Cartesia vs Neuphonic (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Cartesia grades higher than Neuphonic: 2.4 against 1.4 out of 4.0.
Checked Nov 9, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 9, 2026 and Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Cartesia grades higher on value for money, the free plan, ease of use and platforms. They get the same grade on features.
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
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 Neuphonic if
- Fits if speech has to run on your own hardware
- Makes sense if you want to inspect or adapt open speech models
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you need a price, because none is published
- Skip it if you want a finished app, as this is a developer product
- Watch out: the playground asks you to sign in to keep creating
- Too light for a buyer wanting plans or a free tier, since none is listed
How we grade them
| 2.4GPACartesiaFair | 1.4GPANeuphonicWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | CNo public pricing was found on the site or in the docs, so we leave it at the middle and say plainly that nobody can check the cost. |
| 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. | FNothing free is listed. The playground lets you try a voice, then asks you to sign in to keep going. |
| 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. | COn-device and on-premises speech models for products with privacy needs. The job is narrow, one function. |
| 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. | DA developer product with docs and a contact form, no editor on record. Expect setup. |
| 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. | CWeb and a developer docs site. No integrations or apps listed. |
| Best for | speech through an API for voice agents | speech models you run on your own hardware |
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 Neuphonic. How we grade
Where they differ
- Neuphonic is open source, according to its own site.
- Cartesia also covers transcription.
At a glance
| Cartesia | Neuphonic | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Paid |
| Starts at | $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly | Not published |
| 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. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Cartesia | Neuphonic |
| Price read from | cartesia.ai | Not confirmed |
| Checked | Nov 9, 2026 | Nov 12, 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.
Neuphonic
- No public pricing was found on the site or in the docs, so no plan or price is listed here.
- It is a developer product: the site routes enterprise use to a contact form.
- Trying a voice in the playground asks you to sign in to keep creating.
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.
Neuphonic
- On-device and on-premises
- The site says models run locally, on-prem or at the edge, and describes CPU-native generation with no GPU needed.
- Multilingual speech
- The playground lists text to speech across 44 languages.
- Instant voice cloning
- Clones a voice from a short sample.
- Pronunciation control
- Markup for pauses and phoneme-level pronunciation can be placed in the text.
- Open models
- Open speech models and codecs are published on Hugging Face.
- API and playground
- A browser playground lets visitors try voices, and an API is documented at docs.neuphonic.com.
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.
Neuphonic
Pricing could not be confirmed. See neuphonic.com.
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.
Neuphonic
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Cartesia or Neuphonic?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Cartesia starts at $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly, and Neuphonic has no price we could confirm.
Which has a free plan, Cartesia or Neuphonic?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Cartesia has a free plan. Neuphonic does not.
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.