AI Voice (TTS) Pricing Comparison
By Jaden Vo · Prices verified October 21, 2026 (checked Oct 2026)
Enter how much audio you generate each month. The table shows the estimated monthly cost on each service, cheapest first, using only prices we verified on official pricing pages.
≈ 60,000 characters ≈ 60.0 minutes (at ~1,000 characters per minute).
| Provider | Type | Est. monthly cost | Pricing basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud – Chirp 3: HD | API | $0.00 | $30 per 1M characters after 1M free each month. |
| Google Cloud – Neural2 | API | $0.00 | $16 per 1M characters after 1M free each month. |
| Google Cloud – WaveNet / Standard | API | $0.00 | $4 per 1M characters after 4M free each month. |
| Murf API – Falcon (low latency) | Pay as you go | $0.60 | $0.01 per 1,000 characters. |
| Azure AI Speech – Neural | API | $0.90 | $15 per 1M characters (pay-as-you-go, US East). A free F0 tier exists. |
| Azure AI Speech – Neural HD | API | $1.32 | $22 per 1M characters (pay-as-you-go, US East). |
| Murf API – Gen2 (studio quality) | Pay as you go | $1.80 | $0.03 per 1,000 characters. |
| ElevenLabs (subscription, commercial) | Plan | $22 (Creator) | Cheapest paid plan with enough credits (~1 credit/char). Commercial use needs Starter+. |
| WellSaid (annual billing) | Plan | $33 ($33/mo annual) | $10/mo (240 min/yr) or $33/mo (2,160 min/yr); shown as monthly equivalent. |
| WellSaid (monthly billing) | Plan | $49 ($49 plan) | $19/mo for 20 download minutes, $49/mo for 180. English voices, commercial rights. |
Prices checked on official pricing pages October 21, 2026, USD, excluding taxes. Not like-for-like: API prices need developer setup, while ElevenLabs and WellSaid are studio apps. Play.ht is not included because we could not verify its pricing.
How to read the results
Plans (ElevenLabs, WellSaid) charge a fixed monthly fee for a quota, so the cost jumps in steps. WellSaid counts downloaded minutes, with unlimited generation. APIs (Murf API, Google Cloud, Azure) bill per character, so cost scales smoothly, and Google includes a free monthly allowance.
Cheapest is not always best. For narration that people will listen to for ten minutes, voice quality matters more than a few dollars. Our ElevenLabs alternatives guide and ElevenLabs vs Murf cover how they sound. Need the length of a script first? Use the script reading time calculator.
FAQ
What is the cheapest text-to-speech service?
For raw API use, Google Cloud WaveNet/Standard voices ($4 per 1M characters after 4M free) and Murf Falcon ($0.01 per 1,000 characters) are the cheapest we verified. They need developer setup and sound less expressive than premium voices.
Why is ElevenLabs more expensive than Google or Azure?
You pay for a studio app, voice library, cloning and commercial licensing in one plan. Cloud APIs are cheaper per character but come with no editor.
Why isn't Play.ht included?
We only list prices we could verify on an official pricing page on the check date. Play.ht's pricing page could not be loaded, so we left it out rather than guess.
How accurate are the estimates?
They assume about 1,000 characters per minute of audio and no retakes. Taxes, regional prices and promotions are excluded.