Thirty minutes of narrated audio within US$22 a month: which speech route closes the brief?
The price condition is easy here and the deliverable condition is not, and two of the rows below show why both halves of that sentence are true. Two vendors now publish the conversion this brief rests on: Typecast states that 30,000 download credits a month is about 35 minutes, and Cartesia states about 133 minutes on its $5 Pro tier, with one credit equal to one character - so the arithmetic can be done from vendor numbers instead of guessed. Neither row closes, because in both cases the file format is documented for the API rather than for the studio or playground quoted here. Amazon Polly is the cheapest route of the four by a wide margin - pay-as-you-go at $4.00 per million characters, which the vendor itself converts to about 23 hours of speech, with the output yours to store and reuse - but it is not a plan, its rate is region-dependent, and half an hour of narration has to be assembled under a 3,000-billed-character request limit. ElevenLabs is where it was: Creator at US$22 a month fits the cap and is where the higher API audio format begins, but no page read here converts its credits into minutes, and the free tier is excluded on rights rather than on price. Music and voice agents belong to other briefs.
Latest source row read 2026-10-15
The task
Spend no more than US$22 in a month without annual prepayment to produce about thirty minutes of clean narrated audio for a paid course or a client video, export the finished files as MP3 or WAV, and hold the permission that publishing them commercially needs. Music, sung vocals, cloning another personβs voice and live-call voice agents are out of scope.
The most recently read source row was read on 2026-10-15; each source row on a guide page carries its own read date. Budgets assume a US personal account, USD before tax and monthly billing without annual prepayment. Region, eligibility and checkout prices can differ, and nothing here is a generation, quality or workload test.
Candidates
Meets the documented conditions is not the same as a completed task: it means the conditions listed in the official pages are satisfied, and the limits below still apply.
ElevenLabs Creator
Unconfirmed; not recommended yetThis month: US$22 a month fits the cap. The US$11 first month is a promotion and the annual plan bills ten months; neither is used here.
Fits the price and clears the format side of the brief: the web exports MP3 and WAV within the plan allowance, 192kbps MP3 through the API starts at this tier, professional cloning is included, and eligible paid plans carry unused credits over for up to two months. Non-Beta content generated while subscribed can be used commercially under the terms. What is missing is the arithmetic the task rests on: no page read here states how many characters or minutes 121,000 monthly credits buy, so thirty minutes of finished narration stays unestablished at this tier.
ElevenLabs - audio output formats by tierElevenLabs - credits and rolloverElevenLabs - publishing and rightsElevenLabs - professional voice cloning
- Consumption depends on the product and the model in use, so a credit figure does not turn into minutes of speech on its own.
- The same tier is quoted as 220k characters of v3 usage on the API page and as 121k credits on the Creative page, so confirm which meter your route uses before assuming an allowance.
- Rights follow the tier and the timing: free output is generally non-commercial and needs attribution, and upgrading does not retroactively license output made on the free tier.
- A cloned voice is a separate decision: professional cloning takes roughly 30-180 minutes of sample audio, starts at this tier, and the documentation is written around verifying your own voice.
ElevenLabs - voice cloningElevenLabs - professional voice cloning
Typecast Studio Basic
Unconfirmed; not recommended yetThis month: US$5 a month billed monthly, with the US$54 annual figure separate: within the US$22 cap, and the monthly price is the one used here.
The price and the arithmetic both fit: Basic is US$5 a month with 30,000 download credits, which the vendor itself converts to about 35 minutes, and voice generation and playback are free on every plan - so the thirty minutes of narration this brief asks for sits inside the published allowance under the vendor's own conversion rather than ours. Basic also lists a commercial licence, with attribution optional from that tier up. What keeps the row open is the export format: the API documentation states WAV or MP3, but the studio's current download help page (31 July 2026) names no file type, and the only page read here that lists mp3 and wav for the studio interface is an article for the earlier UI, last modified in January 2024.
Typecast - Studio pricingTypecast - documentation and download help
- We did not establish a studio export format, and the API documents belong to a separate subscription rather than to the plan quoted here.
Typecast - documentation and download helpTypecast - API pricing
- Credits are deducted when you download and that action cannot be cancelled, and the free tier's 3,000 credits are lifetime rather than monthly.
- Output stays on the vendor servers for one year and re-downloading needs an active subscription, so save the finished files locally.
- The pricing page sells a commercial licence from Basic while the terms prohibit commercial use without prior consent, so record which plan was active when each clip was made.
- Whether your content is used to train models is not stated on any page read here.
Cartesia Pro
Unconfirmed; not recommended yetThis month: US$5 a month, renewed monthly from the purchase date: within the US$22 cap, and the plan table states 100K credits a month as about 133 minutes of Sonic-3.6 audio.
The arithmetic and the rights fit, on the vendor's own numbers. Pro is US$5 a month with 100K credits, the plan table converts that into about 133 minutes of Sonic-3.6 audio, and the FAQ states that a minute of generation takes 750-800 credits with one credit equal to one character - so thirty minutes of narration sits well inside the plan, and the commercial use licence is listed from this tier up. What keeps the row open is the export: the API reference documents the container as WAV, MP3 or RAW, but no page read here describes what the playground exports, so the format is established for the API route and not for the web one. One caveat runs the other way from a rights perspective: the terms state that inputs, outputs and interactions may be used to train and improve Cartesia's models unless the opt-out form is filed.
Cartesia - pricingCartesia - API reference, text to speechCartesia - Terms of Service
- A metered plan is still a plan: Pro caps TTS concurrency at 3 requests and blocks new requests once the credits are spent if overages are off.
- The pricing page names no region, and the licence is written per tier, so record which tier was active when each clip was made.
- Voice agents are a separate meter at $0.06 per call minute and are outside this brief.
Amazon Polly (Standard voices, pay as you go)
Unconfirmed; not recommended yetThis month: Pay per character, with region-dependent rates. Any free coverage requires the accountβs eligible offer, balance and expiry to be checked; a published free allowance does not establish this taskβs bill.
Amazon Polly β pricing and conditional free offersAWS β Free and Paid account plans
The pricing example supports a character-to-duration estimate, not a guaranteed finished thirty-minute cost. The API documents MP3 output and request limits, so a longer script may require splitting or an asynchronous job. Account-specific billing, complete commercial-use conditions and a finished thirty-minute file remain unverified.
Amazon Polly β pricing and conditional free offersAWS β Free and Paid account plansAmazon Polly - FAQsAmazon Polly - API reference
- A usage-based service has no monthly ceiling of its own, so the US$22 cap describes your volume rather than an offer you buy.
- Text inputs may be used to improve and train related AWS machine-learning technologies unless the account opts out, and the console's own save-to-file format is not stated.
- WAV is not among the documented output formats, so the MP3-or-WAV condition is met by MP3 alone, and assembling thirty minutes is your side of the job.
ElevenLabs Starter
Unconfirmed; not recommended yetThis month: US$6 a month fits the cap: it is the cheapest paid tier and the cheapest one that includes instant voice cloning.
Cheaper with less attached. The web still exports MP3 and WAV within the allowance and non-Beta content generated while subscribed can be used commercially under the terms, but the 192kbps MP3 API format needs Creator, professional cloning is not included, and the credits-to-minutes conversion is missing on these pages too, so the thirty-minute deliverable stays unestablished.
ElevenLabs - audio output formats by tierElevenLabs - publishing and rightsElevenLabs - professional voice cloning
- A lower price is not a closed deliverable: the allowance still has to be converted into minutes by a rate these pages do not publish.
- Instant cloning starts here and needs about 1-2 minutes of clean sample audio, and the documentation is written around verifying your own voice rather than cloning anyone.
ElevenLabs - professional voice cloningElevenLabs - voice cloning
ElevenLabs Free
Does not meet this taskThis month: US$0 fits the price cap; the price is not what blocks it.
Fails the deliverable on rights: free output is generally not for commercial use and non-commercial publishing requires attribution, so it cannot be handed to a client. The tier has no instant or professional cloning either, and the higher-quality API audio formats start above it.
ElevenLabs - audio output formats by tierElevenLabs - publishing and rightsElevenLabs - professional voice cloning
- Attribution is an obligation rather than a cleared deliverable, and upgrading does not retroactively license audio made on the free tier.
A price is not a runtime
The task is measured in minutes of speech, and the pages read here are uneven about the conversion - but three of the four vendors now publish their own. Typecast states that 30,000 download credits a month is about 35 minutes and that one credit buys one character; Cartesia states about 133 minutes on its $5 tier under the same one-credit-per-character rule; Amazon Polly prices the unit itself, listing 1 million characters as about 23 hours and 8 minutes for $4.00. None of those numbers is a rate for your script. Consumption depends on the product, the model and the speaking rate, so one vendor's conversion does not carry across to another, and the same 121,000 ElevenLabs credits do not describe its API rate table or the music download limits. Before committing a month of budget to a whole course, render a short piece of your own script and read the account usage figure it reports; that is the only number that converts a plan into minutes for your material. Note also that ElevenLabs prices annual billing at ten months, so the effective monthly figure is not the monthly payment.
Dubbing is a different feature
Dubbing v2 is documented at 90+ languages and accents on the web and through the API, but that number describes dubbing rather than the text-to-speech models, whose coverage is stated separately: 70+ on Eleven v3, 29 on Multilingual v2 and 32 on Flash v2.5. If the deliverable is a new narration rather than a translated version of existing audio, pick the voice model for the language you need instead of reading the dubbing figure as the platformβs language coverage.
Before you deliver
Record which tier the account was on when each clip was generated, because the terms treat non-Beta content made while subscribed differently from earlier free output. Check the export format against what the client asked for - the web gives MP3 and WAV, while the higher API formats are tier-gated - and confirm the voice you will use: a cloned or synthetic voice raises rights in the voice itself, and neither the pricing pages nor the terms settle that for your project. We have not auditioned the output or measured clone similarity here, so the vendorβs quality claims are not repeated as a result.
Where every claim comes from
Each link was opened and read on the date shown. The note describes what that page actually supports.
- Typecast - Studio pricing β
Generation and playback free on every plan, with credits used on download: Free $0 with 3,000 lifetime credits (~5 mins) and mandatory attribution, Basic $5 a month ($54 billed yearly) with 30,000 credits (~35 mins) and a commercial licence, Plus $19, Pro $29, Business $69. No region is named for the web prices.
Read 2026-10-12
- Typecast - API pricing β
One credit per character; API Free $0 with 15k credits a month and concurrency 2, Lite $15 with 200k and concurrency 5, Plus $280. Free-plan API audio cannot be used commercially and needs attribution, and the FAQ states the studio and the API are separate subscriptions billed independently.
Read 2026-10-12
- Typecast - Terms of Use β
You own the Output; the licence over your content covers operating, improving, promoting and providing the services; output is retained for one year; commercial use without prior consent is prohibited; fees are in U.S. Dollars. No training clause appears on the page.
Read 2026-10-12
- Typecast - documentation and download help β
The API documentation describes complete WAV or MP3 audio files; the studio download help page dated 31 July 2026 names no file type, and mp3/wav for the studio appears only in an article for the earlier UI last modified in January 2024.
Read 2026-10-12
- Cartesia - pricing β
Pro lists $5/month, 100K credits and about133 Sonic-3.6 minutes, commercial licence andTTS concurrency3. With overages off, requests stop when credits run out. Voice agents are separately metered at $0.06/call minute; telephony can cost extra. No region is named.
Read 2026-10-15
- Cartesia - Terms of Service β
Use is permitted for personal, non-commercial purposes unless the subscription tier expressly permits commercial use; inputs, outputs and interactions may be used to train and improve the models, with an opt-out form; fees are in U.S. Dollars.
Read 2026-10-12
- Cartesia - API reference, text to speech β
The output container is documented as WAV, MP3 or RAW, with examples requesting WAV at 44.1kHz. This is the API, not an export from the playground.
Read 2026-10-12
- Amazon Polly β pricing and conditional free offers β
Polly bills monthly by processed characters. Its headline per-million-character rates are $4 Standard, $16 Neural, $100 Long-Form and $30 Generative; GovCloud Standard/Neural rates differ. The table does not establish this readerβs region-specific final bill. The pricing page lists service free allowances, including 5 million Standard characters monthly, alongside separate rules for new AWS customers from 15 July 2025: up to $200 credits, a six-month Free plan, and credits expiring within twelve months of account creation. These are conditional offers, not simultaneous or perpetual benefits for every account. Its illustration equates one million characters with about 23 hours and eight minutes; this is an estimate, not a completed-file test.
Read 2026-10-15
- Amazon Polly - API reference β
OutputFormat is mp3, ogg_vorbis, ogg_opus, mu-law, a-law or pcm - no WAV - and one SynthesizeSpeech request accepts at most 6,000 characters of which 3,000 are billed, while the asynchronous task allows 200,000 and 100,000.
Read 2026-10-12
- Amazon Polly - FAQs β
The console can save generated speech as an audio file without naming a format, your Polly output belongs to you, storing and reusing it is not restricted, and text inputs may be used to improve and develop related AWS machine-learning technologies unless the account opts out.
Read 2026-10-12
- ElevenLabs - Creative pricing β
Free at US$0 with 10,000 credits a month, Starter US$6 with 30,000, Creator US$22 with 121,000 and Pro US$99 with 600,000 and above; annual plans are priced at ten months and Creatorβs US$11 first month is a promotion.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - models β
Language coverage per text-to-speech model: 70+ on Eleven v3, 29 on Multilingual v2, 32 on Flash v2.5. The quality and similarity figures on that page are vendor claims.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - Dubbing Studio and language coverage β
Dubbing v2 at 90+ languages and accents on the web and through the API - a dubbing figure that does not describe the text-to-speech models.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - audio output formats by tier β
192kbps MP3 requires Creator and 44.1kHz PCM requires Pro; the web interface exports MP3 and WAV within the plan allowance.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - credits and rollover β
Allowances reset each billing period, eligible paid plans carry unused credits over for up to two months, and consumption depends on the product and the model in use.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - publishing and rights β
Free output is generally not for commercial use and non-commercial publishing requires attribution; non-Beta content generated while subscribed can be used commercially, and upgrading does not retroactively license earlier free output.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - professional voice cloning β
Professional cloning requires uploading a sample and verifying the voice and is available from the Creator tier; the process is written around verifying your own voice.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - voice cloning β
Instant cloning typically uses about 1-2 minutes of clear sample audio and professional cloning about 30-180 minutes, available from the Creator tier.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - API pricing β
The API has its own rate table with both subscription and pay-as-you-go entry, and the same tier is quoted there as 220k characters of v3 usage rather than as credits.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - Agents pricing β
Agents is billed by call minute with LLM and telephony provider costs charged separately, so the Creative credit allowance does not describe it.
Read 2026-09-23
- ElevenLabs - Eleven Music terms β
Updated 26 May 2026: downloads are not allowed on Free, Starter allows 30 monthly download minutes without third-party streaming distribution and Creator 250 with streaming, and self-serve plans exclude film, TV, radio and Studio Games.
Read 2026-09-23
- AWS β Free and Paid account plans β
New AWS customers receive USD100 at signup and may earn up to USD100 more through activities. The Free account plan ends after six months or credit depletion, whichever comes first; paid accounts incur charges beyond eligible credits. Account eligibility, remaining credit and expiry must be checked before treating a Polly job as free.
Read 2026-10-15