the cloud APIs include a monthly free allowance.
What is the best AI voice for cloning?+
ElevenLabs is the best known for voice cloning and has the widest adoption, on its paid plans. LOVO and Cartesia also offer cloning. Quality is subjective, so try the free tiers with your own voice before deciding.
Subscription or pay-per-character?+
Use a subscription app such as ElevenLabs, Murf or LOVO if you generate voice regularly and want a ready-made studio. Use a pay-as-you-go API such as Amazon Polly, Google or Cartesia if you are a developer and want to pay only for what you convert.
How much does 1 million characters cost?+
On the cloud APIs, about 16 dollars for neural voices on Amazon Polly and Google. Cartesia works out to roughly 39 dollars per million on its entry plan. One million characters is around 160,000 to 170,000 words, or several hours of audio.