Deepgram vs Microsoft Azure Speech pricing
STT: Deepgram from $0.0048 vs Microsoft Azure Speech from $0.003; TTS: Deepgram from $30.00 vs Microsoft Azure Speech from $15.00.
Last updated · prices checked daily
Speech-to-text: Deepgram vs Microsoft Azure Speech
Microsoft Azure Speech has the lower listed STT price: $0.003 per minute (Standard batch transcription) vs $0.0048 for Deepgram (Nova-3 Monolingual (streaming, current price)), about 37% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/min |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure Speech Visit site ↗ | Standard batch transcription | $0.003 |
| Deepgram Visit site ↗ | Nova-3 Monolingual (streaming, current price) Pay as you go Page shows a discounted 'current price' next to a higher 'regular price'. | $0.0048 |
| Deepgram Visit site ↗ | Flux English (streaming, current price) Pay as you go | $0.0065 |
| Microsoft Azure Speech Visit site ↗ | Standard real-time transcription | $0.0167 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | Deepgram | Microsoft Azure Speech |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $4.80 | $3.00 |
| 10,000 min | $48.00 | $30.00 |
| 100,000 min | $480.00 | $300.00 |
Text-to-speech: Deepgram vs Microsoft Azure Speech
Microsoft Azure Speech has the lower listed TTS price: $15.00 per 1M characters (Neural / Neural HD Flash) vs $30.00 for Deepgram (Aura-2), about 50% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/1M chars |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure Speech Visit site ↗ | Neural / Neural HD Flash | $15.00 |
| Deepgram Visit site ↗ | Aura-2 Pay as you go | $30.00 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Characters | Deepgram | Microsoft Azure Speech |
|---|---|---|
| 1M chars | $30.00 | $15.00 |
| 10M chars | $300.00 | $150.00 |
| 100M chars | $3,000.00 | $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 Deepgram 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 $0.0048 for Deepgram (Nova-3 Monolingual (streaming, current price)), about 37% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
Is Deepgram or Microsoft Azure Speech cheaper for text-to-speech?
Microsoft Azure Speech has the lower listed TTS price: $15.00 per 1M characters (Neural / Neural HD Flash) vs $30.00 for Deepgram (Aura-2), about 50% 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.