Cartesia vs LiveKit Agents pricing
Voice agents: Cartesia from $0.06 vs LiveKit Agents from $0.01.
Last updated · prices checked daily
Voice agent platforms: Cartesia vs LiveKit Agents
LiveKit Agents has the lower listed Voice agents price: $0.01 per minute (Agent session (platform only)) vs $0.06 for Cartesia (Managed voice agents (call duration)), about 83% less.
Not apples to apples: Cartesia's rate is bundled models while LiveKit Agents's is platform fee only. Use the calculator below to add speech, LLM and telephony costs.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/min |
|---|---|---|
| LiveKit Agents Visit site ↗ | Agent session (platform only) Platform fee only Agent hosting only. STT/LLM/TTS inference and telephony billed separately. | $0.01 |
| Cartesia Visit site ↗ | Managed voice agents (call duration) Bundled models Telephony extra ($0.014/min on Cartesia numbers per page); LLM free for UI agents for a limited time. | $0.06 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | Cartesia | LiveKit Agents |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $60.00 | $10.00 |
| 10,000 min | $600.00 | $100.00 |
| 100,000 min | $6,000.00 | $1,000.00 |
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 Cartesia or LiveKit Agents cheaper for voice agent platforms?
LiveKit Agents has the lower listed Voice agents price: $0.01 per minute (Agent session (platform only)) vs $0.06 for Cartesia (Managed voice agents (call duration)), about 83% 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.