Voice layer · secondary to AI receptionists
Cartesia vs ElevenLabs for Business Phone Voices
Cartesia Pro ($5/mo) is cheaper than ElevenLabs Starter ($6/mo), and both include a commercial license. ElevenLabs documents μ-law, A-law and PCM phone output in its API docs, while we have not verified Cartesia's formats. Both sell text-to-speech for phone greetings and voice agents. Prices read 2026-10-28.
How do Cartesia and ElevenLabs compare?
Tools whose published plan includes a commercial license come first, by lowest published price; then the rest, by price. Affiliate status never changes the order. Not published means the vendor does not publish it, or we have not yet read it with a date.
Ordered by: commercial license published first, then lowest published price.
| # | Tool | Monthly price from (USD/mo) | Free tier | Commercial use | API | μ-law output | SOC 2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cartesia | $5 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| 2 | ElevenLabs | $6 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published |
Prices, sources and check dates for every value are in the full table.
See all fields (16 columns with sources and dates)
Ordered by: commercial license published first, then lowest published price.
| # | Tool | Monthly price from (USD/mo) | Annual billing (USD/mo equivalent) | Free tier | Included audio (minutes/mo) | Overage (USD per minute) | Price per 1,000 characters (USD) | Price per minute of audio (USD) | Commercial use | Voice cloning | API | μ-law output | 8 kHz output | Languages (count) | Voices (count) | SOC 2 | HIPAA BAA | Price source and date checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cartesia | $5 | Not published | Yes | — | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | Not published | — | — | Yes | Enterprise only | cartesia.ai/pricing, checked |
| 2 | ElevenLabs | $6 | $5 | Yes | — | Not published | Not published | Not published | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not published | 74 | — | Not published | Enterprise only | elevenlabs.io/pricing, checked |
Telephony formats: 8 kHz is narrowband phone audio; μ-law (G.711) is the encoding most US phone lines use. A voice needs one of these to play on a phone line without resampling.
Audio samples coming
Top pick per use case
Prices come from each vendor pricing page, checked 2026-10-28. No partners in voice yet, so vendor names are plain text.
Chosen only on free tier, commercial rights, price, published phone formats and compliance claims.
| Use case | Top pick | Why (published facts) |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest entry with commercial rights | Cartesia | Pro $5/mo vs Starter $6/mo |
| Documented phone output formats | ElevenLabs | μ-law/A-law in API docs; Cartesia's not verified |
| Voice agents per minute | Cartesia | $0.06/min published (ElevenLabs not verified) |
Plan by plan
| Cartesia | ElevenLabs | |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 20K credits/mo (about 27 min) | 10k credits/mo (about 10 min) |
| Entry | Pro $5/mo, 100K credits (about 133 min) | Starter $6/mo ($5 annual), 30k credits (about 30 min) |
| Next tiers | Startup $49/mo, 1.25M credits | Creator $22/mo, 121k credits; Pro $99/mo, 600k credits |
| Overage | $65 / $45 / $38 per 1M credits (Pro / Startup / Scale) | About $0.20 / $0.18 / $0.17 per extra minute (Starter / Creator / Pro) |
| Agents | $0.06/min; phone number $0.014/min | Not verified |
| Cloning | Instant on Pro; pro clone on Startup | Instant on Starter; pro clone on Creator |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II; BAAs on Enterprise | BAAs for HIPAA on Enterprise |
| Phone formats | Not verified | μ-law, A-law, PCM |
Need calls answered, not audio?
Both are voice engines, not receptionists. Get matched with an AI receptionist if you want a service that answers your phone.
What do people ask most?
These are the questions we get most, answered from published vendor data.
Which is cheaper for a phone greeting?
Cartesia's entry plan is $1 less ($5 vs $6). Cartesia lists about 133 minutes of text-to-speech on Pro and ElevenLabs about 30 on Starter, but each vendor defines credits differently, so compare minutes rather than credits.