Audiobook narration
A 500-page book has about 1,000,000 characters, so three titles a month is about 3,000,000 characters.
Every month I turn characters of text into speech.
Mistral Voxtral is the cheapest, at $39.00 a month. ElevenLabs would cost 6.2 times as much.
Estimated monthly bill for 3,000,000 characters, lowest first. 6 of 7 providers fit.
- 1Mistral VoxtralVoxtral TTS 3, $13/1M chars$39.00 per monthLowest priceVisit Voxtral
Usage $39.00 Monthly total $39.00 Works out to $0.013 per 1,000 characters.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 2AzureNeural voices (standard), $15/1M chars$45.00 per month+$6.00, 15.4% moreVisit Azure
Usage $45.00 Monthly total $45.00 Works out to $0.015 per 1,000 characters.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 2OpenAITTS-1, $15/1M chars$45.00 per month+$6.00, 15.4% moreVisit OpenAI
Usage $45.00 Monthly total $45.00 Works out to $0.015 per 1,000 characters.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 4Google CloudNeural2 voices, $16/1M chars$48.00 per month+$9.00, 23.1% moreVisit Google Cloud
Usage $48.00 Monthly total $48.00 Works out to $0.016 per 1,000 characters.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 5DeepgramAura-2, $0.03/1K chars$90.00 per month+$51.00, 130.8% moreVisit Deepgram
Usage $90.00 Monthly total $90.00 Works out to $0.03 per 1,000 characters.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- 6ElevenLabsEleven v4, $80/1M chars$240.00 per month+$201.00, 515.4% moreVisit ElevenLabs
Usage $240.00 Monthly total $240.00 Works out to $0.08 per 1,000 characters.
Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
Not available for this setup
- AssemblyAIDoes not offer this service.
- Prices updated 2026-10-23.
- Priced in the "Above 0" tier; every unit is billed at that tier's rate.
- Free-tier credits are not subtracted.
- How we calculate this
Some “Visit” links are affiliate links: the provider may pay us if you sign up. That never changes the order, which is set by price alone.
What to look at
- Premium and neural voices are priced above standard voices, so compare like with like.
- Subscription plans with included characters can beat pay-as-you-go at this volume.
- Check the licence for commercial distribution of generated audio.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does it cost to narrate an audiobook with text to speech?
- A typical book is about a million characters. The calculator is preset to three books a month; change the character count to match your output.
- Are plan-based and pay-as-you-go prices comparable here?
- Yes. For plan-based providers the calculator picks the cheapest plan that covers your volume, or the largest plan plus overage, and shows which one it chose.