Pick Azure Speech if
azure shops who will stay on F0 or already have an Azure agreement.
Read the Azure Speech pageAzure Speech vs Speechmatics
Our take
Pick Azure Speech if you're azure shops who will stay on F0 or already have an Azure agreement. Pick Speechmatics if you're on a voice-agent and compliance team who will spend the $100 credits and then pay $/hr. Skip Azure Speech if you're indie creators who want a $19 VO card (Listnr) without an Azure account. Skip Speechmatics if you're people who want a VO file (Listnr) or MIT local STT (OpenAI Whisper).
Best for
Azure Speech A neural voice inside Azure
Speechmatics Batch or realtime STT with a public $/hr
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
Speechmatics No free plan
Lowest paid
Azure Speech Not published by the vendor
Speechmatics TTS $0.011
Next step up
Azure Speech
Speechmatics Melia 1 $0.24
Coding agent
Azure Speech
Speechmatics Linden 1
Watch out
Azure Speech Paid HTML hid $
Speechmatics $100 credits expire in 12 months
Last checked
Azure Speech 2026-10-27 · azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details
Speechmatics 2026-10-27 · speechmatics.com/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick Speechmatics if
voice-agent and compliance teams who will spend the $100 credits and then pay $/hr.
Read the Speechmatics page