Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) vs Microsoft Azure Speech pricing
STT: Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) from $0.006 vs Microsoft Azure Speech from $0.003; TTS: Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) from $4.00 vs Microsoft Azure Speech from $15.00.
Last updated · prices checked daily
Speech-to-text: Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) vs Microsoft Azure Speech
Microsoft Azure Speech has the lower listed STT price: $0.003 per minute (Standard batch transcription) vs $0.006 for Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) (Transcribe batch (us-east-1)), about 50% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/min |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure Speech Visit site ↗ | Standard batch transcription | $0.003 |
| Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) Visit site ↗ | Transcribe batch (us-east-1) Taken from AWS's own worked pricing example for US East (N. Virginia). | $0.006 |
| Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) Visit site ↗ | Transcribe streaming (us-east-1) Taken from AWS's own worked pricing example for US East (N. Virginia). | $0.01 |
| Microsoft Azure Speech Visit site ↗ | Standard real-time transcription | $0.0167 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) | Microsoft Azure Speech |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $6.00 | $3.00 |
| 10,000 min | $60.00 | $30.00 |
| 100,000 min | $600.00 | $300.00 |
Text-to-speech: Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) vs Microsoft Azure Speech
Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) has the lower listed TTS price: $4.00 per 1M characters (Polly Standard) vs $15.00 for Microsoft Azure Speech (Neural / Neural HD Flash), about 73% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/1M chars |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) Visit site ↗ | Polly Standard | $4.00 |
| Microsoft Azure Speech Visit site ↗ | Neural / Neural HD Flash | $15.00 |
| Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) Visit site ↗ | Polly Neural | $16.00 |
| Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) Visit site ↗ | Polly Generative | $30.00 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Characters | Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) | Microsoft Azure Speech |
|---|---|---|
| 1M chars | $4.00 | $15.00 |
| 10M chars | $40.00 | $150.00 |
| 100M chars | $400.00 | $1,500.00 |
Cost-per-call calculator
Estimate what one call really costs. Prices come from today's table; LLM and telephony presets are per-minute rates published by Retell and Vapi. Everything is editable.
Cartesia's pricing page puts one minute of speech at 750–800 characters; Rime says about 1,000. The talk share is your own guess at how much of each call the agent is speaking.
FAQ
Is Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) or Microsoft Azure Speech cheaper for speech-to-text?
Microsoft Azure Speech has the lower listed STT price: $0.003 per minute (Standard batch transcription) vs $0.006 for Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) (Transcribe batch (us-east-1)), about 50% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
Is Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) or Microsoft Azure Speech cheaper for text-to-speech?
Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) has the lower listed TTS price: $4.00 per 1M characters (Polly Standard) vs $15.00 for Microsoft Azure Speech (Neural / Neural HD Flash), about 73% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
How often are these prices updated?
Every day. A script reads each vendor's public pricing page, extracts the listed rates and keeps a dated copy, so price changes show up in the history.
All Amazon (Transcribe / Polly) prices · All Microsoft Azure Speech prices