Top Google TTS Alternatives in 2024

Overview of Google TTS and Alternatives

Comparison Methodology

To assess the various Text-to-Speech (TTS) services and offer an unbiased comparison, we used a simple, yet effective evaluation method.

We engaged a group of people and asked them to listen to three distinct audio samples produced by each of the seven TTS providers under review. Each participant was then tasked with rating these samples on a scale from 0 (indicating poor quality) to 100 (signifying excellence).

Our rating criteria focused on three key aspects:

• Voice Clarity: This involved assessing the clarity and pronunciation of the voice in each audio sample.
• Human-Like Quality: Participants evaluated how natural and human-like each voice sounded.
• Emotional Expression: The ability of the voice to convey emotions well was also taken into account.

The aim of the survey is to offer a balanced and full analysis of Google TTS alternatives. Below are a couple of audio clips from Google TTS and ElevenLabs for your consideration:

Google TTS

ElevenLabs

Rating System Overview

The following rating requests guided the survey participants in their evaluations:

• Take a moment to listen to the AI-generated text-to-speech audio clip. Is the voice clear? Does it sound like a real person? Does it express emotions well?
• Rate the clip between 0 (poor) and 100 (excellent). 0 means the voice isn't clear, sounds fake, and doesn't show much emotion. 100 means the voice is super clear, sounds just like a real person, and is full of feeling.

Quality Comparison – Google TTS Alternatives

The chart below shows the frequency with which each TTS service was rated as the top performer relative to the other providers in the survey. 

Features Comparison – Google TTS Vs ElevenLabs

Language Support and Customization

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs boasts a library of over 1200 voices across 29 languages, which means users can create speech with deep emotional range and various dialects. The platform’s VoiceLab tool lets you create new voices and enables voice cloning, as well as advanced AI dubbing capabilities.
• Google TTS: With more than 220 voices and 40 languages, including global languages like Mandarin and Spanish. While it offers adjustments in speech output such as rate and pitch, it might not match ElevenLabs in terms of emotional depth. However, its natural-sounding voices and seamless integration with Google products make it a strong contender.

User Experience and Integration

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs is popular in fields requiring nuanced speech, such as podcasting and audiobook production. Its well-documented and supportive API ensures easy integration with various platforms, offering a smooth user experience.
• Google TTS: As a part of Google's AI technologies, Google TTS is designed to provide realistic speech in devices and applications. It stands out for its flexibility in deployment and its ability to integrate easily with Google's wide range of services, making it a practical choice for developers within the Google ecosystem. 

Ease of Use

• ElevenLabs simplifies the TTS process with an intuitive menu bar. Users can easily engage in voice synthesis and cloning through the VoiceLab tool, creating custom voices with minimal effort. The platform's Projects Tool further streamlines the creation of long-form audio content, and its AI dubbing feature adds versatility for video content. A major strength of ElevenLabs lies in its well-documented API, which ensures seamless integration into various workflows, making it accessible for both TTS novices and experts.
• Google TTS is designed for ease of use, offering an accessible platform for integrating lifelike speech into applications. It stands out for its integration with Google's wide array of services. Google TTS's flexible deployment across different environments, from cloud-based to on-premises solutions, caters to a diverse range of user needs, making it a practical choice for various applications.

Pricing and Licensing (at the time of writing - January 2024)

• ElevenLabs
• • Free Tier: Ideal for those experimenting with TTS. It includes 10,000 characters each month, the ability to create three unique voices, access to a selection of shared voices, and basic speech generation in 29 languages. Acknowledgement of ElevenLabs is required when using this tier.
  • Starter Package ($5/month, with a discount for the first month): Enhances the free offering with a monthly allocation of 30,000 characters, the creation of up to 10 personalized voices, and the addition of a commercial usage license.
  • Creator Package ($22/month, with a discount for the first month): Expands capabilities for more prolific users, providing 100,000 characters per month, the creation of up to 30 custom voices, professional-grade voice cloning technology, and superior audio output quality.
  • Independent Publisher Package ($99/month): Specially designed for independent authors and publishing houses, this package provides a hefty 500,000 characters monthly, allows for the creation of up to 160 unique voices, and includes an analytical dashboard to track usage.
  • Growing Business Package ($330/month): Tailored for expanding businesses and larger entities, offering a substantial increase to 2,000,000 characters per month and the ability to create up to 660 custom voices.
  • Enterprise Solution: Custom-designed for specific business needs, this plan offers personalized speech synthesis quotas, access to high-quality voice options, and dedicated support for enterprise-level requirements.
• Google TTS
• • Billing Calculation: Pricing is determined per character, including spaces and most Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) tags. Characters in input strings, including tags and spaces, are counted for billing.
  • Neural2 Voices: The first 1 million bytes each month are free. Post-free usage, the cost is US$0.000016 per byte, equating to US$16 per 1 million bytes.
  • Polyglot (Preview) Voices: Similar to Neural2, the first 1 million bytes are free, with subsequent usage priced at US$0.000016 per byte.
  • Studio (Preview) Voices: These are offered with 100 thousand bytes free per month. After the limit, it's US$0.00016 per byte, or US$160 per 1 million bytes.
  • Standard Voices: Users get 4 million characters free monthly. Beyond this, the rate is US$0.000004 per character, amounting to US$4 per 1 million characters.
  • WaveNet Voices: The initial 1 million characters each month are free, followed by a charge of US$0.000016 per character, translating to US$16 per 1 million characters.

Why Choose ElevenLabs?

The results of our comparison survey highlight ElevenLabs' edge over Google TTS. ElevenLabs secured the top score in 37% of cases, whereas Google TTS reached this mark in only 19% of instances. This notable 18% difference accentuates ElevenLabs' excellence in producing clear and lifelike voices. 

Moreover, ElevenLabs outshined not just Google TTS, but also the other five text-to-speech services in the survey, thus reinforcing its status as an industry leader in terms of voice quality and consistency. 

What Is Google TTS?

Google TTS is a text-to-speech service powered by Google's AI technologies, offering a range of functionalities to convert text into lifelike speech. This service is designed for diverse applications, catering to both individual developers and larger organizations. It's effective in applications that benefit from spoken output, such as interactive voice response systems, digital content narration, and virtual assistants.

Key Capabilities of Google TTS

• Speech Synthesis: Google TTS is renowned for generating high-fidelity speech that mimics human intonation and emotion, making the output sound natural and engaging.
• Voice Selection: The service provides an extensive choice of over 220 voices across more than 40 languages, accommodating a wide range of use cases and preferences.
• Voice Customization: Users can create distinctive voices for their brands or applications, offering a personalized touch that sets them apart.
• Adaptable Audio Controls: Google TTS allows for fine-tuning of the voice output, including adjustments to speaking rate, pitch, and other elements to match specific requirements.
• Deployment Options: The service is flexible in deployment, supporting cloud-based applications as well as on-premises and edge computing environments.
• Custom Voice Training: Google TTS offers the capability to train custom voice models using specific audio recordings, enabling the creation of voices that are tailored to the user's specific needs and contexts.
• Robust Security and Compliance: Google TTS is built with strong security measures and adheres to strict privacy policies, ensuring data protection and compliance with regulatory standards.

What Is ElevenLabs?

ElevenLabs stands out in the text-to-speech technology landscape with its AI-enhanced software, acclaimed for creating speech that closely resembles human expression and emotion.

Key Capabilities of ElevenLabs

• Expansive Voice and Language Options: Offering over 120 distinct voices, ElevenLabs also covers speech generation in 29 languages, paving the way for multilingual and emotionally dynamic speech output.
• Innovative Voice Cloning and Creation: The platform’s VoiceLab feature allows for cloning voices from brief recordings and crafting new synthetic voices, with a rich library of pre-set voice profiles suitable for various needs.
• AI Speech Classifier for Audio Verification: A unique tool that helps identify whether an audio sample is produced by ElevenLabs' AI, contributing to a broader initiative to recognize AI-generated audio.
• Comprehensive Projects Tool: This feature is especially useful for producing extended spoken content, such as audiobooks or dialogue, leveraging context-aware synthetic or custom voices.
• Enhanced AI Dubbing Functionality: Enables versatile voice adaptation across different languages and dialects, making it ideal for global content production.
• Versatile Use Cases: Wide usage across various domains, including podcasting, audiobook narration, and video dubbing. 
• High Ethical Standards: ElevenLabs is committed to ethical technology use, with guidelines in place to prevent misuse such as unauthorized voice cloning and actively monitoring for any breaches of these standards.

Other Google TTS Alternative Services

Final Thoughts

As you can see, while Google TTS has its benefits, it's far from the best text-to-speech software currently on the market. If you're looking to use the industry leading tool then look no further. Sign up for ElevenLabs today.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Can ElevenLabs and Google TTS be integrated into existing applications or workflows?

• ElevenLabs: Certainly, ElevenLabs boasts robust integration capabilities into a variety of applications and workflows. Its intuitive API makes for easy integration with projects such as content creation, audiobook production, and other digital media.
• Google TTS: Google TTS also offers strong integration capabilities. As part of Google's AI technologies, it can be seamlessly used in diverse applications. It’s particularly useful for businesses looking to integrate TTS into their existing Google-based infrastructure or platform.

How do ElevenLabs and Google TTS handle different languages and accents?

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs is adept at managing a multitude of languages, producing speech that is rich in emotional depth and multilingual capability. Its voice cloning feature is particularly effective in capturing various accents, offering substantial flexibility for global use.
• Google TTS: Google TTS stands out with its extensive language and accent support, encompassing over 50 languages and dialects. It allows users to choose from a broad selection of voices, each tailored to fit different linguistic and regional nuances, making it an excellent tool for international applications.

What are the pricing models for ElevenLabs and Google TTS? Are there free trials available?

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs has a range of pricing options, starting with a free plan for beginners or light users. For more advanced features and higher usage limits, ElevenLabs offers several paid subscription tiers.
• Google TTS: Google TTS has a scalable pricing model based on usage, with the first set of characters each month available for free. 

How do ElevenLabs and Google TTS ensure the naturalness and emotional expressiveness of their voices?

• ElevenLabs: Advanced AI algorithms result in speech that is natural-sounding and captures a wide range of emotions. It provides context-sensitive text analysis, ensuring that the voice output matches the emotional tone of the text.
• Google TTS: Delivers speech that is realistic and tries to match human intonation. Users benefit from a variety of voices and speaking styles, allowing for customization that suits different scenarios.

What types of applications or industries commonly use ElevenLabs and Google TTS?

• ElevenLabs: Often chosen by sectors focusing on content creation, digital media, and audiobook production, thanks to emotionally expressive text-to-speech. Popular for applications that need dynamic and engaging audio content, such as podcasts, video narration, and voiceovers.
• Google TTS: Multiple industries, particularly those that benefit from its integration with Google's suite of tools and services. It makes it easy to develop voice user interfaces, such as voicebots in contact centers, voice generation in devices, and accessible electronic program guides. 

Are there customization options available in ElevenLabs and Google TTS for voice characteristics?

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs stands out for its range of customization options. Users can  choose from a wide range of voices, as well as voice cloning and unique voice profiles.
• Google TTS: Offers a wide selection of voices across numerous languages and the ability to adjust speech parameters like pitch and speaking rate means users can tailor the voice output to fit their specific use cases. Additionally, it supports text and Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) for further customization.

How do ElevenLabs and Google TTS handle user data and privacy concerns?

• Check out ElevenLabs privacy policy.
• Google TTS, as part of Google Cloud services, maintains a high standard of privacy and security for user data. Users can access Google Cloud’s privacy policy via their website.

Can ElevenLabs and Google TTS voices be used for commercial purposes?

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs supports commercial usage. Plans include features like voice cloning and high-quality speech synthesis, making them suitable for a range of commercial uses.
• Google TTS: Google TTS allows commercial use and is designed to cater to business and professional needs.

What kind of support and resources do ElevenLabs and Google TTS offer to their users?

• ElevenLabs: ElevenLabs provides support through multiple channels, including customer service, comprehensive FAQs, and knowledge bases. 
• Google TTS: Google TTS offers a wide array of support and resources as part of Google Cloud services. Users have access to detailed documentation, learning materials, and technical support.