Fish Audio vs Cartesia on price
Fish Audio is cheaper at every volume from 1 to 100 hours of speech a month. At 10 hours a month, Fish Audio's cheapest option is API, S2.1-Pro at $8.10 and Cartesia's is Pro at $33.60. Fish Audio sells an editor app and an API; Cartesia sells an API.
| Speech a month | Fish Audio | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| 1 hour | $0.81 ($0.013/min) API, S2.1-Pro | $5 ($0.083/min) Pro |
| 5 hours | $4.05 ($0.013/min) API, S2.1-Pro | $16.05 ($0.053/min) Pro |
| 10 hours | $8.10 ($0.013/min) API, S2.1-Pro | $33.60 ($0.056/min) Pro |
| 50 hours | $40.50 ($0.013/min) API, S2.1-Pro | $114 ($0.038/min) Startup |
| 100 hours | $81 ($0.013/min) API, S2.1-Pro | $236 ($0.039/min) Startup |
Each side's cheapest option for the volume, monthly billing where offered, free allowances included; bold marks the cheaper. Per-minute figures assume 900 characters of text per minute of speech.
What the numbers say
- How fast the speech is changes the bill for text-billed plans: at 10 hours a month, Fish Audio costs $6.48 at 720 characters a minute and $9 at 1,000; Cartesia $26.58 and $37.50.
- On Fish Audio, the API is cheaper than the editor app at every volume from 1 to 100 hours a month.
Where the cheaper one changes
Fish Audio is cheaper at every volume from 1 minute to 100 hours of speech a month, so there is no break-even. Within each side, Cartesia's cheapest option is Pro up to 14 hours and Startup from 14 hours.
Plans against pay as you go
| Plan | A month | Minutes included | Same minutes, its own pay as you go | Same minutes on the other side |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fish Audio Plus | $15 $0.075/min | 200 | $2.70 API, S2.1-Pro | $10.20 Cartesia, Pro |
| Fish Audio Pro | $100 $0.062/min | 1,620 | $21.87 API, S2.1-Pro | $58.36 Cartesia, Startup |
| Fish Audio Max | $999 $0.16/min | 6,250 | $84.38 API, S2.1-Pro | $246 Cartesia, Startup |
| Cartesia Pro | $5 $0.045/min | 111 | No pay as you go | $1.50 Fish Audio, API, S2.1-Pro |
| Cartesia Startup | $49 $0.035/min | 1,389 | No pay as you go | $18.75 Fish Audio, API, S2.1-Pro |
| Cartesia Scale | $299 $0.034/min | 8,889 | No pay as you go | $120 Fish Audio, API, S2.1-Pro |
- Used in full, none of the 3 Fish Audio plans costs less than Cartesia charges for the same minutes; the best value, Pro, works out at $0.062 a minute against $0.036 on Cartesia.
- Used in full, none of the 3 Cartesia plans costs less than Fish Audio charges for the same minutes; the best value, Scale, works out at $0.034 a minute against $0.013 on Fish Audio.
Every Fish Audio option at 10 hours a month
| Option | A month | Per minute |
|---|---|---|
| API, S2.1-Pro Billed per UTF-8 byte of text: one a character in plain English, more for accented and non-Latin letters. S2-Pro and S1 cost the same. | $8.10 | $0.013 |
| Pro Fish Audio states up to 1,620 minutes from 2,000,000 credits a month; 3 seats. | $100 | $0.167 |
| Max Fish Audio states up to 6,250 minutes from 25,000,000 credits a month; 10 seats. | $999 | $1.67 |
| Plus Fish Audio states up to 200 minutes from 250,000 credits a month. | Bigger plan | – |
Every Cartesia option at 10 hours a month
| Option | A month | Per minute |
|---|---|---|
| Pro | $33.60 | $0.056 |
| Startup | $49 | $0.082 |
| Scale | $299 | $0.498 |
"Bigger plan" means the plan's minutes run out before 10 hours and no extra-minute price is published.
Fish Audio or Cartesia: quick answers
Is Fish Audio cheaper than Cartesia?
Yes: Fish Audio is cheaper at every volume from 1 minute to 100 hours of speech a month. At 10 hours a month the cheaper side saves $25.50 a month, $306 a year: Fish Audio on API, S2.1-Pro costs $8.10 and Cartesia on Pro $33.60.
Fish Audio or Cartesia: which costs less for 1, 10 or 100 hours of speech a month?
For 1 hour a month, Fish Audio ($0.81 on API, S2.1-Pro, against $5 on Cartesia's Pro). For 10 hours, Fish Audio ($8.10 on API, S2.1-Pro, against $33.60 on Cartesia's Pro). For 100 hours, Fish Audio ($81 on API, S2.1-Pro, against $236 on Cartesia's Startup). Each side's cheapest option, billed monthly where it can be, at 900 characters a minute.
What do Fish Audio and Cartesia cost per minute?
Fish Audio: plans from $15 to $999 a month, $0.062 to $0.16 a minute with the allowance used in full and $0.013 a minute pay as you go ($0.015 per 1,000 UTF-8 bytes). Cartesia: plans from $5 to $299 a month, $0.034 to $0.045 a minute with the allowance used in full and $0.034 to $0.059 a minute beyond it. Minutes assume 900 characters of text each.
Do Fish Audio and Cartesia have a free tier?
Fish Audio: Its Free plan lists “8,000 credits monthly” and “Up to 7 minutes generation”, and its FAQ says “Free plan users can only use generated content for personal, non-commercial projects.” On the API, s2.1-pro-free is “The same model as S2.1-Pro, available at $0 for development and testing”, “Free to use under fair-use limits”. Cartesia: Its plan table lists “Free $0 /mo Start free 20K credits / month”, and overages are for paying plans only: “Paid users can turn on overages to go negative into their credit balance.” 20,000 characters is about 22 minutes of speech.
How do Fish Audio and Cartesia charge for speech?
Fish Audio: The app plans count credits: Plus lists “250,000 credits monthly” and “Up to 200 minutes generation”, while the FAQ says “Each minute of generation costs roughly 600 to 625 credits.” The API counts bytes of text: “TTS pricing is based on the size of input text, measured in millions of UTF-8 bytes.” By its own reckoning, “1M UTF-8 bytes is approximately 180,000 English words, or about 12 hours of speech”. Cartesia: Credits are characters: “Sonic text-to-speech: One minute of audio generation requires 750-800 credits. 1 credit equals 1 character.”
What does a one-off 10-hour job, an audiobook say, cost on Fish Audio or Cartesia?
Fish Audio's cheapest way is pay as you go on API, S2.1-Pro, $8.10; Cartesia's cheapest way is one month of Pro, $33.60.
Price only: voices, languages, latency and licences differ, so try both. Compare every voice tool for your own monthly minutes, or see every text-to-speech API.
Prices on this page were checked against the official pricing pages on .