Text-to-speech, compared.
For realtime telephony, what matters is how fast the first byte arrives, what cloning costs, and whether billing is predictable. Here's where Speak fits - and we're straight about price.
Straight talk on price: Speak is billed per minute of audio ($0.06/min), not per character. If your goal is the cheapest bulk narration, per-character providers can be lower. Speak is tuned for realtime agents - low time-to-first-byte, free cloning, and predictable per-minute cost.
Hear Speak - tap a voice (no signup)
| Provider / model | Latency (TTFB) | Voice cloning | Billing | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PyAI SpeakPyAI | ~32-98 ms TTFB | Free | Per minute of audio ($0.06/min) | PyAI rate card |
| ElevenLabs (Flash v2.5) | ~75 ms (claimed) | Paid | Per character | elevenlabs.io |
| Cartesia (Sonic) | ~90 ms (claimed) | Yes | Per character | cartesia.ai |
| OpenAI (gpt-4o-mini-tts) | Low | No | Per character | openai.com/pricing |
| Deepgram (Aura-2) | Low | No | Per character / min | deepgram.com |
Latency figures marked “claimed” are vendors’ own published numbers and vary by region, text, and config - as of June 2026; verify before relying. Cloning availability and billing model are from public docs.
Why teams pick Speak
- Streaming first byte in ~32-98 ms
- Voice cloning + prompt-to-voice design - free
- Per-minute billing - predictable for telephony
- OpenAI-compatible /v1/audio/speech
- One stack with Hear (STT) and Omni (agents)
Hear it in your own voice.
Start free with $50 in free credits - clone a voice for free and stream it from the first byte.
No credit card - OpenAI-compatible - cancel anytime