Cartesia vs ElevenLabs vs Higgsfield
A side-by-side look at Cartesia, ElevenLabs and Higgsfield 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
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AI video studio with camera control: Seedance 2.5, Cinema Studio 4.0, API and MCP
- Price
- Free tier; paid plans from €19/mo billed annually (prices exclude VAT)
- Learning
- Moderate
- Best for
- Directors previsualising multi-shot sequences with camera direction and fixed characters
The short version
Where they differ
- Only Higgsfield offers text to image.
- Only Higgsfield offers image editing.
- Only Higgsfield offers text to video.
- Only Higgsfield offers image to video.
- Only Higgsfield offers video to video.
- Only Higgsfield offers native audio in video.
- Cartesia is the only one without music & SFX.
- Only Higgsfield offers upscaling.
- Only Higgsfield offers camera control.
- Only Higgsfield offers third-party models.
All 3 offer: voice / TTS, public API, free tier.
Feature by feature
Cartesia vs ElevenLabs vs Higgsfield: capabilities
| Cartesia | ElevenLabs | Higgsfield | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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. | Free tier; paid plans from €19/mo billed annually (prices exclude VAT) |
| Infinite canvas | No | No | Partial |
| AI agent | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Chat assistant | Not confirmed | Not confirmed | Yes |
| Team collaboration | Not confirmed | Partial | Yes |
| Text to image | No | No | Yes |
| Image editing | No | No | Yes |
| Text to video | No | No | Yes |
| Image to video | No | No | Yes |
| Video to video | No | No | Yes |
| Native audio in video | No | No | Yes |
| Voice / TTS | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Music & SFX | No | Yes | Yes |
| Upscaling | No | No | Yes |
| Character consistency | Partial | Partial | Yes |
| Camera control | No | No | Yes |
| Custom training | Partial | Partial | Not confirmed |
| Third-party models | No | No | Yes |
| Public API | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Not confirmed | Yes |
| Mobile app | Not confirmed | Yes | Partial |
| Desktop / local | Partial | Partial | Not confirmed |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial use | Yes | Yes | Not confirmed |
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 |
Higgsfield
| Free | €0limited use |
|---|---|
| Starter | €19per month, billed annually |
| Plus | €47per month, billed annually (€59 monthly) |
| Ultra | €99per month, billed annually (€129 monthly) |
| Teams | From €65per seat per month |
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
Higgsfield
Pick it for
- Directors previsualising multi-shot sequences with camera direction and fixed characters
- Agencies producing ad variants from a product link or brand assets
- Editors who want generation inside DaVinci Resolve, Photoshop or Blender via plugins or MCP
Stands out
- Many models, one credit balance: Seedance 2.5, Kling 3.0 Turbo, Wan 3.0, Grok Video 1.5, MiniMax H3 Max, Gemini Omni and image models such as FLUX 3 and GPT Image 2.5 run from one account, so you can shop models per shot.
- Cinema Studio 4.0 is a directed-scene workspace (30-second takes, 50 references, camera and colour controls) rather than a single prompt box.
Watch out
- Premium video models are credit-gated on every plan, so high-volume work gets expensive quickly
- The best access terms are time-limited promotions (unlimited windows, the 33-day Seedance 2.5 promotion, cashback offers)
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.