Compare the real monthly cost of AI text-to-speech at your volume across AltSpeak, ElevenLabs, Google Cloud, and Amazon Polly. Free, no sign-up.
Creator tools like AltSpeak and ElevenLabs sell monthly plans metered in credits (about 1 credit per character). Cloud APIs like Google Cloud and Amazon Polly bill pay-as-you-go per 1 million characters, with no studio interface and no ready-made voice picker.
| Characters / month | AltSpeak | ElevenLabs | Google Cloud (Chirp3-HD) | Amazon Polly (Neural) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50,000 | $11 (Creator, 100,000 credits) | $22 (Creator) | about $1.50 | about $0.80 |
| 100,000 | $11 (Creator, 100,000 credits) | $22 (Creator) | about $3.00 | about $1.60 |
| 200,000 | $63 (Pro, 700,000 credits) | higher tier required | about $6.00 | about $3.20 |
| 500,000 | $63 (Pro, 700,000 credits) | higher tier required | about $15.00 | about $8.00 |
| 1,000,000 | exceeds Pro (700,000 credits); contact for higher volume | higher tier required | about $30.00 | about $16.00 |
For most creators (35,000 to 700,000 characters a month), AltSpeak is the cheapest creator tool, around half the price of ElevenLabs at the Creator tier. Raw cloud APIs cost less per character but require a developer to set up a cloud account and write code, with no studio or managed commercial-rights layer. AltSpeak starts free with 10,000 credits.
For most creators, AltSpeak: Creator is $11/month for 100,000 credits versus ElevenLabs Creator at $22/month. Raw cloud APIs cost less per character but require developer setup.
Roughly 1 word is 6 characters including spaces, so 1,000 words is about 6,000 characters. A 10-minute voiceover is around 9,000 to 12,000 characters.
Related: AltSpeak vs ElevenLabs, AltSpeak vs Murf, AltSpeak text to speech.