ElevenLabs vs Cartesia pricing
Voice agents: ElevenLabs from $0.08 vs Cartesia from $0.06; STT: ElevenLabs from $0.0037 vs Cartesia from $0.0065; TTS: ElevenLabs from $40.00 vs Cartesia from $37.38.
Last updated · prices checked daily
Voice agent platforms: ElevenLabs vs Cartesia
Cartesia has the lower listed Voice agents price: $0.06 per minute (Managed voice agents (call duration)) vs $0.08 for ElevenLabs (ElevenLabs Agents (Speech Engine)), about 25% 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 |
| ElevenLabs Try ElevenLabs ↗ | ElevenLabs Agents (Speech Engine) Bundled models Speech models in one agent pipeline; LLM usage may be billed separately. | $0.08 |
"Try" links for ElevenLabs are affiliate links. Source links go to official pricing pages. Disclosure
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | ElevenLabs | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $80.00 | $60.00 |
| 10,000 min | $800.00 | $600.00 |
| 100,000 min | $8,000.00 | $6,000.00 |
Speech-to-text: ElevenLabs vs Cartesia
ElevenLabs has the lower listed STT price: $0.0037 per minute (Scribe v2 (batch)) vs $0.0065 for Cartesia (Ink (Scale plan)), about 44% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/min |
|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs Try ElevenLabs ↗ | Scribe v2 (batch) | $0.0037 |
| ElevenLabs Try ElevenLabs ↗ | Scribe v2 Realtime | $0.0065 |
| Cartesia Visit site ↗ | Ink (Scale plan) | $0.0065 |
"Try" links for ElevenLabs are affiliate links. Source links go to official pricing pages. Disclosure
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Minutes | ElevenLabs | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 min | $3.67 | $6.50 |
| 10,000 min | $36.67 | $65.00 |
| 100,000 min | $366.70 | $650.00 |
Text-to-speech: ElevenLabs vs Cartesia
Cartesia has the lower listed TTS price: $37.38 per 1M characters (Sonic (Scale plan, $299 / 8M credits)) vs $40.00 for ElevenLabs (Flash / Turbo), about 7% less.
| Vendor | Product / tier | $/1M chars |
|---|---|---|
| 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 |
| ElevenLabs Try ElevenLabs ↗ | Flash / Turbo | $40.00 |
| ElevenLabs Try ElevenLabs ↗ | v4 | $80.00 |
| ElevenLabs Try ElevenLabs ↗ | v2 Multilingual | $80.00 |
"Try" links for ElevenLabs are affiliate links. Source links go to official pricing pages. Disclosure
What it costs at volume (lowest listed rate)
| Characters | ElevenLabs | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1M chars | $40.00 | $37.38 |
| 10M chars | $400.00 | $373.75 |
| 100M chars | $4,000.00 | $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 ElevenLabs 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 $0.08 for ElevenLabs (ElevenLabs Agents (Speech Engine)), about 25% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
Is ElevenLabs or Cartesia cheaper for speech-to-text?
ElevenLabs has the lower listed STT price: $0.0037 per minute (Scribe v2 (batch)) vs $0.0065 for Cartesia (Ink (Scale plan)), about 44% less. Prices checked Oct 28, 2026.
Is ElevenLabs or Cartesia cheaper for text-to-speech?
Cartesia has the lower listed TTS price: $37.38 per 1M characters (Sonic (Scale plan, $299 / 8M credits)) vs $40.00 for ElevenLabs (Flash / Turbo), about 7% 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.