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ElevenLabs vs. Cartesia (January 2025)
Learn how ElevenLabs and Cartesia compare based on features, price, voice quality and more.
Companies are leveraging AI Audio to produce high-quality localized content at scale. We wrote this post (updated as of January 2025) to help you evaluate ElevenLabs versus Cartesia on text to speech quality, overall feature set, pricing, and more to assess which is better for your use case.
ElevenLabs v Cartesia, a quick overview
| Feature | ElevenLabs | Cartesia |
|---|---|---|
| Languages Supported | 32 | 15 |
| Total Number of Voices | 4000+ | ~130 |
| Voice Quality | Unparalleled voice realism | Less depth and reliability |
| Character Limits | 40k characters for Flash v2.5, request stitching | 500 characters for Sonic Turbo English |
| Latency | 75ms + network/application latency | 95ms + network/application latency |
| Price | Pricing tiers that work for creators and businesses | Pricing tiers that work for creators and businesses |
| Voice Cloning | Both Instant Voice Cloning (w/ less than 1 minute of audio) and Professional Voice Cloning (most realistic clones w/ 30 min+ audio) | Instant Voice Cloning with 30 seconds of audio |
| AI Dubbing | Yes, into 29 languages | No |
| Concurrency | Up to 15 on highest self serve tier, custom for enterprise | Up to 15 on highest self serve tier, custom for enterprise |
| API Access | Yes, all plans | Yes, all plans |
Comparing Text to Speech
There are several ways to evaluate text to speech solutions and the way you weight each factor will depend on your use case.
Voice Quality
Realistic, human-like text to speech is essential for driving listener engagement and building great product experiences. You can sample both ElevenLabs versus Cartesia for free their sites or listen to the samples below:
ElevenLabs
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Cartesia
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Supported languages
ElevenLabs powers text to speech in 32 languages. Cartesia only supports 15 languages.
Size of voice library
ElevenLabs allows anyone to share & profit off their voice in their Voice Library. Thousands of people across different ages, regions, languages, and accents have shared their voice which means you can find exactly what you need whether it be a Southern cowboy or a regional British accent. Cartesia has ~130 preset voices today.
Voice Cloning functionality
Both ElevenLabs and Cartesia allow you to create Instant Voice Cloning that approximates your voice with under a minute of audio. ElevenLabs also has Professional Voice Cloning, which allows you to create a custom model of your voice that is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. We find that business and creatives opt for Professional Voice Cloning when they need the highest possible quality for their project.
Max request length and prosody
You can generate up to 40k characters on a single text to speech request with ElevenLabs Flash v2.5, whereas you are limited to 500 characters with Cartesia Sonic.
Longer max text lengths, along with the ability to stitch requests on ElevenLabs, leads to more consistent prosody. For long form content generation like audiobooks, ElevenLabs is best. Otherwise you run the risk of your speaker changing up the delivery, cadence and tone across pages.
Controllability
Both ElevenLabs and Cartesia accept phoneme prompts which enable you to specific the precise pronunciation of a word. ElevenLabs also allows you to upload a pronunciation dictionary which enables consistent pronunciation across a project without having to specify every time a target word comes up in your prompt.
With ElevenLabs Speech to Speech, you can also deliver dialogue exactly as you want it and then transform it into a speaker of your choice.
Latency
ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 returns audio in as low as 75ms (+ network/application latency). Cartesia Sonic returns it's first byte in 95ms (+ network/application latency).
fromelevenlabsimportElevenLabsclient = ElevenLabs(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY",)client.text_to_speech.convert(voice_id="21m00Tcm4TlvDq8ikWAM",model_id="eleven_multilingual_v2",text="Hello! 你好! Hola! नमस्ते! Bonjour! こんにちは! مرحبا! 안녕하세요! Ciao! Cześć! Привіт! வணக்கம்!",)Additional models & products
Today, Cartesia supports only the Text to Speech product and API we've discussed up to this point.
ElevenLabs is a full fledged AI Audio platform, including:
- Conversational AI: Build customizable, interactive voice agents for web, mobile or telephony
Add voice to your agents on web, mobile or telephony in minutes. Our realtime API delivers low latency, full configurability, and seamless scalability.
- AI Dubbing: Localize content into 29 languages to reach a global audience.
Translate audio and video while preserving the emotion, timing, tone and unique characteristics of each speaker
- Text to Sound Effects: Generate sound effects and short instrumental tracks from a simple text prompt.
Create sound effects, instrumental tracks, and more
- Studio: Generate, edit, and customize long-form spoken audio with precision, all within a streamlined workflow.
Your comprehensive workflow for turning books into audiobooks and scripts into podcasts
- Speech to Speech: Convert one voice (source voice) into another (cloned voice) while preserving the tone and delivery of the original voice.
Say it how you want it and hear it delivered in another voice with full control over the delivery
- ElevenReader: Bring any book, article, PDF, newsletter, or text to life on-the-go with ultra realistic AI narration in one app.
Bring any book, article, PDF, newsletter, or text to life with ultra realistic AI narration in one app
- Audio Native: Embed an audio player that creates an automated voice over of your blog or news site.
Create a new medium for engagement with AI narrations by making every article available in audio
Pricing
Both ElevenLabs versus Cartesia offer a free plan along with a set of subscription options that can work for anyone from small creators to enterprises. Across self-serve plans, Cartesia text to speech is roughly one fifth the cost of ElevenLabs.
Overview
ElevenLabs is a premium AI Audio solution used to voice audiobooks and news articles, animate video game characters, help in film pre-production, automate localization processes in entertainment, create dynamic audio content for social media and advertising, and train medical professionals. If you need the highest quality AI Audio, a diverse set of voices, multi-lingual text to speech, additional controllability with speech to speech, or are doing long form content generation, ElevenLabs is for you. For simpler projects where Cartesia's more limited functionality isn't an issue, you may save money with their solution.
Create your own free sound effects using ElevenLabs Free Sound Effects Generator.
Ready to get started with ElevenLabs? Sign up today.
Our AI text to speech technology delivers thousands of high-quality, human-like voices in 32 languages. Whether you’re looking for a free text to speech solution or a premium voice AI generator for commercial projects, our TTS tools & APIs can meet your needs
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