Cartesia vs Rime (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Cartesia grades higher than Rime: 2.4 against 2.2 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 and ease of use. Rime grades higher on the free plan. They get the same grade on features 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
Rime
Voice models for phone agents: text to speech and speech to speech
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 Rime if
- Fits if you build phone or call-center voice agents
- Makes sense if you want per-minute pricing with no monthly fee
Look elsewhere if
- Not for you if you want a text box for voiceovers, because this is built for agents
- Pricey if you want a plan, since Scale starts at $100 a month
- Watch out: custom voices, a HIPAA BAA and the SOC 2 report are Enterprise only
- Watch out: speech to text is listed as free only until Nov 19
How we grade them
| 2.4GPACartesiaFair | 2.2GPARimeFair | |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | CFlex has no monthly fee: Mist v3 at $0.030 a minute, Coda v2 $0.050, Prism $0.080. Scale is $100 a month with rates 20% lower. The one paid plan is far above the category's middle. |
| 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. | B$50 of usage every month on all models, no card. For testing an agent that is a lot of minutes. |
| 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. | CSpeech, speech to speech and speech to text, with cloud, VPC and on-prem options on Enterprise. Custom voices and compliance reports sit there too. |
| 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. | DNo store rating on record. It is an API for developers building agents. |
| 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 and an API, with LiveKit, Pipecat and Twilio listed. |
| Best for | speech through an API for voice agents | voice models for phone agents |
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 Rime. 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. Rime starts at $100 a month and scores 2.0.
Cartesia scores higher and starts $95 a month lower. Of the other AI voice generators on the chart, none scores higher than Cartesia for less, and 24 score higher than Rime 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
- Rime also covers AI agents.
At a glance
| Cartesia | Rime | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly | $100 per month, with $100 of usage credit |
| 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. | $50 of usage every month, renewing monthly, across Prism, Mist v3, Coda v2 and Rime speech to text. No card required. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Cartesia | Rime Labs |
| Price read from | cartesia.ai | rime.ai |
| 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.
Rime
- Flex has no monthly fee and bills usage by the minute: Mist v3 text to speech at $0.030, Coda v2 at $0.050 and Prism speech to speech at $0.080 a minute.
- Scale rates are 20% lower than Flex: $0.024 a minute for Mist v3, $0.040 for Coda v2 and $0.064 for Prism.
- Custom voices, a HIPAA BAA and the SOC 2 Type II report are limited to Enterprise.
- Rime's speech-to-text model is listed as free until Nov 19.
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.
Rime
- Mist v3 text to speech
- Positioned as the lowest-latency model, with 78 voices in English, French, German and Spanish and a listed 37 ms median time to first audio.
- Coda v2 text to speech
- Positioned as the most natural model, with 313 voices across 10 languages including Japanese, Arabic and Hindi, and custom pronunciation lexicons.
- Prism speech to speech
- A model that hears the call, reasons over it and speaks; text is generated before audio so guardrails can check it, and it supports tool calls mid-call.
- Real-time streaming and telephony
- WebSocket streaming and 8 kHz phone audio are on every plan, with LiveKit, Pipecat and other agent-platform integrations.
- Custom voices and self-hosting
- Custom voice cloning and fine-tuning on your own calls are Enterprise features. The text-to-speech models can be self-hosted with Docker Compose or Kubernetes.
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.
Rime
Free$0
$50 of usage each month on all models, no card required; email support and community docs.
Scale$100
per month, billed monthly to your card
$100 of credit a month that rolls over up to $200, with every rate 20% lower than Flex. Usage past the credit is billed at the same rates.
EnterpriseCustom
Volume rates billed annually, cloud, VPC or on-prem deployment, SLAs, custom voices, a HIPAA BAA and a SOC 2 Type II report. Sold through sales.
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.
Rime
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Cartesia or Rime?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Cartesia is cheaper to start with: $5 a month, against $100 a month for Rime. Cartesia starts at $5 per month for 100,000 credits, billed monthly, and Rime starts at $100 per month, with $100 of usage credit.
Which has a free plan, Cartesia or Rime?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Cartesia and Rime 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.