Deepgram vs Cartesia pricing
Voice agents: Deepgram from $0.075 vs Cartesia from $0.06; STT: Deepgram from $0.0048 vs Cartesia from $0.0065; TTS: Deepgram from $30.00 vs Cartesia from $37.38.
Last updated · prices checked daily
Voice agent platforms: Deepgram vs Cartesia
Cartesia has the lower listed Voice agents price: $0.06 per minute (Managed voice agents (call duration)) vs $0.075 for Deepgram (Voice Agent API, Standard), about 20% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/min |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Deepgram Visit site ↗ | Voice Agent API, Standard Pay as you go Bundled models Bundled STT + LLM + TTS agent tier. | $0.075 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | Deepgram | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $75.00 | $60.00 |
| 10,000 min | $750.00 | $600.00 |
| 100,000 min | $7,500.00 | $6,000.00 |
Speech-to-text: Deepgram vs Cartesia
Deepgram has the lower listed STT price: $0.0048 per minute (Nova-3 Monolingual (streaming, current price)) vs $0.0065 for Cartesia (Ink (Scale plan)), about 26% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/min |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| Cartesia Visit site ↗ | Ink (Scale plan) | $0.0065 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | Deepgram | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $4.80 | $6.50 |
| 10,000 min | $48.00 | $65.00 |
| 100,000 min | $480.00 | $650.00 |
Text-to-speech: Deepgram vs Cartesia
Deepgram has the lower listed TTS price: $30.00 per 1M characters (Aura-2) vs $37.38 for Cartesia (Sonic (Scale plan, $299 / 8M credits)), about 20% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/1M chars |
|---|---|---|
| Deepgram Visit site ↗ | Aura-2 Pay as you go | $30.00 |
| Cartesia Visit site ↗ | Sonic (Scale plan, $299 / 8M credits) Derived: plan price / included credits; page states 1 credit = 1 character. | $37.38 |
| Cartesia Visit site ↗ | Sonic (Startup plan, $49 / 1.25M credits) Derived: plan price / included credits; page states 1 credit = 1 character. | $39.20 |
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Characters | Deepgram | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1M chars | $30.00 | $37.38 |
| 10M chars | $300.00 | $373.75 |
| 100M chars | $3,000.00 | $3,737.50 |
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 Cartesia cheaper for voice agent platforms?
Cartesia has the lower listed Voice agents price: $0.06 per minute (Managed voice agents (call duration)) vs $0.075 for Deepgram (Voice Agent API, Standard), about 20% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
Is Deepgram or Cartesia cheaper for speech-to-text?
Deepgram has the lower listed STT price: $0.0048 per minute (Nova-3 Monolingual (streaming, current price)) vs $0.0065 for Cartesia (Ink (Scale plan)), about 26% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
Is Deepgram or Cartesia cheaper for text-to-speech?
Deepgram has the lower listed TTS price: $30.00 per 1M characters (Aura-2) vs $37.38 for Cartesia (Sonic (Scale plan, $299 / 8M credits)), about 20% 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.