Svara TTSTurbovs Cartesia.
Svara TTS Turbo is ₹1 per 1,000 characters on every plan, in 82 languages. Cartesia's Sonic plans work out to $0.037 to $0.065 per 1,000, in 44. Every figure below is dated and sourced.
The short answer.
For voice agents, Svara TTS Turbo costs under a third of Sonic's lowest published rate and speaks 82 languages to its 44, with every voice speaking all of them. Cartesia makes sense if you need on-prem hosting or HIPAA eligibility and your languages are among its 44.
| Side by side |  Svara TTS Turbo |  Cartesia (Sonic 3.6) |
|---|---|---|
| Rate per 1,000 characters | ₹1 | $0.037 to $0.065, by plan and overage |
| Roughly per minute of audio | ~₹1 | ~$0.03 to ~$0.05 (at their 750 to 800 credits a minute) |
| Free tier | 100,000 characters a month, no card | 20,000 credits a month |
| Paid plans | Pay as you go (no monthly fee), or Growth at ₹1,000 per month | $5 to $299 per month (credit subscriptions) |
| Billing unit | Characters, one flat rate on every plan | Credits (1 credit per character for TTS) |
| Concurrent streams | 2 on Pay as you go, 8 on Growth | 2 Free, 3 Pro, 5 Startup, 15 Scale |
| Languages | 82 in one model; every voice speaks all of them | 44 (Sonic 3.6) |
| Voice cloning | Instant, in the API on every plan (beta) | Instant from Pro; professional from Startup |
| Time to first audio | ~80 ms | Sub-90 ms (their figure) |
| API compatibility | OpenAI-style and ElevenLabs-style endpoints | Cartesia API |
Our per-minute estimate uses the rule of thumb that 1,000 characters is about a minute of audio; Cartesia's uses its own figure of 750 to 800 credits a minute.
Where Svara wins.
- Under a third of the rate: $0.01 per 1,000 characters against Cartesia's lowest published $0.037, and ₹1 in India. One flat rate on every plan, no credit tiers.
- A free tier five times the size, 100,000 characters a month against 20,000, with instant voice cloning (beta) included.
- 82 languages against 44: 28 Indic against their 11, and 30 African languages, including Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba and Amharic. Sonic lists no African languages.
- Every voice speaks all 82 languages and switches language mid-sentence without changing character.
- OpenAI-style and ElevenLabs-style endpoints, so an existing client usually switches by changing the base URL.
Where Cartesia fits.
- On-prem and air-gapped deployment, with SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA and PCI compliance, for regulated buyers.
- A few languages Svara does not cover, such as Swedish, Greek and Hebrew.
Switching is a base URL and a voice id
The API speaks the OpenAI speech standard, POST /v1/audio/speech, and an ElevenLabs-compatible surface, and takes text over a WebSocket as your LLM writes it. If your agent runs on LiveKit or Pipecat, the svara-voice Python SDK ships a plugin for each. The free tier is 100,000 characters a month with no card, so you can run your own traffic through both before deciding.
Questions
Competitor rates as of October 2026, read from each vendor's own site. Check the sources before deciding, since prices change. Sources, with our own pages beside them: cartesia.ai/pricing · cartesia.ai/sonic · cartesia.ai · Sonic 3.6 languages · Cartesia changelog · kenpathlabs.com/pricing · API overview.
Also compared: Svara TTS Turbo vs ElevenLabs · Svara TTS Turbo vs Sarvam · ElevenLabs alternatives