Deepgram vs LiveKit — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
LiveKit starts at $50/mo. Deepgram uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Deepgram (Per Usage) — Deepgram bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
- LiveKit (Hybrid) — LiveKit is hybrid: a fixed subscription from $50/mo plus metered usage on top. Your real bill moves with volume, not seat count.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Voice AI infrastructure company — best-known for its speech-to-text and text-to-speech APIs used by voice agents and transcription tools. Usage-based pricing: STT starts at $0.0043/min (Nova-2), TTS starts at $0.015/1K characters. Pay-as-you-go with $200 free credit for new accounts. Enterprise custom for volume + private deployment. Powers voice agents at scale for customers like Vapi, Retell, and enterprise contact centers.
Open-source real-time audio/video infrastructure. LiveKit powers WebRTC for voice, video, and AI agent applications. Cloud pricing: Free tier (100 max concurrent participants, 10K minutes/mo), Build $50/mo (500 participants, 150K minutes), Ship $500/mo (3K participants, 1.5M minutes), Enterprise custom. Self-hosted is fully free (Apache 2.0). LiveKit Agents framework powers voice AI at OpenAI (ChatGPT Advanced Voice), Character.ai, and many voice startups.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Deepgram monthly | Deepgram annual | LiveKit monthly | LiveKit annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Pay-as-you-go / Self-hosted | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Entry paid | — / Ship | — | — | $50 | $50 |
| Pro / power | — / Scale | — | — | $500 | $500 |
| Enterprise | Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Deepgram is worth it if… developers building voice-first products that need low-latency speech APIs at scale. Nova-2 STT is the workhorse — best price/performance for real-time transcription.
LiveKit is worth it if… developers building real-time voice or video features into their products — voice AI agents, video conferencing, live streams. 0).
Bottom line: Choose based on how you want to pay — Deepgram is per usage, LiveKit is hybrid.
Choose Deepgram over LiveKit if…
Choose Deepgram if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, custom pricing).
- You match the profile Deepgram is built for: developers building voice-first products that need low-latency speech APIs at scale.
- You're building for contact centers.
Choose LiveKit if…
- You're fine with a base subscription plus metered usage on top (from $50/mo).
- You match the profile LiveKit is built for: developers building real-time voice or video features into their products — voice AI agents, video conferencing, live streams.
- You need a general-purpose voice agents & speech/audio option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Deepgram | LiveKit | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Entry price | Custom | $50/mo |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Hybrid |
| Last verified | — | September 20, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 20, 2026. Tracked daily.