Cartesia vs PlayHT

Explore the differences between Cartesia and PlayHT voice AI models. Discover features, pricing, and performance metrics.

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Comparing Cartesia and PlayHT Voice AI Models

With latency below 40 milliseconds, Cartesia delivers the fastest voice generation available—making it ideal for real-time interactive applications. Its text-to-speech models produce ultra realistic voices with perfect accuracy, offering developers and creators a reliable solution. Though PlayHT provides more voice, it suffers from lower audio quality and longer latency.

Updated on:

Feb 21, 2025

Features

Latency

Latency

Latency

Voice Quality

Voice Quality

Voice Quality

Character Limits

Character Limits

Character Limits

Instant Cloning

Instant Cloning

Instant Cloning

Professional Voice Cloning

Professional Voice Cloning

Professional Voice Cloning

Pronunciation Accuracy

Pronunciation Accuracy

Pronunciation Accuracy

Voice Customizations

Voice Customizations

Voice Customizations

Telephony Optimization

Telephony Optimization

Telephony Optimization

Flexible deployments

Flexible deployments

Flexible deployments

Languages Supported

Languages Supported

Languages Supported

Concurrency

Concurrency

Concurrency

Cartesia

40ms for the Sonic Turbo model, 90ms for the Sonic 2 model

Consistently rated as more natural, expressive, and realistic in blinded human evaluations

Infinite request length

Requires 3 seconds of audio

Requires 30 minutes of audio

IPA support with strong contextual understanding

Slider control for speed and emotion + synthetic voice mixing and design

8kHz audio, telephony optimized voices

Supports both on-prem and on-device deployments

15 languages with extensive dialect coverage

Up to 15 on highest self-serve tier (60 parallel conversations), custom for enterprise

PlayHT

190 ms + network time results in slower response

Voice quality may lack depth and realism

Limited character count for longer texts

Requires 2 seconds to 1 hour of audio

Requires 1 to 2 hours of audio

Pronunciation may lack contextual awareness

Limited customization options available

Basic telephony optimization features

No on-device or on-prem support

142 languages and accents

up to 3 requests per second on highest self serve tier

Cartesia - Advanced AI Voice Capabilities

Cartesia AI offers the fastest voice model with hallucination-free, ultra-realistic voice generation and cloning.

Ultra-Realistic Voices

Cartesia's voices are nearly indistinguishable from human speech, enhancing user engagement and satisfaction.

Enterprise Ready

Enterprise-grade reliability with 99.9% uptime, SOC2 compliance, and full on-premises support.

Voice Quality Evaluation

In terms of voice quality, Cartesia consistently outperforms PlayHT.

Cartesia's Sonic model has been rated 4.7 in independent evaluations, while PlayHT scores lower at 4.38. This is supported by human evaluators, 81.1% of the evaluators preferred Cartesia's voices vs 18.9% prefer PlayHT's voices.

The clarity, naturalness, and emotional sensitivity of Cartesia's voices make them a top choice for applications requiring high-quality audio.

Cartesia

PlayHT

Latency Performance Review

Latency is a crucial factor in voice AI applications. Cartesia's Sonic model boasts a model latency of just 40 ms, significantly faster than PlayHT's 190 ms.

The P90 Latency measurement uses the 90th percentile score from 100 TTFA measurements, demonstrating Cartesia's efficiency. The Sonic model performs faster globally, with verified latencies across Asia, the US, and the EU.

The Sonic model's architecture, based on State Space Models (SSMs), allows for superior latency optimization compared to traditional transformer models used by PlayHT.

Hallucination Analysis

Cartesia's text to speech technology excels in minimizing hallucinations and accurately following the transcript, providing natural audio without errors.

In contrast, PlayHT's models may exhibit more AI hallucinations and inconsistencies, leading to a higher rate of mistakes.

Cartesia's commitment to quality ensures that users receive reliable and accurate voice outputs.

Example #1

Script: If you have any further issues you can contact us on 1-800-212-1212. Our customer support team is ready to help at all times. We are always here to assist you with whatever you need. Have a fantastic day.

Result: PlayHT often hallucinates on number phrases - in this case confuses “1212” for “2122”

Cartesia

PlayHT

Example #2

Script: Thank you for calling, my name is Sarah, how can I help you today? Your confirmation number is Alpha Bravo 7 2 9 Charlie, is that correct? The appointment is scheduled for December 27th, 2024 at 2:00 PM. Please hold while I transfer you to our billing department.

Result: Play misses contextual understanding like the year “2024”

Cartesia

PlayHT

Voice Cloning Comparison

Cartesia excels at voice cloning, creating instant voice replicas from just 5–10 seconds of audio with remarkable similarity to the original audio.

PlayHT, on the other hand, requires longer audio samples and produces less accurate voice clones with more restrictions.

Using advanced technology, Cartesia creates high-quality voice clones that preserve accents and vocal characteristics—even with noisy source audio. Cartesia voice mixing and design features offer diverse voice options, making the experience more versatile. Cartesia generated cloned voices sound nearly identical to the original speakers.

Source

Cartesia

PlayHT

Voice Design Controllability

Cartesia stands out by offering unique features for voice design, including emotion and speed modulation. This allows users to make refined adjustments while maintaining a natural sound. Additionally, Cartesia enables localization, allowing an American voice to adopt a French accent, enhancing versatility.

In contrast, PlayHT provides limited control options, focusing mainly on stability and similarity, which may not meet the diverse needs of users.

Explore Pricing Options for Cartesia and PlayHT

Cartesia

Free - $0 per month with 10k free credits

Pro - $5 per month with 100k credits

Startup - $49 per month with 1.25M credits

Scale - $299 per month with 8M credits

Enterprise - trusted by Fortune 500 companies

PlayHT

Free - $0 per month with 12.5k characters and limited features

Creator - $5 per month with 25k characters per month

Pro - $49 per month with 500k characters per month

Startup - $299 per month with 5M characters per month

Growth - $999.00 /month with 20M characters per month

Trusted by 50K+ Customers

Trusted by 50K+ Customers

Trusted by 50K+ Customers

Frequently asked questions

How does voice cloning work?

How does voice cloning work?

How does voice cloning work?

What is the process for voice cloning?

What is the process for voice cloning?

What is the process for voice cloning?

Can I customize the cloned voice?

Can I customize the cloned voice?

Can I customize the cloned voice?

What languages does Cartesia support for voice cloning?

What languages does Cartesia support for voice cloning?

What languages does Cartesia support for voice cloning?

Real-time, multimodal intelligence for every device.

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HIPAA

SOC-2 Type II

Real-time, multimodal intelligence for every device.

Sign up for early access to new releases

HIPAA

SOC-2 Type II

Real-time, multimodal intelligence for every device.

Sign up for early access to new releases

HIPAA

SOC-2 Type II