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Cartesia vs ElevenLabs

Cartesia and ElevenLabs both sell AI voice models through an API with monthly credit plans. Cartesia, a San Francisco company spun out of Stanford research, builds its Sonic and Ink models for low-latency voice agents. ElevenLabs, the larger and better-known of the two, sells one credit pool across speech, voice cloning, dubbing, music, and an agents platform.

Cartesia vs ElevenLabs at a Glance, November 2026

Cartesia vs ElevenLabs at a Glance, November 2026
What buyers compare	Cartesia	ElevenLabs
Price per month	Free: $0. Pro $5, Startup $49, and Scale $299 a month. Enterprise: quote	Free: $0. Starter $6, Creator $22, Pro $99, Scale $299, and Business $990 a month. Enterprise: quote
Free plan or trial	Free plan with 20,000 credits and $1 of voice agent use a month	Free plan with 10,000 credits a month
How usage is counted	Monthly credits for speech, plus prepaid voice agent dollars on most plans	One monthly credit pool shared across speech, dubbing, music, and other products. Text to speech uses about 1 credit per character
Integrations and features	Sonic text to speech, Ink speech to text, voice cloning, and Line for building and running phone and web voice agents	Text to speech, speech to text, instant and professional voice cloning, dubbing, music, and an agents platform
Security and deployment	Scale adds SSO, DPAs, and BAAs. Enterprise adds on-premise or private cloud deployment	Enterprise adds custom SSO, DPA and SLA terms, and BAAs for HIPAA customers
Best for	Developers and product teams building real-time voice agents for support, scheduling, sales, or healthcare calls, where the time before the first word of audio decides whether a caller stays on the line	Product and media teams that need high-quality speech synthesis with a usable API

List prices in US dollars per month before tax, as published on each vendor's site on November 6, 2026, billed monthly unless the cell says otherwise. "Quote" means the vendor sets the price through its sales team.

Which one fits

Cartesia is the stronger pick for teams building real-time voice agents where the first word has to come back fast, while ElevenLabs is the stronger pick for media and product teams that want the widest voice library, cloning, and dubbing.

Choose Cartesia if

You run phone or web voice agents and time to first audio matters most.
You want a $5 entry plan with a commercial license.
You may need on-premise or private cloud deployment later.

Choose ElevenLabs if

You produce audiobooks, narration, or character voices where expressiveness matters most.
You want dubbing, music, and sound effects from the same credit pool.
You want unused credits to roll over for up to two months on paid plans.

What buyers say

“ElevenLabs has been so slow (much slower than the latency they advertise), which makes it almost impossible to use in realtime scenarios unless you can cache and replay the outputs. Cartesia looks to have cracked the time to first token, but i've found their voices to be a bit less consistent than Eleven Labs'.”

islewis · in a comment on Hacker News · March 20, 2025

“What i learned today is that elevenlabs has some serious competition from cartesia... like WOW”

cchance · in a comment on Hacker News · July 8, 2024

“The price tag is a bit on the higher side for my liking. Wish it was a tad more wallet-friendly.”

Rio A. · CTO and co-founder, in a G2 review of ElevenLabs shown on Findstack

Verdict

Cartesia (7.9 out of 10, Recommend) is the choice for teams building real-time voice agents that want fast speech models, plans from $5 a month, and a path to private deployment. ElevenLabs (7.8 out of 10, Recommend) is the choice for media and product teams that want expressive voices, cloning, dubbing, and music from one credit pool, with plans from $6 a month.

Methodology

We read the Cartesia and ElevenLabs pricing pages on November 6, 2026 and recorded every published price, limit, and plan feature. A cell reads "Not published" when the vendor does not state that detail on its site.

Scores and best-fit notes come from the AIR reviews of each product. Buyer quotes come from public review sites and vendor-published customer quotes. Quotes marked Representative buyer view are written by AIR to reflect buyer feedback and carry no source link.

How AIR scores vendors.

Sources

Comparison table

Sources by row, numbered as in the list above: Price per month (Sources 3, 4); Free plan or trial (Sources 3, 4); How usage is counted (Sources 3, 4); Integrations and features (Sources 3, 4); Security and deployment (Sources 3, 4); Best for (Sources 1, 2).

Quote sources

“ElevenLabs has been so slow (much slower than the…” (islewis · in a comment on Hacker News · March 20, 2025): source
“What i learned today is that elevenlabs has some…” (cchance · in a comment on Hacker News · July 8, 2024): source
“The price tag is a bit on the higher…” (Rio A. · CTO and co-founder, in a G2 review of ElevenLabs shown on Findstack): source