Cartesia vs ElevenLabs
We give Cartesia a 2.4 GPA and ElevenLabs a 3.0, out of 4.0. Cartesia grades higher on value for money. ElevenLabs grades higher on features and ease of use. They get the same grade on the free plan and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Cartesia
Low-latency speech models and voice agents for developers
ElevenLabs
AI voice platform for speech, voice cloning, dubbing and voice agents
How we grade them
| 2.4GPACartesiaFair | 3.0GPAElevenLabsVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BPro is $5 a month for 100,000 credits, about 133 minutes of speech, with a commercial license, instant cloning and $5 of agent calls. An hour a month fits on the cheapest paid plan, which undercuts its alternatives for the same amount. | CAn hour of voiceover a month means Creator: $18.33 a month billed yearly ($22 monthly) for 121,000 credits, about 121 minutes of speech. Starter at $5 covers only about 30 minutes. That's the middle of what this category charges, and dubbing and music eat the same credits. |
| Free plan and trial | C20,000 credits a month, about 27 minutes of speech, plus $1 of agent usage. Plenty for testing, but there's no commercial use license, so nothing built on it can go live. | C10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of speech, and 3 Studio projects. But there's no commercial license and no cloning, so nothing you make on it can go in a video you publish. Fine for hearing the voices, not for the job. |
| Features | CStreaming text to speech in dozens of languages, streaming transcription, instant and professional cloning, and voice agents with phone numbers. It does the developer job fully, but that's a narrower job: there's no voiceover editor, as the listing says. | AText to speech in 70+ languages, instant and professional cloning, voices designed from a prompt, dubbing, a long-form Studio, transcription, music, sound effects and voice agents. Nothing else here covers as much, and nothing in the listing shows a gap. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record. It's built for developers: you call it from code with the Python or JavaScript SDK, or try voices in a web playground. Fine if you code, slow going if you don't. | A4.84 from 22,674 App Store ratings, the best in this category. Paste text, pick a voice, press play. Working out what each product costs in credits is the only fiddly part. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb and an API with regional endpoints, plus LiveKit, Pipecat, Rasa and Genesys for voice agents, and on-premise setups through sales. No phone or desktop app. | BWeb, iPhone and Android, with an API and SDKs, and Zapier, Make, n8n, Salesforce and Zendesk connections. No desktop app, which an A needs. |
| Best for | fast speech for developers' voice agents | AI voiceovers that sound like people |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Cartesia and ElevenLabs. How we grade
Price against what you get
Cartesia starts at $5 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. ElevenLabs starts at $5 a month and scores 3.7.
ElevenLabs scores higher for the same starting price. Of the other AI voice generators on the chart, none scores higher than Cartesia for less, and none scores higher than ElevenLabs for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Cartesia starts at $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly. ElevenLabs starts at $5 per month, billed annually ($6 billed monthly).
- Only ElevenLabs lists iOS and Android apps.
- ElevenLabs also covers video generation.
At a glance
| Cartesia | ElevenLabs | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly | $5 per month, billed annually ($6 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | 20,000 credits a month (about 27 minutes of text to speech or 1 hour 51 minutes of speech to text) and $1 of voice agent usage. No commercial use license. | 10,000 credits a month (about 10 minutes of text to speech) and 3 Studio projects. No commercial license and no voice cloning. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Cartesia | Eleven Labs Inc. |
| Price read from | cartesia.ai | elevenlabs.io |
| Checked | Oct 18, 2026 | Oct 18, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Cartesia
- Developers building real-time voice agents and phone bots
- Apps that need fast streaming speech and transcription through one API
- Startups that can use the 12-month credit grant
ElevenLabs
- Creators voicing videos, podcasts and audiobooks
- Dubbing existing videos into other languages
- Developers adding speech or voice agents to their own product
Worth knowing
Cartesia
- Cartesia is a developer platform: you use it through the API or a web playground, and there is no voiceover editor or mobile app.
- The Free plan has no commercial use license; it starts on Pro, which also adds instant cloning. Professional cloning needs Startup or above.
- Paid plans can go past their credits at $65 per million on Pro, $45 on Startup and $38 on Scale; with overages off, requests are blocked.
- Voice agent calls cost $0.06 a minute from the plan's prepaid dollars, plus $0.014 a minute on a Cartesia phone number.
ElevenLabs
- The Free plan has no commercial license or voice cloning; both start on Starter, and Professional Voice Cloning starts on Creator.
- One credit pool covers every product: text to speech costs about 1 credit per character, and dubbing 2,000 to 10,000 credits per minute.
- Professional Voice Clones are limited to your own voice and need a voice check; for instant clones you must confirm you have the right and consent.
- Unused credits roll over for up to two months on paid plans, but downgrading or cancelling forfeits them at the end of the cycle.
Key features
Cartesia
- Sonic text to speech
- A streaming text-to-speech model built for live conversation, with dozens of languages and regional accents. One minute of audio uses about 750 to 800 credits.
- Ink speech to text
- A streaming transcription model with its own concurrency pool, so heavy transcription does not slow text to speech.
- Voice cloning
- Instant clones from 10 seconds of audio start on Pro; Professional clones start on Startup. Cartesia says to clone only your own voice or one you have explicit permission to use.
- Managed Agents
- Build voice agents that answer and make phone calls, with Cartesia-provided phone numbers, from 1 on Free to 10 on Scale.
- Deployment options
- Call the models through regional API endpoints with Python and JavaScript SDKs, or arrange on-premise, private cloud or on-device deployment with sales.
ElevenLabs
- Text to speech
- Generate speech from text in more than 70 languages with Eleven v3 and other models, using stock voices, the shared voice library or voices you design from a prompt.
- Instant and Professional Voice Cloning
- Instant clones are made from a short sample and start on Starter. Professional clones are trained on longer recordings, start on Creator and must be of your own voice.
- Dubbing
- Translate a video's speech into another language automatically, or edit the result line by line in Dubbing Studio, which starts on the Starter plan.
- Studio editor
- A long-form editor for audiobooks, podcasts and voiceovers. The Free plan allows 3 Studio projects and Starter allows 20.
- Speech to text, music and sound effects
- Transcribe audio, generate music and sound effects, isolate voices from noise and change one voice into another, all paid from the same credit pool.
- ElevenAgents and API
- Build voice and chat agents for phone, chat and WhatsApp, or call the speech, transcription and dubbing models from your own app through the API and SDKs.
Plans
Cartesia
Free$0
20,000 credits a month, about 27 minutes of text to speech, plus $1 of prepaid agent usage. Not licensed for commercial use.
Pro$5
per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly
About 133 minutes of text to speech a month, $5 of agent usage, a commercial use license and instant voice cloning.
Startup$49
per month for 1.25M credits, billed monthly
About 1,667 minutes of text to speech a month, $49 of agent usage and 2 Professional Voice Clone slots.
Scale$299
per month for 8M credits, billed monthly
About 10,667 minutes of text to speech a month, $299 of agent usage, 4 Professional Voice Clone slots, priority support and higher concurrency.
EnterpriseCustom
Volume pricing, custom concurrency, DPAs and BAAs, SSO, a shared Slack channel and on-premise or private cloud deployment.
ElevenLabs
Free$0
10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of text to speech, and 3 Studio projects. Not licensed for commercial use.
Starter$5
per month for 30,000 credits, billed annually ($6 billed monthly)
About 30 minutes of speech a month, a commercial license, Instant Voice Cloning, Dubbing Studio and 20 Studio projects.
Creator$18.33
per month for 121,000 credits, billed annually ($22 monthly)
About 121 minutes of speech a month, 1 Professional Voice Clone and the option to buy more credits. The first month is $11 on monthly billing.
Pro$82.50
per month for 600,000 credits, billed annually ($99 monthly)
About 600 minutes of speech a month, 192 kbps audio and 44.1 kHz PCM output through the API.
Scale$249.17
per month for 1.8M credits, billed annually ($299 monthly)
About 1,800 minutes of speech a month, 3 workspace seats, team collaboration and 3 Professional Voice Clones.
Business$825
per month for 6M credits, billed annually ($990 monthly)
About 6,000 minutes of speech a month, 10 seats and 10 Professional Voice Clones. Enterprise above it is custom-priced, with SSO and BAAs.
Ways to pay less
Cartesia
- Startups
Startups Grant: 12 months of credits
Startups at any stage can apply for 12 months of Scale-level usage: 8 million credits a month plus $299 a month for Managed Agents. Students are considered case by case.
ElevenLabs
- Annual discount
Two months free with annual billing
ElevenLabs prices a year at ten times the monthly price: Starter works out to $5 a month instead of $6, and Creator to $18.33 instead of $22.
- Other savings
First month of Creator for $11
The pricing page shows Creator at 50% off for the first month on monthly billing.
- Startups
Startup Grants: 12 months free
Startups building conversational AI agents can apply for a grant of 33 million characters, valid for 12 months.
- Nonprofit
Impact Program for nonprofits
The Impact Program gives free access to nonprofits in healthcare, education and culture, and to people with accessibility needs or permanent voice loss.
- Education
Impact Program for professors and students
Professors and their students can apply to the Impact Program for free access to ElevenLabs.
