Cartesia vs Gradium (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Cartesia and Gradium share a 2.4 GPA, both have a free plan, and Cartesia starts cheaper, at $5 a month against $12 a month.
Checked Nov 9, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Nov 9, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Cartesia grades higher on value for money. Gradium grades higher on features. They get the same grade on the free plan, ease of use 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
Gradium
Real-time voice AI API for speech, transcription and voice cloning
Which one is for you
Pick Cartesia if
- Fits if you're building a voice agent or phone bot through an API
- Works for developers who want speech and transcription from one API
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you don't write code, or want a voiceover editor or a phone app
- Skip it if you hoped to go live on the free plan, which has no commercial use license
- Tight if you leave overages off, since requests stop when credits run out
- Watch out: overages run $65 per million credits on Pro, and agent calls cost $0.03 a minute plus $0.014 on a Cartesia number
- Pricey if you need a professional voice clone, which starts on the $49 Startup plan
Pick Gradium if
- Fits if you are a developer adding voice to an app through an API
- Makes sense if you need cloned or designed voices and care about data controls
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you stay free: about an hour of speech a month and no commercial use
- Pricey if you need pro voice clones, which start on the $312 a month M plan
- Watch out: plan credits don't roll over, only pay-as-you-go credits do
- Watch out: overage costs 5% to 20% above your plan's own rate if you turn it on, and live translation burns 30 credits a second
How we grade them
| 2.4GPACartesiaFair | 2.4GPAGradiumFair | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 that plan, which is less than its alternatives charge for the same amount. Overages cost $65 per million credits on Pro. | CPaid plans start at $12 a month billed yearly ($13 monthly), about the middle of what voice tools charge. M is $312 and L $1,480 a month for the larger volumes. |
| Free plan and trial | C20,000 credits a month, about 27 minutes of speech, plus $1 of agent usage. Enough to try it, but there's no commercial use license, so nothing built on it can go live. | CFree plan of 45,000 credits a month, about 1 hour of speech, with up to 5 custom voices and no commercial use. You'll reach that in a week or two of real work. |
| 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. | BSpeech both ways, translation, 10-second clones, designed voices and data controls on paid plans. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in the job, though pro clones start on the $312 plan. |
| 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. | CNo store rating on record. It is an API first, so there is code to write, with a web studio for trying voices. |
| 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 studio and an API, deployable via Baseten and SageMaker. No desktop or phone app is listed. |
| Best for | speech through an API for voice agents | voice AI through an API, from developers |
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 Gradium. 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. Gradium starts at $12 a month and scores 2.7.
Gradium scores higher, and starts $7 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other AI voice generators on the chart, none scores higher than Cartesia for less, and 4 score higher than Gradium 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
At a glance
| Cartesia | Gradium | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly | $12 per month, billed yearly ($13 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. | 45k credits a month with text-to-speech, speech-to-text and voice design, which is about 1 hour of speech. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Cartesia | Gradium |
| Price read from | cartesia.ai | gradium.ai |
| Checked | Nov 9, 2026 | Nov 13, 2026 |
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 $0.03 a minute from the plan's prepaid dollars, plus $0.014 a minute on a Cartesia phone number.
Gradium
- Free-plan credits cover about an hour of speech a month, and commercial use needs XS or above.
- Plan credits do not roll over; only pay-as-you-go credits carry into the next month.
- Beyond a plan's credits, overage is billed at 5% to 20% above the plan's own rate if turned on in settings.
- Extra credits cost $7 per 100k on XS, falling to $3.80 on L.
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.
Gradium
- Text-to-speech
- Costs 1 credit per character; the pricing page says about 45,000 characters is roughly an hour of audio.
- Speech-to-text
- Transcription is billed at 3 credits per second of audio, or 4 credits per second with translation.
- Live voice translation
- Speech-to-speech translation costs 30 credits per second, the most credit-hungry feature on the page.
- Voice cloning and design
- A standard clone needs a 10-second sample. Pro voice clones use 30 minutes to a few hours of audio and start on the M plan. Voices can also be designed from a text description.
- Data controls
- Paid plans add data controls such as zero data retention and a choice of EU or US data residency; the vendor lists SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.
- Phonon on-device model
- Gradium describes Phonon as its first open, on-device text-to-speech model.
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.
Gradium
Free$0
45k credits a month, about 1 hour of text-to-speech, with up to 5 custom voices. Commercial use is not included.
XS$12
per month for 225k credits, billed yearly ($13 billed monthly)
About 5 hours of text-to-speech a month, adds commercial use, up to 1,000 voices and data controls.
S$39
per month for 900k credits, billed yearly ($43 billed monthly)
About 20 hours of text-to-speech a month, with cheaper top-ups and lower overage than XS.
M$312
per month for 9M credits, billed yearly ($340 billed monthly)
About 200 hours of text-to-speech a month, adds pro voice cloning (5 pro clones) and higher concurrency.
L$1,480
per month for 45M credits, billed yearly ($1,615 billed monthly)
About 1,000 hours of text-to-speech a month, with 20 pro voice clones and the cheapest top-ups.
EnterpriseCustom
Unlimited credits and custom concurrency, with dedicated inference or on-premises deployment available.
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.
Gradium
- Annual discount
One month free on yearly billing
The pricing page says one month is free when billed yearly: for example XS is $12 a month yearly against $13 monthly.
- Startups
Gradium for startups
Founders can apply for $2,000 or more in credits through the startup program.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Cartesia or Gradium?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Cartesia is cheaper to start with: $5 a month, against $12 a month for Gradium. Cartesia starts at $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly, and Gradium starts at $12 per month, billed yearly ($13 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Cartesia or Gradium?
As of Nov 13, 2026, both Cartesia and Gradium have a free plan.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.