Last updated: 28 June 2026
ElevenLabs vs Cartesia: TTS Pricing Comparison
Cartesia is 73% cheaper starting at $0.050/1k chars. Here's the full breakdown of pricing, quality, latency, and language support.
Price Comparison
| Characters | ElevenLabs Starter | ElevenLabs Creator | Cartesia Sonic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $2.00 | $1.82 | $0.50 |
| 100,000 | $20.00 | $18.20 | $5.00 |
| 1,000,000 | $200.00 | $182.00 | $50.00 |
Feature Comparison
ElevenLabs
Best for: Content creators, audiobook producers, and applications where voice quality is the top priority.
Strengths
- ✓ Highest quality voices
- ✓ Professional voice cloning
- ✓ Emotional expressiveness
- ✓ Voice design from text prompts
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 ElevenLabs or Cartesia cheaper for text-to-speech?
Cartesia is cheaper, starting at $0.050 per 1,000 characters with Cartesia Sonic. That’s 73% less than ElevenLabs Creator at $0.182 per 1,000 characters.
How much does ElevenLabs TTS cost compared to Cartesia?
ElevenLabs pricing starts at $0.182 per 1k chars (ElevenLabs Creator), while Cartesia starts at $0.050 per 1k chars (Cartesia Sonic). For 1 million characters, that’s $182.00 vs $50.00.
Which has better voice quality, ElevenLabs or Cartesia?
Based on TTS Arena benchmarks, ElevenLabs scores higher on voice quality. ElevenLabs’s best model scores 4.5/5 while Cartesia’s best scores 4/5.
ElevenLabs vs Cartesia: which is faster?
Cartesia has lower latency. ElevenLabs’s fastest model has 180ms time-to-first-audio, while Cartesia’s fastest is 65ms.