77
Stack Score
Editorial pick✓ Verified working
OpenAI TTS
OpenAI's text-to-speech API — six voices, two quality tiers.
Best for
Engineering teams who need cheap, reliable TTS embedded in an app and already use the OpenAI API.
At a glance
- Pricing
- paid
- Setup time
- 5 minutes
- Learning curve
- easy
- Last verified
- 5/22/2026
What we love
- ✓Cheapest serious TTS API
- ✓Reliable up-time
- ✓Tight OpenAI ecosystem fit
Where it falls short
- −No voice cloning
- −Limited expressive control
- −Six voices only
Pricing
✓ Pricing verified Jun 21, 20263 tiers
Standard
$15
per 1M chars
- ✓Standard quality
- ✓All voices
HD
$30
per 1M chars
- ✓Higher fidelity
- ✓Same voices
gpt-4o-mini-tts
$12
per 1M chars (output audio)
- ✓Latest model
- ✓Steerable tone
Why we picked it
OpenAI TTS is the cheapest workable production TTS once you accept you can't clone voices. Good enough for IVR and narration.
Overview
OpenAI's text-to-speech API — six voices, two quality tiers. Engineering teams who need cheap, reliable TTS embedded in an app and already use the OpenAI API.
Key features
- ●6 preset voices (Alloy, Echo, Fable, Onyx, Nova, Shimmer)
- ●Standard and HD tiers
- ●Streaming output
- ●57+ languages
- ●Low-latency
- ●Pay-per-character
- ●gpt-4o-mini-tts model
Best use cases
Voice replies in agents
Turn LLM output into audio cheaply.
Article narration
Replace human narrator for long-form text.
Integrations
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