ElevenLabs vs Cartesia
Default scenario: At 10M characters / month, estimated bills are $4,500/yr for Cartesia and $9,590/yr for ElevenLabs. That’s a $5,090 difference before accounting for different features or operating costs.
The services may differ in features, performance, support and the work you need to do yourself. Read the notes and test what matters to your setup.
Your selected usage
10M characters / month
- ElevenLabs: $9,590/yr estimated
- Cartesia: $4,500/yr estimated
Estimated costs at different usage levels
| Usage | ElevenLabs | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| Default scenario10M characters / month | $9,590/yrFree / Pay as you go · $80 per M chars | $4,500/yrScale · $38 per M chars |
| App voice prompts1M characters / month | $950/yrFree / Pay as you go · $80 per M chars | $588/yrStartup · $45 per M chars |
| Audiobooks / video50M characters / month | $47,990/yrFree / Pay as you go · $80 per M chars | $22,740/yrScale · $38 per M chars |
| Voice agent at scale300M characters / month | $287,990/yrFree / Pay as you go · $80 per M chars | $136,740/yrScale · $38 per M chars |
Standard voices and quality vary a lot. Listen before you switch. Voice cloning and commercial-use rights differ by plan. Try your own numbers against all text-to-speech providers.
Side by side
| ElevenLabs | Cartesia | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Premium voice platform with expressive multilingual models, voice cloning and a large voice library; API billed per character in USD. | Low-latency Sonic text-to-speech for voice agents, sold as monthly credit plans with tiered overage rates. |
| Headquarters | 🇺🇸 United States | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Parent jurisdiction | 🇺🇸 United States | 🇺🇸 United States |
| EU self-serve plan | No / not documented | No / not documented |
| GDPR DPA | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | subscription | subscription |
| Free tier | Free / pay-as-you-go: 10,000 characters/month of v4/v3/v2 Multilingual (20,000 Flash/Turbo), then usage-billed. | Free plan: 20K credits/month (~20K characters), no overage. |
| Open source | No | No |
| Source last checked | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-06 |
| Pricing evidence | Published rates | Published rates |
Which should you choose?
Cartesia has the lower estimated bill at every usage level we tested, from 1M characters / month to 1B characters / month.
Choose ElevenLabs if…
Our data shows no advantage on price, residency, jurisdiction or licensing. Compare features in the notes below.
Choose Cartesia if…
- it has the lower estimated bill at App voice prompts, Audiobooks / video and Voice agent at scale usage
Based on estimated list-price bills and the facts above. Features, performance and support aren’t scored.
ElevenLabs pricing
Calculated from the listed vendor rates; exclusions still apply.
| Plan | Base fee / month | 1M additional characters |
|---|---|---|
| Free / Pay as you go | $0 | $80 |
| Starter | $6 | $80 |
| Creator | $22 | $80 |
| Pro | $99 | $80 |
| Scale | $299 | $80 |
| Business | $990 | $80 |
Priced from the ElevenAPI page (elevenlabs.io/pricing/api), which bills API usage in USD per character rather than in the credits of the creator plans at elevenlabs.io/pricing. The standard high-quality models (Eleven v4, v3, v2 Multilingual) list at $0.08 per 1k characters ($80/M); Flash/Turbo, v3 Conversational and v4 Turbo list at $0.04 per 1k ($40/M). A launch promotion cuts v4 to $0.022 and v4 Turbo to $0.011 per 1k until 12 October 2026, with plan allowances raised accordingly (e.g. Business 45M v4 characters); list prices are used here. Included characters at list rate: Free 10k, Starter $6 75k, Creator $22 (first month $11) 275k, Pro $99 1.238M, Scale $299 3.738M, Business $990 12.375M; usage above the allowance is billed at the same per-character rate, so every plan works out to ~$80/M and subscriptions mainly buy concurrency, seats and features (commercial licence, voice cloning). Yearly billing costs 10 months' price. On the creator-side credit plans, v2/v3 Multilingual cost 1 credit/character and Flash/Turbo 0.5-1. Enterprise adds custom pricing, SLAs and EU/India data residency (isolated environments, enterprise-only). Eleven Labs Inc. is incorporated in the US with large operations in London and Warsaw; public DPA at elevenlabs.io/dpa covers self-serve customers.
ElevenLabs plan limits, full rates and cheaper alternatives · official pricing page
Cartesia pricing
Calculated from the listed vendor rates; exclusions still apply.
| Plan | Base fee / month | 1M additional characters |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Pro | $5 | $65 |
| Startup | $49 | $45 |
| Scale | $299 | $38 |
Current model Sonic-3.6; 1 credit = 1 character (750-800 credits per minute of audio). Plans: Free 20K credits, Pro $5 100K, Startup $49 1.25M, Scale $299 8M credits per month; credits are shared with Ink speech-to-text and each plan also includes the same dollar amount of prepaid Managed Agents usage. Paid plans can enable overage at $65 (Pro), $45 (Startup) or $38 (Scale) per 1M credits; unused credits roll over up to 2x the monthly amount. No annual pricing listed. Enterprise: custom volume pricing, BAAs, on-prem/VPC deployment. No EU region documented for self-serve. San Francisco-based; DPA published at cartesia.ai/legal/dpa.
Cartesia plan limits, full rates and cheaper alternatives · official pricing page
Frequently asked questions
Is ElevenLabs cheaper than Cartesia?
Cartesia has the lower estimated bill at every usage level we tested, from 1M characters / month to 1B characters / month. At 10M characters / month, the estimates are $9,590/yr for ElevenLabs and $4,500/yr for Cartesia. Estimates use list prices and leave out features, support and operating costs.
Do ElevenLabs and Cartesia offer EU data residency?
Neither documents EU data residency on a self-serve plan.
Do ElevenLabs and Cartesia have a free tier or trial?
ElevenLabs: Free / pay-as-you-go: 10,000 characters/month of v4/v3/v2 Multilingual (20,000 Flash/Turbo), then usage-billed. Cartesia: Free plan: 20K credits/month (~20K characters), no overage.
Where are ElevenLabs and Cartesia based?
ElevenLabs is headquartered in the United States. Cartesia is headquartered in the United States.