Does Cartesia have a free tier or trial?

Yes. Cartesia has a Free tier — 20,000 credits/mo + $1/mo prepaid voice-agent balance, no credit card required. Usage beyond that cap is billed at the standard hybrid rate.

Is Cartesia priced per seat or per usage?

Cartesia is priced hybrid: a fixed subscription from $5/month plus metered usage billed per credit. Your bill moves with consumption, not headcount.

How does Cartesia pricing compare to alternatives?

See side-by-side comparisons with Vapi or Retell and Cartesia on saaspricehub.io. Note that Cartesia bills on usage, so total cost depends on volume rather than seat count — normalise both tools to your expected monthly usage before comparing.

Has Cartesia changed its pricing recently?

No pricing changes recorded in the last 6 months of tracking.

Back to Voice Agents & Speech/Audio

Voice Agents & Speech/AudioPublicPrices verified September 20, 2026

Cartesia

Cartesia · Voice Agents & Speech/Audio

Voice AI research lab building state-of-the-art speech synthesis models (Sonic) with ultra-low latency (<100ms). Usage-based pricing: pay-per-character generation, entry rate around $0.017/1K characters. Enterprise custom for volume. Popular with voice agent developers who need faster-than-ElevenLabs synthesis for real-time conversations.

In other words, Cartesia is worth it for developers building real-time voice agents where sub-100ms TTS latency matters (voice interruption handling, conversational feel). Sonic model is competitive with ElevenLabs on quality and faster on latency. Usage-based pricing keeps it flexible for developer teams. Downside: newer than ElevenLabs, smaller voice library, less known outside the voice-AI developer community.

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Pricing summary

Starting price

$5/mo

$4/mo billed annually

Pricing model

Hybrid

Per user / per month

Key limit

Varies by plan

Depends on tier

Additional fees

Varies

2026-09-20 MANUAL VERIFY via WebSearch. BILLING MODEL RESTRUCTURE: Cartesia added a full subscription ladder on top of its historical pay-as-you-go pricing. New tiers Free, Pro $5/mo, Startup ~$49/mo, Scale ~$239/mo, plus Enterprise. Voice Agent (Line) product still usage-billed at $0.06/min flat plus $0.014/min for Cartesia-provided telephony. Pricing Model changed from pure Per Usage to Hybrid to reflect the subscription+usage combo. Entry moves from $0 (pure usage) to $5/mo minimum for commercial use — that gate was the main change. Verification Status upgraded to Verified.

Free trial

Not applicable

Pricing verified for United States.View full pricing details on Cartesia's website

Machine-readable pricing: pricing.md ↓

See all tracked changes →

Alternatives to consider

Need the widest voice library and cloning tools? ElevenLabs. Building a full voice agent stack? Vapi or Retell (which integrate Cartesia). Long-form narration only? Play.ht or ElevenLabs.

All plans

See a plain-English answer to “How much does Cartesia cost?” →

Plan	Monthly	Annual	Key limit
Free	Free	Free	20,000 credits/mo + $1/mo prepaid voice-agent balance, no credit card required
ProEntry tier	$5	$4Save 20%	per mo, 100,000 credits, 3 parallel requests, commercial use, Instant Voice Cloning
Startup	$49	$39Save 20%	per mo, 1.25M credits, Pro Voice Cloning
Scale	$239	$239	per mo (~$2,868/yr), 8M credits, higher parallel-request limits
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	volume + dedicated support
Usage	Free	Free	Voice Agent (Line) $0.06/min on every plan + $0.014/min telephony when using Cartesia-provided phone numbers

All tier prices verified September 20, 2026 · View source →

View price history →

Price history

Price tracking is just getting started for Cartesia. Full history will build as we log changes. See what we have so far →

Common questions about Cartesia

Is Cartesia worth it?: Cartesia is worth it for developers building real-time voice agents where sub-100ms TTS latency matters (voice interruption handling, conversational feel). Sonic model is competitive with ElevenLabs on quality and faster on latency.
What are the pricing tiers of Cartesia?: Cartesia has 6 plans: Free (free), Pro ($5/mo), Startup ($49/mo), Scale ($239/mo), Enterprise (custom), Usage (free).
How is Cartesia priced — per usage or subscription?: Cartesia is priced hybrid. You pay a fixed subscription plus metered usage on top.

Frequently asked questions

About Cartesia pricing.

Cartesia charges $5/month fixed on its Pro tier, plus metered usage on top. The Pro tier includes per mo, 100,000 credits, 3 parallel requests, commercial use, Instant Voice Cloning. Real all-in cost may be higher depending on downstream models, telephony, or storage — see the full pricing breakdown on this page.