Last updated: 28 June 2026
Amazon Polly vs Cartesia: TTS Pricing Comparison
Amazon Polly is 92% cheaper starting at $0.004/1k chars. Here's the full breakdown of pricing, quality, latency, and language support.
Price Comparison
| Characters | Amazon Polly Standard | Amazon Polly Generative | Cartesia Sonic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $0.04 | $0.30 | $0.50 |
| 100,000 | $0.40 | $3.00 | $5.00 |
| 1,000,000 | $4.00 | $30.00 | $50.00 |
Feature Comparison
Amazon Polly
Best for: High-volume, cost-sensitive applications already running on AWS.
Strengths
- ✓ Cheapest pay-as-you-go option
- ✓ AWS ecosystem integration
- ✓ Free tier (5M chars/mo for 12 months)
- ✓ SSML support
Cartesia
Best for: Ultra-low-latency applications like gaming, real-time voice agents, and interactive experiences.
Strengths
- ✓ Fastest latency (65ms)
- ✓ Voice cloning
- ✓ 40+ languages
- ✓ Streaming support
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Amazon Polly or Cartesia cheaper for text-to-speech?
Amazon Polly is cheaper, starting at $0.004 per 1,000 characters with Amazon Polly Standard. That’s 92% less than Cartesia Sonic at $0.050 per 1,000 characters.
How much does Amazon Polly TTS cost compared to Cartesia?
Amazon Polly pricing starts at $0.004 per 1k chars (Amazon Polly Standard), while Cartesia starts at $0.050 per 1k chars (Cartesia Sonic). For 1 million characters, that’s $4.00 vs $50.00.
Which has better voice quality, Amazon Polly or Cartesia?
Based on TTS Arena benchmarks, Amazon Polly scores higher on voice quality. Amazon Polly’s best model scores 4.1/5 while Cartesia’s best scores 4/5.
Amazon Polly vs Cartesia: which is faster?
Cartesia has lower latency. Amazon Polly’s fastest model has 200ms time-to-first-audio, while Cartesia’s fastest is 65ms.