Pick Azure Speech if
azure shops who will stay on F0 or already have an Azure agreement.
Read the Azure Speech pageAzure Speech vs Deepgram
Our take
Pick Azure Speech if you're azure shops who will stay on F0 or already have an Azure agreement. Pick Deepgram if you're voice-app and contact-center engineers who will read a $/minute row and ship an API key. Skip Azure Speech if you're indie creators who want a $19 VO card (Listnr) without an Azure account. Skip Deepgram if you're people who want a local transcribe CLI (OpenAI Whisper) with no vendor bill.
Deepgram
**speech API
Best for
Azure Speech A neural voice inside Azure
Deepgram Streaming or pre-recorded STT billed per minute
Free plan
Azure Speech $0 · neural TTS: 0.5 million characters / month. Standard realtime STT: 5 audio hours / month. Custom STT: 5 hours + 1 hosted model / month. Speech translation: 5 hours / month
Deepgram No free plan
Lowest paid
Azure Speech Not published by the vendor
Deepgram Growth $4/yr
Coding agent
Azure Speech
Deepgram Nova-3 STT
Watch out
Azure Speech Paid HTML hid $
Deepgram Streaming is metered while the socket is open
Last checked
Azure Speech 2026-10-27 · azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details
Deepgram 2026-10-20 · deepgram.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Deepgram if
voice-app and contact-center engineers who will read a $/minute row and ship an API key.
Read the Deepgram page