AI voice generator pricing: cost per character and per minute
Voice generators price in different units: ElevenLabs and Cartesia sell credits (1 credit per character of text to speech), Murf's studio sells hours of voice generation, and the reader apps sell a subscription. To compare them, we convert each plan into cost per 1 million characters or per hour wherever the vendor publishes the numbers to do it.
Plans and prices come from each vendor's pricing page, re-checked on Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET. We don't rate voice quality.
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Prices last updated · 8 tools · sorted by data, not paid placement
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Cheapest AI voice generator plans
Cheapest with monthly billing: Cartesia Pro at $5/mo with monthly billing.
Paid links in this table are marked Paid link. We earn a commission if you sign up through them. Order is by price, not by commission.
Sorted by cheapest paid plan (per month, as listed), tools without a confirmed subscription price last. "Unverified" means we could not confirm the figure on the vendor's page at our latest check.
Cost per 1M characters and per hour, by plan
Paid links in this table are marked Paid link. We earn a commission if you sign up through them.
Per-hour cost is shown only where the vendor states how much audio a credit or plan buys. ElevenLabs doesn't publish characters per minute, so we don't convert its plans to hours.
The math, plan by plan
- ElevenLabs Starter: $6/mo ÷ 30K credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $200.00 per 1M characters.
- ElevenLabs Creator: $22/mo ÷ 121K credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $181.82 per 1M characters.
- ElevenLabs Pro: $99/mo ÷ 600K credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $165.00 per 1M characters.
- ElevenLabs Scale: $299/mo ÷ 1.8M credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $166.11 per 1M characters.
- ElevenLabs Business: $990/mo ÷ 6M credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $165.00 per 1M characters.
- Cartesia Pro: $5/mo ÷ 100K credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $50.00 per 1M characters. At Cartesia's 750–800 credits per minute, an hour is 45,000–48,000 credits, so $2.25–$2.40 per hour.
- Cartesia Startup: $49/mo ÷ 1.25M credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $39.20 per 1M characters. At Cartesia's 750–800 credits per minute, an hour is 45,000–48,000 credits, so $1.76–$1.88 per hour.
- Cartesia Scale: $299/mo ÷ 8M credits (1 credit = 1 character) = $37.38 per 1M characters. At Cartesia's 750–800 credits per minute, an hour is 45,000–48,000 credits, so $1.68–$1.79 per hour.
- Murf AI Studio Creator: $228 a year ÷ 24 hours of voice generation a year = $9.50 per hour. Murf counts minutes of audio, not characters.
- Murf AI Studio Business: $792 a year ÷ 96 hours of voice generation a year = $8.25 per hour. Murf counts minutes of audio, not characters.
Sources: elevenlabs.io, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET (page /pricing); cartesia.ai, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET (page /pricing); murf.ai, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET (page /pricing)
Cheapest for narration, cloning and API use
- Lowest cost per character on a subscription (of the plans we could compute): Cartesia Scale at $37.38 per 1M characters. Bigger plans cost less per character but more per month.
- Narration by the hour: Cartesia Pro $2.25–$2.40/hr, Cartesia Startup $1.76–$1.88/hr, Cartesia Scale $1.68–$1.79/hr, Murf AI Studio Creator $9.50/hr, and Murf AI Studio Business $8.25/hr.
- Cheapest plan with instant voice cloning (of the plans that say so): Cartesia Pro · $5/mo; ElevenLabs Starter · $6/mo.
- Lowest pay-as-you-go API rate: Murf AI Falcon at $10.00 per 1M characters. More on text-to-speech API pricing.
Characters, credits and minutes
A minute of speech is roughly 750–800 characters by Cartesia's figure, so 1M characters is around 21–22 hours of audio. That ratio is Cartesia's, for its Sonic model; other voices and languages differ, which is why we don't apply it to other vendors.
Credits often cover more than text to speech. On ElevenLabs, all products draw from one monthly pool, and speech to text, music and sound effects use credits at other rates.
Sources: cartesia.ai, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET (page /pricing); elevenlabs.io, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET (page /pricing)
Price changes
Price changes in the last 90 days: Speechify Premium: null → $11.58 (2026-11-04).
Every confirmed change is logged on pricing changes.
Related
Free tiers are on free AI voice generators. Category pages: voice & TTS, voice cloning and speech APIs.
FAQ
What is the cheapest AI voice generator?
By cheapest paid plan with monthly billing, Cartesia Pro at $5/mo with monthly billing.
How much does AI voice cost per minute?
Where vendors publish enough to work it out: Cartesia Pro about 3.75¢–4¢ per minute ($2.25–$2.40 per hour), Cartesia Startup about 2.94¢–3.14¢ per minute ($1.76–$1.88 per hour), Cartesia Scale about 2.8¢–2.99¢ per minute ($1.68–$1.79 per hour), Murf AI Studio Creator about 15.83¢ per minute ($9.50 per hour), and Murf AI Studio Business about 13.75¢ per minute ($8.25 per hour).
How much does text to speech cost per character?
On subscriptions, from $37.38 per 1M characters (Cartesia Scale) to $200.00 (ElevenLabs Starter). API rates run from $10.00 per 1M characters.
Is ElevenLabs or Cartesia cheaper?
Per character on the entry plans, Cartesia Pro is $50.00 per 1M characters and ElevenLabs Starter $200.00. Each tool page lists every plan: ElevenLabs, Cartesia.
Do unused voice credits roll over?
It depends. Cartesia credits roll over up to 2× your monthly amount; ElevenLabs rolls unused credits over when you upgrade; Murf API credit never expires. Each tool page lists its rollover rules.
Sources
Every price and plan fact above comes from these vendor pages, captured and checked at the times shown (ET). Read how we verify prices.
- cartesia.ai/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- elevenlabs.io/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- fliki.ai/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- murf.ai/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- rask.ai/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- resemble.ai/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- speechify.com/pricing/, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- wellsaid.io/ai-voice-pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- deepgram.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET
- elevenlabs.io/pricing/api, checked Oct 20, 2026, 10 PM ET