Cartesia: what’s new and our verdict
Realtime voice AI: text-to-speech, speech-to-text in 44 languages and voice agents, with a free plan and credit tiers.
At a glance
- Evidence
- Reported
- First covered
- Oct 25, 2026
- Last verified
- Oct 25, 2026
- Pricing
- Official page, dated
- Best for
- AI voice and speech
Evidence and ranking
Evidence behind this verdict
- Sources read2 cited sources, latest fetched Oct 25, 2026. (done)
- Facts re-checkedLast verified Oct 25, 2026. (done)
- Not run by us yetWe have not run it, so this is labelled Reported. (not done)
Where we rank it (editorial)
Listed here but not yet ranked. Ranks are editorial picks, not benchmark scores.
Pricing: Read from cartesia.ai/pricing on 2026-10-25. (checked 2026-10-25)
Our verdict
Realtime voice AI: text-to-speech, speech-to-text in 44 languages and voice agents, with a free plan and credit tiers.
Good for
- Developers building low-latency voice agents
Skip if
- You want a consumer voice-over app
Status: Reported. This write-up is based on official release notes and docs; we have not run this release ourselves yet.
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Best for
- Best AI tool for AI voice and speech: Real-time text-to-speech, speech-to-text and voice agents.
Key facts
Cartesia's pricing lists Free ($0, 20K credits and $1 of prepaid agent usage a month), $5 a month (100K credits), $49 a month (1.25M credits) and $299 a month (8M credits), plus custom Enterprise. Its site says speech-to-text covers 44 languages.
- License: Proprietary
- Platforms: API
- Pricing model: Freemium
- Free tier: Free: $0 a month, 20K credits and $1 prepaid agents
- Paid plans: $5/month (100K credits, $5 agents); $49/month (1.25M credits, $49 agents); $299/month (8M credits, $299 agents); Enterprise custom
- How to start: Create an account and API key from cartesia.ai.
- Catalog entry: facts read from the vendor's pages on 2026-10-25. We do not track release notes for this entry.
How to set it up: Get started with Cartesia
These steps come from the vendor's own pages as read on 2026-10-25. We have not run Cartesia.
Get access
Create an account and API key from cartesia.ai.
Check the limits and costs first
Free: $0 a month, 20K credits and $1 prepaid agents. Paid: $5/month (100K credits, $5 agents); $49/month (1.25M credits, $49 agents); $299/month (8M credits, $299 agents); Enterprise custom. Read from cartesia.ai/pricing on 2026-10-25.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Free plan
- Credit tiers published
Cons
- Credits map to usage by model
Alternatives and comparisons
- Vapi: Developer platform for voice agents; $5 free credits, then pay for the minutes you run.
- Deepgram: Voice AI APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and agents with $200 in free credit.
- ElevenLabs: Voice, speech, music and voice-agent platform with a detailed API changelog.
- AssemblyAI: Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go.
FAQ
What is Cartesia?
Cartesia's pricing lists Free ($0, 20K credits and $1 of prepaid agent usage a month), $5 a month (100K credits), $49 a month (1.25M credits) and $299 a month (8M credits), plus custom Enterprise. Its site says speech-to-text covers 44 languages.
Is Cartesia free?
Free: $0 a month, 20K credits and $1 prepaid agents. Paid: $5/month (100K credits, $5 agents); $49/month (1.25M credits, $49 agents); $299/month (8M credits, $299 agents); Enterprise custom. Read from cartesia.ai/pricing on 2026-10-25. Checked 2026-10-25; prices change, so confirm on the vendor's page.
What license is Cartesia under?
Its license: Proprietary. Read from the project's own pages on 2026-10-25.
What we have not verified
- Release date (none published on the pages we read; the date shown is the day we first covered this entry)
- Latency claims (vendor)
Sources
- Cartesia (fetched 2026-10-25)
- Cartesia pricing (fetched 2026-10-25)
Last verified · Agentic Weekly
Related tools
- AssemblyAI: Speech AI APIs for transcription and understanding; start free, pay as you go.
- Deepgram: Voice AI APIs for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and agents with $200 in free credit.
- Murf AI: Text-to-speech platform with a $10 free API trial, pay-as-you-go credits and per-character API pricing.
How to cite this page
Agentic Weekly, "Cartesia: what's new, verdict & setup", last updated 2026-10-25, https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cartesia
Keep the Reported or Tested label when you quote a verdict. Plain-text version: https://theagenticweekly.com/tools/cartesia.md. More for AI assistants: /ai, /tools.json, /llms.txt.
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