Calculator
Speech-to-Text & Text-to-Speech Pricing
Compare STT (per-minute) and TTS (per-1M-character) pricing across 7 providers. Plug in monthly audio minutes and characters to see the cheapest stack.
Pricing data refreshed:
The AITOT Speech Pricing calculator compares Speech-to-Text (STT) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) cost across 7 providers — OpenAI, Google Cloud, Azure AI Speech, AWS (Transcribe + Polly), Deepgram, AssemblyAI, and ElevenLabs. STT is billed per minute of audio; TTS is billed per million characters of input text — different units from every other calculator on this site.
At 10,000 minutes of batch transcription per month, AssemblyAI Universal-2 is cheapest at $25 ($0.0025/min); OpenAI GPT-4o mini Transcribe runs $30. For real-time/streaming, Deepgram Nova-3 leads at $0.0048/min ($48/month at the same volume), just ahead of ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime at $0.0065/min. On the TTS side, 5M characters/month costs $20 on Google Cloud Standard/WaveNet or AWS Polly Standard voices, versus $800 on Google Cloud Studio voices — a 40× spread for the same text.
Streaming/real-time STT costs meaningfully more than batch on the same provider (Azure: 5.5×, AWS: identical, Deepgram: ~1.8×) because it needs always-on low-latency infrastructure. OpenAI is the one outlier on TTS: it bills per token, not per character, so its $/1M-characters figure in this calculator is a derived approximation, not a native rate — flagged wherever it appears.
Speech-to-Text pricing
Cheapest · monthly
AssemblyAI · Universal-2 (pre-recorded)
$0.0025 $ / minute
$25/month
| Provider | Model | $ / minute | Total / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| AssemblyAI | Universal-2 (pre-recorded) | $0.0025 | $25 |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o mini Transcribe | $0.003 | $30 |
| Azure AI Speech | Standard (batch) | $0.003 | $30 |
| AssemblyAI | Universal-3.5 Pro (pre-recorded) | $0.0035 | $35 |
| ElevenLabs | Scribe v1/v2 (batch) | $0.0037 | $37 |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o Transcribe | $0.006 | $60 |
| Deepgram | Nova-3 (pre-recorded) | $0.0077 | $77 |
| Google Cloud | Speech-to-Text v2 (Standard/Chirp) Volume discount to $0.004/min at 2M+ min/month | $0.016 | $160 |
| AWS Transcribe | Standard (batch) | $0.024 | $240 |
Text-to-Speech pricing
Cheapest · monthly
Google Cloud · Standard / WaveNet
$4.00 $ / 1M characters
$20/month
| Provider | Model | $ / 1M characters | Total / mo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud | Standard / WaveNet | $4.00 | $20 |
| AWS Polly | Standard | $4.00 | $20 |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o mini TTS Billed per token ($0.60/M text-input + $12/M audio-output), not per character — figure is a derived approximation from ~1,000 input chars ≈ 1 min audio ≈ $0.015 | $15.00 | $75 |
| Deepgram | Aura-1 | $15.00 | $75 |
| Google Cloud | Neural2 | $16.00 | $80 |
| Azure AI Speech | Neural | $16.00 | $80 |
| AWS Polly | Neural | $16.00 | $80 |
| Azure AI Speech | Neural HD Dropped from $30/M in March 2026 | $22.00 | $110 |
| Google Cloud | Chirp 3: HD | $30.00 | $150 |
| AWS Polly | Generative | $30.00 | $150 |
| Deepgram | Aura-2 | $30.00 | $150 |
| ElevenLabs | Flash / Turbo | $50.00 | $250 |
| AWS Polly | Long-Form | $100.00 | $500 |
| ElevenLabs | Multilingual v2/v3 | $100.00 | $500 |
| Google Cloud | Studio | $160.00 | $800 |
Streaming/real-time STT usually costs more than batch on the same provider. OpenAI TTS bills per token, not per character — its $/1M-characters figure is a derived approximation, not a native rate.
What this calculator does
7 providers, 2 pricing units
STT in $/minute, TTS in $/1M characters — the units every real speech bill actually uses.
Batch vs streaming toggle
STT real-time/streaming pricing differs from batch/pre-recorded by up to 5.5× on the same provider.
Independent STT + TTS tables
Most apps use only one direction (transcribe calls, or narrate content) — compare each separately.
Monthly cost at your volume
Enter your real minutes/characters per month, not a generic per-unit rate.
Cheapest-first sorting
Both tables sort by total monthly cost so the winner at your scale is always row one.
Token-billed TTS flagged
OpenAI GPT-4o mini TTS bills per token — its per-character figure is clearly marked as an approximation.
Quick comparison
Monthly cost at 10,000 STT minutes (batch) + 5M TTS characters
| Component | Cheapest provider | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| STT batch (10k min) | AssemblyAI Universal-2 | $25 |
| STT batch (10k min) | OpenAI GPT-4o mini Transcribe | $30 |
| STT streaming (10k min) | Deepgram Nova-3 (streaming) | $48 |
| TTS (5M chars) | Google Cloud / AWS Polly Standard | $20 |
| TTS (5M chars) | Deepgram Aura-1 | $75 |
| TTS (5M chars) | Google Cloud Studio | $800 |
Standard/base voices are 8–40× cheaper than premium (Studio, Long-Form) tiers for the same character count.
How to use this calculator
Compare Speech-to-Text and Text-to-Speech monthly cost across 7 providers.
- 1
Enter STT minutes/month
Total audio minutes you transcribe monthly — calls, meetings, voicemail, video captions.
- 2
Pick batch or streaming
Batch (pre-recorded) is cheaper. Streaming (real-time) costs more but is required for live captions/voice agents.
- 3
Enter TTS characters/month
Total input text characters you synthesize to audio monthly.
- 4
Compare and pick
Both tables sort cheapest-first. Standard voices win on cost; premium (Studio, Long-Form) voices win on naturalness.
Why use this calculator
- ✓7 providers, STT + TTS
- ✓Batch vs streaming modeling
- ✓Real per-minute + per-character units
- ✓Cheapest-first sorting
- ✓Token-billed TTS flagged, not hidden
- ✓No login required