Deepgram vs PolyAI — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Both Deepgram and PolyAI use custom pricing — request quotes from each 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.
- PolyAI (Per Usage) — PolyAI bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
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.
Enterprise voice AI for customer-facing conversational agents in contact centers. Enterprise-only, all pricing custom-quoted. Focus on large enterprises (banks, retail, healthcare) replacing IVR trees with conversational voice agents. Deployed by JetBlue, Marks & Spencer, PG&E and other Fortune 500 brands.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Deepgram monthly | Deepgram annual | PolyAI monthly | PolyAI annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Pay-as-you-go / — | Free | Free | — | — |
| 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.
PolyAI is worth it if… enterprises replacing legacy IVR (press 1 for support) with natural-language voice agents that can handle multi-turn conversations. Deals typically start at $250K/year and go into the millions for high-volume deployments.
Bottom line: Similar positioning, closer to a preference call than a strategic one.
Choose Deepgram over PolyAI 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 PolyAI if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, custom pricing).
- You match the profile PolyAI is built for: enterprises replacing legacy IVR (press 1 for support) with natural-language voice agents that can handle multi-turn conversations.
- You're building for healthcare and contact centers.
At a glance
| Deepgram | PolyAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Entry price | Custom | Custom |
| Enterprise available | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Per Usage |
| Last verified | — | September 20, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 20, 2026. Tracked daily.