Cartesia
Very fast, natural voices built for voice assistants.
Free plan
- Best for
- Real-time voice apps
- On your PC
- No, online only
- Works on
- Web, API
- Made by
- Cartesia
What’s good
- Fifth on the speech arena
- Very low delay, good for live agents
- Cheap $5 entry plan with cloning
Downsides
- Made for developers, not a reading app
- Higher per-character API price than Google or Fish
At a glance.
- Best for
- Real-time voice apps
- Price
- Free plan, then $5/mo
- For developers
- About $49 per 1M characters
- Version
- Sonic 3.6Released 2026-08
- Works on
- Web, API
- Open source
- No
- Made by
- Cartesia
- Website
- cartesia.ai
How it ranks.
- Artificial Analysis Speech Arena#5 · 12932026-11-05
Can I run it myself?
No. It only runs online.
Your prompts and files go to the company’s servers. See the local options in this category for a private alternative.
Want it offline? The best local option for text to speech is Kokoro.