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Cartesia vs Tavus

Features, pricing, ratings, and pros and cons, side by side.

Cartesia logo

Cartesia

Real-time speech AI for developers: fast text-to-speech, transcription and voice agents

Freemium
Visit websiteView details
Tavus logo

Tavus

Real-time conversational AI video agents with lifelike faces, voice and memory, built via API

Freemium
Visit websiteView details

Verdict

Cartesia is listed under Audio & Speech AI and Tavus under Video AI. Cartesia scores higher in FinderAtlas's editorial review (8.3 vs 8.0 out of 10), led by value for money and performance & speed. Both have a free plan or trial.

Best overall

Cartesia

  • Developers
  • Voice AI Engineers
  • Contact Centre Teams
  • Enterprises

Choose Cartesia if

  • You want a tool built for Low-latency voice agents, real-time text-to-speech and streaming transcription inside applications.
  • Published time to first audio of about 90 ms for Sonic 3.6, suited to live conversation.
  • Free tier with 20K credits per month and a $5 Pro plan with commercial use and instant cloning.

Choose Tavus if

  • You want a tool built for embedding live, human-like video agents in products for sales, coaching, interviews and training.
  • Full real-time video agent stack (rendering, turn-taking, perception) from one vendor.
  • Both a developer API and a no-code PAL Maker are available.
Best for beginners
Cartesia
Best for business
Cartesia

Features

18 features compared.

  • Sonic Text-to-Speech
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Ink Speech-to-Text
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Managed Agents
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Voice Cloning
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Pronunciation Dictionaries
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Regional API Routing
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Telephony Support
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Python and JavaScript SDKs
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Usage and Access Controls
    Cartesia
    Available
    Tavus
    Not available
  • Conversational Video Interface (CVI)
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • PAL Maker
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Phoenix Rendering
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Sparrow Turn-Taking
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Raven Perception
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Knowledge Base and Memory
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Presentation and Magic Canvas
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Meeting Joins and Browser Use
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available
  • Bring Your Own LLM
    Cartesia
    Not available
    Tavus
    Available

Pricing

Plans as listed by each vendor. Check their sites for current prices.

  • Pricing model
    Cartesia
    Freemium
    Tavus
    Freemium
  • Free plan
    Cartesia
    Yes
    Tavus
    Yes
  • Starting price
    Cartesia
    $0
    Tavus
    $0
  • Plans
    Cartesia
    5 plans
    Tavus
    6 plans

Cartesia plans

  • Free

    $0

    Entry tier for testing text-to-speech and transcription

    • 20K credits/month
    • Text to Speech
    • Speech to Text
    • 2 concurrent TTS requests
    • 1 phone number

  • Pro

    $5/month

    Individuals building with commercial use rights

    • 100K credits/month
    • commercial use license
    • instant voice cloning
    • 3 concurrent TTS requests

  • Startup

    $49/month

    Small teams shipping voice products

    • 1.25M credits/month
    • professional voice cloning (2 slots)
    • Organizations
    • 5 concurrent TTS requests

  • Scale

    $299/month

    Higher-volume production workloads

    • 8M credits/month
    • priority support
    • high concurrency
    • 15 concurrent TTS requests
    • 4 professional voice clone slots

  • Enterprise

    Custom/custom

    Large organizations with custom requirements

    • Custom limits
    • DPAs and BAAs
    • SSO
    • shared Slack channel
    • security questionnaire support

Tavus plans

  • Free

    $0

    Developer tier for testing CVI

    • 20 CVI minutes/month
    • 1 concurrent session
    • 5 min max conversation
    • 10 stock faces

  • Starter

    $22/month

    Entry paid developer plan

    • 60 CVI minutes/month
    • 1 concurrent session
    • 10 min max conversation
    • 1 custom face
    • no pay-as-you-go overage

  • Builder

    $59/month

    Small teams scaling usage

    • 175 CVI minutes/month
    • 3 concurrent sessions
    • 15 min max conversation
    • 3 custom faces
    • $0.35/min overage

  • Growth

    $397/month

    Production workloads

    • 1,300 CVI minutes/month
    • 10 concurrent sessions
    • 60 min max conversation
    • 7 custom faces
    • $0.31/min overage
    • recordings at $0.03/min

  • Business

    $975/month

    High-volume deployments

    • 4,000 CVI minutes/month
    • 15 concurrent sessions
    • 60 min max conversation
    • 15 custom faces
    • $0.26/min overage
    • recordings at $0.03/min

  • Enterprise

    Custom/custom

    Managed, white-labeled deployments

    • Custom minutes and concurrency
    • unlimited custom faces
    • white-labeling
    • SLAs
    • dedicated support

Our ratings

Scored out of 10 by the Finder Atlas editorial team. Last reviewed October 2026.

Cartesia
8.3overall
Tavus
8.0overall

Cartesia leads in 3 categories and Tavus in 1, with 1 tied.

  • Ease of Use

    Tied
    Cartesia
    7.8
    Tavus
    7.8

  • Feature Depth

    Tavus leads by 0.1
    Cartesia
    8.5
    Tavus
    8.6

  • Value for Money

    Cartesia leads by 1.0
    Cartesia
    8.2
    Tavus
    7.2

  • Performance & Speed

    Cartesia leads by 0.5
    Cartesia
    9.0
    Tavus
    8.5

  • Documentation & Support

    Cartesia leads by 0.2
    Cartesia
    8.2
    Tavus
    8.0

Scores weigh documented features, plan value, platform coverage, integrations and user feedback. A missing score means we have not rated that area yet.

Pros and cons

Cartesia

Pros

  • Published time to first audio of about 90 ms for Sonic 3.6, suited to live conversation.
  • Free tier with 20K credits per month and a $5 Pro plan with commercial use and instant cloning.
  • One platform covers text-to-speech, speech-to-text and managed voice agents.
  • Regional endpoints in the US, EU and APAC, with on-premise and on-device options.
  • Frequent releases: the changelog shows monthly model, voice and API updates in 2026.
  • Ranked first on Artificial Analysis speech leaderboards according to the company.

Cons

  • The free tier has no instant voice cloning, only 2 concurrent TTS requests and no commercial license.
  • Credit-based billing with overage up to $65 per 1M credits can be hard to forecast as usage grows.
  • Independent reviews note a smaller preset voice library than some narrative-focused competitors.
  • Developer-oriented; there is no consumer app and no released iOS or Android app.

Tavus

Pros

  • Full real-time video agent stack (rendering, turn-taking, perception) from one vendor.
  • Both a developer API and a no-code PAL Maker are available.
  • Free tier with 20 CVI minutes per month for prototyping.
  • Joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls.
  • Published enterprise case studies, including Salesforce and Orum.

Cons

  • Free and Starter plans cap conversations at 5 and 10 minutes, and Starter has no pay-as-you-go overage.
  • Conversation recordings cost $0.03/min and are unavailable on lower tiers.
  • Pricing page showed conflicting plan tables, which makes costs hard to verify.
  • No publicly released iOS or Android app was found.

Platforms

  • Web
    Cartesia
    Supported
    Tavus
    Supported
  • Windows
    Cartesia
    Not supported
    Tavus
    Not supported
  • macOS
    Cartesia
    Not supported
    Tavus
    Not supported
  • iOS
    Cartesia
    Not supported
    Tavus
    Not supported
  • Android
    Cartesia
    Not supported
    Tavus
    Not supported
  • API
    Cartesia
    Supported
    Tavus
    Supported
  • Browser Extension
    Cartesia
    Not supported
    Tavus
    Not supported

Integrations

Cartesia

3 integrations
  • Twilio
  • Anthropic
  • OpenAI

Tavus

3 integrations
  • Zoom
  • Google Meet
  • Microsoft Teams

Company

  • Company
    Cartesia
    Cartesia
    Tavus
    Tavus
  • Founded
    Cartesia
    2023
    Tavus
    2020
  • Headquarters
    Cartesia
    San Francisco, CA
    Tavus
    San Francisco, CA
  • Listing
    Cartesia
    Claimed
    Tavus
    Claimed

Frequently asked questions

Is Cartesia better than Tavus?

It depends on your workflow. Cartesia is built for Low-latency voice agents, real-time text-to-speech and streaming transcription inside applications. Tavus is built for embedding live, human-like video agents in products for sales, coaching, interviews and training.

What are the key feature differences between Cartesia and Tavus?

Cartesia: Real-time speech AI for developers: fast text-to-speech, transcription and voice agents. Tavus: Real-time conversational AI video agents with lifelike faces, voice and memory, built via API.

Does Cartesia or Tavus have a free plan?

Yes, both do. Cartesia is freemium and Tavus is freemium, and each has a free plan or trial.

Which is cheaper, Cartesia or Tavus?

Both can be used for free. Paid plans differ in limits and features, so compare the tiers in the pricing table above.