Cartesia review

★ 3.9/5

AI voice platform

Cartesia is a real-time voice AI platform built around its low-latency Sonic text-to-speech and Ink speech-to-text models, plus Line voice agents for building phone and conversational experiences. It is aimed at developers who need fast, natural-sounding speech at scale via API. Billing is credit-based for TTS/STT and per-minute for voice agent calls.

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Visit Cartesia → last verified 2026-06-01

Affiliate link · how we make money

Best for Low-latency real-time voice apps. Cartesia starts ~$4/mo on a Credit-based subscriptions (TTS/STT billed in credits, ~1 credit per character) layered with usage-based per-minute rates for voice agent calls and telephony; tiers add included credits, concurrency, and features. model. TTS bills ~1 credit per character (about 900 credits per minute of speech), so the $4/mo Pro plan's 100K credits covers roughly 133 minutes of audio; voice agent calls are billed separately at $0.06/minute on top of plan credits.

Spec

pricing modelCredit-based subscriptions (TTS/STT billed in credits, ~1 credit per character) layered with usage-based per-minute rates for voice agent calls and telephony; tiers add included credits, concurrency, and features.
entry price~$4/moverify livedecode →
free tierFree plan: $0/mo with 20K credits/month (~27 min TTS, ~1h 51m STT) plus $1 prepaid voice-agent usage, 1 agent slot, and 2/8 concurrent TTS/STT requests.source →
self-hostNo
MCPNone
integrationsREST/WebSocket APIs and SDKs; integrates with voice agent / telephony stacks (LiveKit, Pipecat, Vapi and similar); Cartesia phone numbers for telephony.source →
API accessYes
affiliateNo public affiliate program

The gotcha

the pricing catch

Included credits sound large but burn fast at ~900 credits per minute of TTS, and voice agent calls ($0.06/min) plus telephony ($0.014/min) are charged on top of your plan via prepaid agent balances, so real-world voice-agent costs scale with usage well beyond the headline subscription price.

Decode the real cost →

Best for

  • You want to build real-time voice agents or apps with fast, high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text via API.

source: cartesia.ai/pricing →

Cartesia pricing tiers

Prices move. Cells flagged verify link to the live vendor page.

Decode Cartesia pricing →
tiermonthlyannualincludedunit
Free $0verify $0 20K credits/mo (~27 min TTS, ~1h 51m STT) + $1 prepaid agents/mo, 1 agent slot, 2/8 concurrent TTS/STT per month
Pro $5verify $4/mo billed yearly (20% off) 100K credits/mo (~133 min TTS, ~9h 16m STT) + $5 prepaid agents/mo, 3 agent slots; adds commercial license and instant voice cloning per month
Startup $39verify $31.20/mo billed yearly (20% off) 1.25M credits/mo (~1,667 min TTS, ~115h STT) + $49 prepaid agents/mo, 5 agent slots; adds professional voice cloning and organizations per month
Scale $239verify $191.20/mo billed yearly (20% off) 8M credits/mo (~10,667 min TTS, ~740h STT) + $299 prepaid agents/mo, 10 agent slots; priority support, high concurrency per month
Enterprise Custom (contact sales)verify Custom (contact sales) Custom credits/agent usage and concurrency, DPAs/BAAs, SSO, shared Slack, volume discounts custom

// pools and per-unit rates are volatile · cells flagged verify link to the live vendor page

Compare Cartesia with…

cartesia pricing decoded→ cartesia alternatives→ best ai voice agents→

Questions

How much does Cartesia cost?

Cartesia starts from ~$4/mo. TTS bills ~1 credit per character (about 900 credits per minute of speech), so the $4/mo Pro plan's 100K credits covers roughly 133 minutes of audio; voice agent calls are billed separately at $0.06/minute on top of plan credits.

Can you self-host Cartesia?

No, Cartesia is cloud-only.

Does Cartesia support MCP?

Cartesia supports MCP as None, so it works with assistants like Claude and ChatGPT.

What's the catch with Cartesia's pricing?

Included credits sound large but burn fast at ~900 credits per minute of TTS, and voice agent calls ($0.06/min) plus telephony ($0.014/min) are charged on top of your plan via prepaid agent balances, so real-world voice-agent costs scale with usage well beyond the headline subscription price.