Last updated: 28 June 2026
Azure TTS Pricing
Azure AI Speech (formerly Cognitive Services) offers 500+ neural voices across 140+ languages. Features include custom voice cloning, SSML support, and real-time streaming. Includes a generous free tier of 500k characters per month.
Models
1
Neural Standard
From
$0.016
per 1K chars
Quality
3.9/5
Latency
150ms
time-to-first-audio
Languages
140
supported
Free Tier
AvailableAvailable Models & Pricing
Azure Neural Standard
Quality
3.9/5
Latency
150ms
Languages
140
Pay-as-you-go. 500+ voices, 140+ languages.
Cost Examples
| Characters | Neural Standard |
|---|---|
| 1K | $0.016 |
| 10K | $0.160 |
| 100K | $1.60 |
| 1M | $16.00 |
When to Use Azure
Best for
Enterprise applications needing the widest voice variety and Microsoft ecosystem integration.
Key strengths
- ✓500+ voices
- ✓140+ languages
- ✓Free tier (500k chars/mo)
- ✓Custom neural voice cloning
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Azure text-to-speech cost?
Azure Neural TTS costs $16 per million characters ($0.016/1K chars) on pay-as-you-go pricing. Azure also offers a free tier with 500,000 characters per month, making it a cost-effective option for small-to-medium workloads.
Does Azure Speech Services have a free tier?
Yes — Azure Speech Services includes 500,000 characters per month free on the neural TTS tier. This is enough for approximately 500 minutes of spoken audio. Beyond the free tier, you pay $16 per million characters.
How many voices and languages does Azure TTS support?
Azure Speech Services supports over 500 neural voices across 140+ languages and locales, making it the most multilingual TTS API available. By comparison, Google supports 75 languages and ElevenLabs supports 32.
Is Azure TTS cheaper than OpenAI?
Yes — Azure Neural TTS costs $16/1M chars compared to OpenAI tts-1 at $15/1M chars, making them nearly identical in price. However, Azure offers a 500K chars/month free tier and supports 140+ languages vs. OpenAI's ~50, giving Azure better overall value for multilingual projects.