Voiceover for an English audiobook

Which text-to-speech service gives the best English narration of a 10-hour book for the least money?

Insufficient evidenceas of 5 November 2026

As of 5 November 2026, no option is recommended. Quality has not been measured for any of the 27 options on this board, and cost is not a recommendation.

Options: 27
Measured: 0
Cost confirmed: 20
Not confirmed: 3
No price: 4

The job · requires English

Narrate one 10-hour English book a month in a single voice. Resale is not assumed here; the YouTube and ad boards require commercial rights. Required: English.

Nobody is ranked. Not plotted. Quality has not been measured, so the list below is cost only and not an order of merit.

Cost for this job

Cheapest qualifying plan per month, in USD per month, cheapest first within each group. Not in order of merit; says nothing about quality.

Workload and assumptions

Workload: 600,000 characters a month (low scenario 300,000). One 10-hour book = 600 minutes = 600,000 characters. The low case is a 5-hour title. 1,000 characters per finished minute of audio (assumption: ElevenLabs lists about $0.08 per minute at $0.08 per 1,000 characters; Inworld says about 1,000; Cartesia says 750 to 800).

Cost for this job, by option, with plan, date read and source
Option	Cost	Plan	Price read	Source	Notes
Cost confirmed against the requirements 20
Chirp 3 HDGoogle Cloud	$0.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $0.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing
Neural2Google Cloud	$0.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $0.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing
Standard voicesGoogle Cloud	$0.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $0.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing
Studio voicesGoogle Cloud	$0.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $0.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing
WaveNetGoogle Cloud	$0.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $0.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing
Polly StandardAmazon	$2.40Low usage (300,000 characters): $1.20 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Amazon Polly pricing
Falcon 2.1Murf	$6.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $3.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Murf pricing
Neural voicesMicrosoft Azure	$9.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $0.00 on free-f0	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Azure Speech pricing	1 note free-f0.2026-11-03.r1: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).
Aura-1Deepgram	$9.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $4.50 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Deepgram pricing
Polly NeuralAmazon	$9.60Low usage (300,000 characters): $4.80 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Amazon Polly pricing
Aura-2Deepgram	$18.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $9.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Deepgram pricing
Gen2Murf	$18.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $9.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Murf pricing
Polly GenerativeAmazon	$18.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $9.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Amazon Polly pricing
Eleven FlashElevenLabs	$24.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $12.00 on pay-as-you-go	creator$22.00 a month, subscription	3 November 20262 days old	ElevenLabs API pricing	1 note free.2026-11-03.r1: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).
Eleven v4 TurboElevenLabs	$24.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $12.00 on pay-as-you-go	creator$22.00 a month, subscription	3 November 20262 days old	ElevenLabs API pricing	1 note free.2026-11-03.r1: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).
Speech 2.8 TurboMiniMax	$36.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $18.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	MiniMax Speech pay-as-you-go pricing
Sonic 3.6Cartesia	$37.50Low usage (300,000 characters): $18.00 on pro	pro$5.00 a month, subscription	3 November 20262 days old	Cartesia pricing	1 note free.2026-11-03.r1: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).
Eleven v4ElevenLabs	$48.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $24.00 on creator	creator$22.00 a month, subscription	3 November 20262 days old	ElevenLabs API pricing	1 note free.2026-11-03.r1: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).
Speech 2.8 HDMiniMax	$60.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $30.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	MiniMax Speech pay-as-you-go pricing
Polly Long-FormAmazon	$60.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $30.00 on pay-as-you-go	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Amazon Polly pricing
Cost not confirmed: a requirement is unknown 3
TTS-2 FlashInworld	$9.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $4.50 on on-demand, not confirmednot confirmed	on-demand$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Inworld pricing	2 notes Not confirmed: language unknown. This price is not a confirmed answer. Other plans, also unconfirmed: creator $25.00; builder $100.00; developer $300.00.
TTS-2Inworld	$15.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $7.50 on on-demand, not confirmednot confirmed	on-demand$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Inworld pricing	2 notes Not confirmed: language unknown. This price is not a confirmed answer. Other plans, also unconfirmed: creator $25.00; builder $100.00; developer $300.00.
Flux TTSDeepgram	$27.00Low usage (300,000 characters): $13.50 on pay-as-you-go, not confirmednot confirmed	pay-as-you-go$0.00 a month, usage	3 November 20262 days old	Deepgram pricing	1 note Not confirmed: language unknown. This price is not a confirmed answer.
No cost available 4
Fish Audio appFish Audio	Unknown	No plan	Not read	No source	1 note free.2026-11-03.r1, plus, pro: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (included chars).
S2.1 ProFish Audio	Unknown	No plan	Not read	No source	1 note pay-as-you-go: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).
Murf StudioMurf	Unknown	No plan	Not read	No source	1 note business, creator, free: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (included chars).
gpt-4o-mini-ttsOpenAI	Unknown	No plan	Not read	No source	1 note pay-as-you-go.2026-11-03.r1: cost cannot be computed, a price field is missing (overage per million chars).

What evidence would settle it

The three conditions and what is missing

Vendor claims about their own quality count for nothing in the score. A rating needs a listening test with raw results, or a licensed source that allows reuse.

Measure quality for Neural voices, Sonic 3.6, Aura-1, Aura-2, Flux TTS, Eleven Flash and 21 more: Naturalness in blind listening (% of blind pairwise votes won against the board's reference voice); Pronunciation errors (mispronounced words per 1,000 words); Voice stays the same over a chapter (mean listener rating, 1 (drifts) to 5 (steady)). At least one auditable or documented measurement per option.
Name at least two options that are measured. Today 0 are.

The three conditions for naming a best option

The leader's lower bound must exceed every other option's upper bound by at least 3 points. Not assessed.
Every critical metric must come from two independent origins, or from one auditable test of our own. Not assessed.
The price must be verified within 30 days. Not assessed.

Sources and limits

11 sources, the method notes and this board as JSON

No quality score is published on this board. Prices are facts read from each vendor's page and link back to it.

Amazon Polly pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Azure Speech pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Cartesia pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Deepgram pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
ElevenLabs API pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Fish Audio API and app pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Inworld pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
MiniMax Speech pay-as-you-go pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
Murf pricing prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026
OpenAI gpt-4o-mini-tts model page prices only, as facts with a link; checked 3 November 2026

Notes on this board. No quality evidence is published yet: the rights register has no usable source for voice quality (see the Sources page). The board shows cost only and ranks nobody until measured or licensed evidence arrives. Quality metrics and anchors are editorial and unvalidated.

Scores are on a 0 to 100 scale against editorial anchors that are not yet validated. Prices are for the workload above and change without notice. Evidence older than 60 days is left out, and prices older than 30 days are flagged.

This board as JSON, with every input id, anchor and weight.