AI speech model prices.
prices as of · 45 models · 52 prices
What a million characters read aloud costs, and what an hour transcribed costs.
The speech model the most providers sell is TTS-1, and the cheapest price for it we can compare is $15 per 1M characters at Azure AI Foundry, read on 17 Sept 2026.
per 1M charactersOne million characters of text read aloud in a standard voice, no voice cloning. Prices are in US dollars.
per hour of audioOne hour of recorded audio transcribed in batch, standard model. Prices are in US dollars.
Most widely sold
TTS-1
Azure AI Foundry$15 per 1M characters
text to speech · 3 providers
The same price OpenAI charges.
Cheapest text-to-speech API
full ranking →text-to-speech models · prices as of
- 1TTS-1Azure AI Foundry · text to speech · 3 providers$15 per 1M characters
- 2TTS 1.1106
OpenAI · text to speech · 1 provider$15 per 1M characters - 3TTS-1 HDAzure AI Foundry · text to speech · 3 providers$30 per 1M characters
- 4TTS 1 HD 1106OpenAI · text to speech · 1 provider$30 per 1M characters
- 5Speech 02 Turbo
MiniMax · text to speech · 1 provider$60 per 1M characters - 6Speech 02 HDMiniMax · text to speech · 1 provider$100 per 1M characters
- 7Eleven Multilingual v2
ElevenLabs · text to speech · 2 providers$180 per 1M characters
Cheapest transcription API
full ranking →transcription models · prices as of
- 1Scribe 1ElevenLabs · speech to text · 1 provider$0.22 per hour of audio
- 2Nova 2
Deepgram · speech to text · 1 provider$0.258 per hour of audio - 3Nova 3 MedicalDeepgram · speech to text · 1 provider$0.312 per hour of audio
- 4WhisperAzure AI Foundry · speech to text · open weights · 3 providers$0.36 per hour of audio
Prices per 1M characters
Models
17
priced per 1M characters
Prices we can compare
22
held beside each other
Providers
8
selling them
Median price
$30
the middle of the market per 1M characters
Prices per hour of audio
Models
28
priced per hour of audio
Prices we can compare
30
held beside each other
Providers
7
selling them
Median price
$0.258
the middle of the market per hour of audio
Providers selling speech models
- Deepgram20 prices
DeepInfra5 prices- ElevenLabs5 prices
Fal5 prices- OpenAI5 prices
- MiniMax4 prices
Vercel AI Gateway4 prices- Azure AI Foundry3 prices
Runway1 price
Rankings, recomputed daily
A price that buys something else, a resolution the list price does not state, or a unit we will not convert without publishing the assumption, is listed on the model's page in a block of its own and ranked nowhere. Neither is a price below the lab's own with nothing published to account for it.