Updated February 14, 2025

Comparing ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly Voice Models

Q: How does voice cloning work?

Voice cloning uses advanced AI algorithms to replicate a person's voice. By analyzing audio samples, the system learns the unique characteristics of the voice, including tone, pitch, and accent. Once trained, the model can generate new speech that sounds like the original speaker. Cartesia's technology allows for cloning with just a short audio sample, making it efficient and accessible for various applications.

Q: Which provide is the fastest text to speech voice model?

Cartesia's voice AI boasts a low latency of sub 40 ms. This ensures that users experience real-time interactions, making it ideal for applications like customer support and gaming. The low latency is achieved through the use of State Space Models (SSMs), which optimize performance compared to traditional architectures.

Q: Can I customize the cloned voice?

Yes, Cartesia allows users to customize the cloned voice by adjusting parameters such as pitch, speed, and emotion. This flexibility enables developers and content creators to tailor the voice output to suit specific needs and contexts, enhancing the overall user experience. The ability to localize voices to different accents further adds to the customization options available.

Q: What's a better alternative to ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly?

Cartesia is a better alternative—it's the fastest voice model with sub-40ms latency, ultra-realistic voices, and hallucination-free text-to-speech that handles complex transcripts and industry-specific terms accurately. This makes the Cartesia model perfect for a wide range of uses like real-time customer support agents, call centers, healthcare, gaming, sales, and more.

Comparing ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly Voice Models. Discover the differences in features, pricing, and performance.

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Comparing ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly Voice Models

Eleven Labs offers more natural and expressive voices with better emotional range, while Amazon Polly provides reliable, clear speech with extensive language support and AWS integration, though less emotional variation.

Latency

75 ms for the lower quality Flash Model, and 300ms+ for the full model

100ms – 500ms + network time

Voice Quality

Natural and realistic, widely used by all types of content creators

More robotic voices

Character Limits

Limited to 40k characters per request

Limited character count for longer texts

Instant Cloning

Requires 10 seconds of audio

Not supported

Professional Voice Cloning

Requires 60 minutes of audio

Not supported

Pronunciation Accuracy

IPA support but isolated pronunciation

IPA support, isolated pronunciation

Voice Customizations

Stability, similarity, and style exaggeration controls

Telephony Optimization

8kHz audio, telephony optimized voices

8kHz audio

Flexible deployments

No on-device or on-prem support

Languages Supported

Concurrency

Up to 15 on highest self serve tier, custom for enterprise

Up to 18 concurrent

Latency

ElevenLabs 75 ms for the lower quality Flash Model, and 300ms+ for the full model

Amazon Polly 100ms – 500ms + network time

Voice Quality

ElevenLabs Natural and realistic, widely used by all types of content creators

Amazon Polly More robotic voices

Character Limits

ElevenLabs Limited to 40k characters per request

Amazon Polly Limited character count for longer texts

Instant Cloning

ElevenLabs Requires 10 seconds of audio

Amazon Polly Not supported

Professional Voice Cloning

ElevenLabs Requires 60 minutes of audio

Amazon Polly Not supported

Pronunciation Accuracy

ElevenLabs IPA support but isolated pronunciation

Amazon Polly IPA support, isolated pronunciation

Voice Customizations

ElevenLabs Stability, similarity, and style exaggeration controls

Amazon Polly Stability, similarity, and style exaggeration controls

Telephony Optimization

ElevenLabs 8kHz audio, telephony optimized voices

Amazon Polly 8kHz audio

Flexible deployments

ElevenLabs No on-device or on-prem support

Amazon Polly No on-device or on-prem support

Languages Supported

ElevenLabs 32

Amazon Polly 29

Concurrency

ElevenLabs Up to 15 on highest self serve tier, custom for enterprise

Amazon Polly Up to 18 concurrent

Look for a ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly Alternatives?

The Fastest Voice Model

Cartesia's Sonic model achieves a latency of just 40ms, ensuring rapid voice responses.

Voice Clone with 3s of Audio

Instantly clone voices with just 3 seconds of audio, delivering high-fidelity results.

Ultra-Realistic Voices

Cartesia provides lifelike voices that are nearly indistinguishable from human speech.

Enterprise Ready

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

How they stack up

Voice Quality Comparison

When evaluating voice quality between ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly, ElevenLabs stands out with a high pronunciation accuracy of 81.97%.

In comparison, Amazon Polly achieved a slightly lower pronunciation accuracy of 84.72%. However, ElevenLabs has a lower WER of 2.83%, indicating better overall accuracy in speech generation.

Amazon Polly, while slightly behind in WER at 3.18%, maintains a high level of context awareness and prosody accuracy. This evaluation underscores the importance of both pronunciation and overall voice quality in text-to-speech applications.

Latency Analysis

In our latency evaluation, we measured the Time to First Audio (TTFA) for both ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly.

We conducted 100 TTFA measurements for each provider and calculated the 90th percentile score. ElevenLabs demonstrated a TTFA of 135ms, showcasing its efficiency in generating audio quickly. Amazon Polly, while slightly slower, still performed well with a TTFA of 150ms.

This analysis highlights the importance of low latency in real-time applications, where quick audio generation is crucial for user experience.

Hallucination Rate Check

The hallucination rate evaluation between ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly reveals interesting insights.

ElevenLabs, with its advanced algorithms, achieved a lower hallucination rate, indicating that it generates more accurate and contextually relevant speech outputs. In contrast, Amazon Polly, while effective, showed a slightly higher rate of hallucination in certain contexts.

This evaluation emphasizes the need for continuous improvement in AI models to minimize inaccuracies and enhance user trust in voice applications.

Voice Design Control

In assessing voice design controllability, ElevenLabs offers a robust set of features that allow users to fine-tune voice characteristics effectively.

With a high context awareness score of 63.37%, ElevenLabs enables nuanced adjustments in tone and emphasis. Amazon Polly, while also effective, scored slightly lower in context awareness at 55.30%.

This evaluation highlights the importance of controllability in voice design, allowing developers to create tailored experiences that resonate with users.

Pricing Comparison for ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly

Free - $0 per month with 10k characters

Standard voices priced at $4.00 per 1 million characters

Starter - $5 per month with 30k characters

Neural voices priced at $16.00 per 1 million characters

Creator - $11 per month with 100k characters

Long-Form voices priced at $100.00 per 1 million characters

Pro - $99 per month with 500k characters

Generative voices priced at $30 per 1 million characters

Scale - $330 per month with 2M characters

Custom pricing based on usage and requirements

Trusted by leading enterprises. Speaking from experience.

Discover success stories

Elise AI

We didn't switch to Sonic 3.5 because it was incrementally better, we switched because nothing else came close… we've seen a 2.9% lift in our conversion and a 12.2% increase in customer engagement.

ServiceNow

Cartesia's state-space models bring enterprise-grade speed and quality to our AI Voice Agents… making it possible for businesses to deploy secure, scalable voice agents that can understand, act, and adapt in real time.

Sierra

Cartesia Sonic 3.5 has become one of the top-performing models for us by combining low latency with natural pacing… helping us deliver strong voice quality across a growing set of languages where other models often fall short.

Callers

Sonic 3.5 has been a meaningful upgrade for Callers… latency and naturalness directly impact conversational flow and user success, and the new model noticeably improves both. We've seen more human interactions — especially in high-volume customer conversations where every millisecond and every turn matters.

Take2 AI

We moved from an incumbent TTS provider to Cartesia because of the support experience. After repeated roadblocks with our previous provider, the difference with Cartesia has been transformative — responsive, technical, and genuinely invested in our success.

Elise AI

We didn't switch to Sonic 3.5 because it was incrementally better, we switched because nothing else came close… we've seen a 2.9% lift in our conversion and a 12.2% increase in customer engagement.

ServiceNow

Cartesia's state-space models bring enterprise-grade speed and quality to our AI Voice Agents… making it possible for businesses to deploy secure, scalable voice agents that can understand, act, and adapt in real time.

Sierra

Cartesia Sonic 3.5 has become one of the top-performing models for us by combining low latency with natural pacing… helping us deliver strong voice quality across a growing set of languages where other models often fall short.

Callers

Sonic 3.5 has been a meaningful upgrade for Callers… latency and naturalness directly impact conversational flow and user success, and the new model noticeably improves both. We've seen more human interactions — especially in high-volume customer conversations where every millisecond and every turn matters.

Take2 AI

We moved from an incumbent TTS provider to Cartesia because of the support experience. After repeated roadblocks with our previous provider, the difference with Cartesia has been transformative — responsive, technical, and genuinely invested in our success.

Elise AI

We didn't switch to Sonic 3.5 because it was incrementally better, we switched because nothing else came close… we've seen a 2.9% lift in our conversion and a 12.2% increase in customer engagement.

ServiceNow

Cartesia's state-space models bring enterprise-grade speed and quality to our AI Voice Agents… making it possible for businesses to deploy secure, scalable voice agents that can understand, act, and adapt in real time.

Sierra

Cartesia Sonic 3.5 has become one of the top-performing models for us by combining low latency with natural pacing… helping us deliver strong voice quality across a growing set of languages where other models often fall short.

Callers

Sonic 3.5 has been a meaningful upgrade for Callers… latency and naturalness directly impact conversational flow and user success, and the new model noticeably improves both. We've seen more human interactions — especially in high-volume customer conversations where every millisecond and every turn matters.

Take2 AI

We moved from an incumbent TTS provider to Cartesia because of the support experience. After repeated roadblocks with our previous provider, the difference with Cartesia has been transformative — responsive, technical, and genuinely invested in our success.

Elise AI

We didn't switch to Sonic 3.5 because it was incrementally better, we switched because nothing else came close… we've seen a 2.9% lift in our conversion and a 12.2% increase in customer engagement.

ServiceNow

Cartesia's state-space models bring enterprise-grade speed and quality to our AI Voice Agents… making it possible for businesses to deploy secure, scalable voice agents that can understand, act, and adapt in real time.

Sierra

Cartesia Sonic 3.5 has become one of the top-performing models for us by combining low latency with natural pacing… helping us deliver strong voice quality across a growing set of languages where other models often fall short.

Callers

Sonic 3.5 has been a meaningful upgrade for Callers… latency and naturalness directly impact conversational flow and user success, and the new model noticeably improves both. We've seen more human interactions — especially in high-volume customer conversations where every millisecond and every turn matters.

Take2 AI

We moved from an incumbent TTS provider to Cartesia because of the support experience. After repeated roadblocks with our previous provider, the difference with Cartesia has been transformative — responsive, technical, and genuinely invested in our success.

Cresta

Sonic 3.5 represents a significant evolution over previous TTS models, delivering refined prosodic rhythm, natural intonation, superior pacing and wider emotional range for more “human” sounding voices.

Bolna

Indian voice agents live or die on whether order IDs, alphanumerics, and multilingual code-switching come out right on a phone line. Sonic 3.5 handles alphanumerics natively… and lands first audio at 100ms p90.

Goodcall

Sonic is the only product in existence with model latency of less than 100 ms, outperforming its next best alternative by a factor of four. This level of performance represents a quantum leap forward.

Quora

Sonic powers audio on Poe across 100+ voices and 14 languages, supporting Quora's millions of users with SOC 2 compliance and unlimited concurrency for enterprise customers.

Fundamento

We run 20M+ outbound calls per month on Cartesia, with peak concurrency of 5,000 calls in a single minute, and 100ms time-to-first-byte — 2x faster than every other voice provider we tested.

Cresta

Sonic 3.5 represents a significant evolution over previous TTS models, delivering refined prosodic rhythm, natural intonation, superior pacing and wider emotional range for more “human” sounding voices.

Bolna

Indian voice agents live or die on whether order IDs, alphanumerics, and multilingual code-switching come out right on a phone line. Sonic 3.5 handles alphanumerics natively… and lands first audio at 100ms p90.

Goodcall

Sonic is the only product in existence with model latency of less than 100 ms, outperforming its next best alternative by a factor of four. This level of performance represents a quantum leap forward.

Quora

Sonic powers audio on Poe across 100+ voices and 14 languages, supporting Quora's millions of users with SOC 2 compliance and unlimited concurrency for enterprise customers.

Fundamento

We run 20M+ outbound calls per month on Cartesia, with peak concurrency of 5,000 calls in a single minute, and 100ms time-to-first-byte — 2x faster than every other voice provider we tested.

Cresta

Sonic 3.5 represents a significant evolution over previous TTS models, delivering refined prosodic rhythm, natural intonation, superior pacing and wider emotional range for more “human” sounding voices.

Bolna

Indian voice agents live or die on whether order IDs, alphanumerics, and multilingual code-switching come out right on a phone line. Sonic 3.5 handles alphanumerics natively… and lands first audio at 100ms p90.

Goodcall

Sonic is the only product in existence with model latency of less than 100 ms, outperforming its next best alternative by a factor of four. This level of performance represents a quantum leap forward.

Quora

Sonic powers audio on Poe across 100+ voices and 14 languages, supporting Quora's millions of users with SOC 2 compliance and unlimited concurrency for enterprise customers.

Fundamento

We run 20M+ outbound calls per month on Cartesia, with peak concurrency of 5,000 calls in a single minute, and 100ms time-to-first-byte — 2x faster than every other voice provider we tested.

Cresta

Sonic 3.5 represents a significant evolution over previous TTS models, delivering refined prosodic rhythm, natural intonation, superior pacing and wider emotional range for more “human” sounding voices.

Bolna

Indian voice agents live or die on whether order IDs, alphanumerics, and multilingual code-switching come out right on a phone line. Sonic 3.5 handles alphanumerics natively… and lands first audio at 100ms p90.

Goodcall

Sonic is the only product in existence with model latency of less than 100 ms, outperforming its next best alternative by a factor of four. This level of performance represents a quantum leap forward.

Quora

Sonic powers audio on Poe across 100+ voices and 14 languages, supporting Quora's millions of users with SOC 2 compliance and unlimited concurrency for enterprise customers.

Fundamento

We run 20M+ outbound calls per month on Cartesia, with peak concurrency of 5,000 calls in a single minute, and 100ms time-to-first-byte — 2x faster than every other voice provider we tested.

Frequently asked questions

How does voice cloning work?

Which provide is the fastest text to speech voice model?

Can I customize the cloned voice?

What's a better alternative to ElevenLabs and Amazon Polly?