Cartesia vs ElevenLabs
A side-by-side look at Cartesia and ElevenLabs for filmmakers: what each one can do, what it costs, and where they actually differ.
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Low-latency AI voices (Sonic-3.6) for live agents, dubbing and fast VO drafts
- Price
- Free (20K credits/mo) · Pro $5/mo · Startup $49/mo · Scale $299/mo · Enterprise custom
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Real-time voice agents for phone lines, kiosks and customer support
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Voiceovers, voice cloning, dubbing and music in 90+ languages, with Eleven v4 since Sept 2026
- Price
- Free: 10k credits/mo. Starter from $5/mo billed annually ($6 monthly). Creator $18.33/mo annual ($22 monthly). Pro $99/mo. Scale $299/mo. Business $990/mo.
- Learning
- Easy
- Best for
- Narration and explainer voiceovers that need revisions without re-recording
The short version
Where they differ
- Only ElevenLabs offers music & SFX.
All 2 offer: voice / TTS, public API, free tier, commercial use.
Feature by feature
Cartesia vs ElevenLabs: capabilities
| Cartesia | ElevenLabs | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (20K credits/mo) · Pro $5/mo · Startup $49/mo · Scale $299/mo · Enterprise custom | Free: 10k credits/mo. Starter from $5/mo billed annually ($6 monthly). Creator $18.33/mo annual ($22 monthly). Pro $99/mo. Scale $299/mo. Business $990/mo. |
| AI agent | Yes | Partial |
| Team collaboration | Not confirmed | Partial |
| Voice / TTS | Yes | Yes |
| Music & SFX | No | Yes |
| Character consistency | Partial | Partial |
| Custom training | Partial | Partial |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Not confirmed |
| Mobile app | Not confirmed | Yes |
| Desktop / local | Partial | Partial |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial use | Yes | Yes |
Each column comes from that tool's own researched page. "Not confirmed" means the vendor doesn't say.
Plans
Pricing compared
Cartesia
| Free | $0monthly |
|---|---|
| Pro | $5monthly |
| Startup | $49monthly |
| Scale | $299monthly |
| Enterprise | Customcustom |
ElevenLabs
| Free | $0monthly |
|---|---|
| Starter | $6 ($5 annual)monthly |
| Creator | $22 ($18.33 annual; $11 first month promo)monthly |
| Pro | $99 ($82.50 annual)monthly |
| Scale | $299 ($249.17 annual)monthly |
| Business | $990 ($825 annual)monthly |
| Enterprise | Custommonthly |
The verdict
Which one should you pick?
Cartesia
Pick it for
- Real-time voice agents for phone lines, kiosks and customer support
- Fast VO scratch tracks and rough-cut placeholders before a real session
- Multilingual test versions of a spot or trailer voice-over (44 languages)
Stands out
- Vendor-claimed response time under 90 ms on Sonic-3.6, the main reason to pick it over narration-first TTS tools
- Same vendor covers TTS (Sonic), STT (Ink) and a voice-agent layer (Managed Agents), so one API key runs a full voice loop
Watch out
- Built for speed; the vendor itself says less emotional nuance than ElevenLabs for narration
- No editor or timeline. Output is audio files or streams, so a filmmaker needs a DAW or NLE to place it
ElevenLabs
Pick it for
- Narration and explainer voiceovers that need revisions without re-recording
- Localising a finished film or series into several languages with the original performance kept
- Building a consistent narrator voice across a video series
Stands out
- Voice cloning from about 10 seconds of audio on v4, versus longer samples needed by many rivals
- Dubbing that carries over the original performance and emotion rather than only translating text
Watch out
- Credits are priced per mode (TTS, dubbing with or without watermark, studio), which makes budgeting hard
- The free tier has no commercial license and only about 10 minutes of speech
Each column comes from that tool's own researched page, checked against vendor pricing and changelog pages (oldest check: ). Sources are listed on each tool's page.