Superpowers/Catalog/Text to speech APIs compared

from $0.0324 / 1K chars

Text to speech APIs compared: OpenAI vs ElevenLabs

OpenAI TTS and ElevenLabs Flash and v3 read the same sentence: hear each voice, with what it cost, how fast it answered and the price per minute of audio.

Ask your agent

Read this sentence aloud with OpenAI and ElevenLabs, give me the three audio links with what each cost, and tell me which one to use for 10,000 order updates a month.

Paste this into Claude, ChatGPT or any agent connected to Superpowers.

Failed calls are free11 models ready to useWorks with your AI agent

What you get backFrom a real call on 10/13/2026 · OpenAI and ElevenLabs through Superpowers

Result of one real comparison

Read this order update aloud with OpenAI and ElevenLabs. Which one should I use for thousands of notifications?

OpenAI TTS 1 HD: $0.0037 for 7.5 s of audio, ready in 2.0 s. About $0.03 per minute of speech, the cheapest by far.
ElevenLabs Flash v2.5: $0.0186 for 7.9 s, ready in 0.5 s, the fastest. About $0.14 per minute.
ElevenLabs v3: $0.0373 for 8.6 s, ready in 2.3 s. About $0.26 per minute, ten times OpenAI.
All three read the full 115 characters. The three clips cost $0.0596 together.

Comparisons cmp_8UKWfSkyiUQAZg and cmp__LhOHN84Wjo6cw, same text. Play each clip below.

The same sentence, three voices

“Your order has shipped. It should arrive on Thursday, October 16th, between 9 a.m. and noon. Reply STOP to opt out.” (115 characters), each model's default voice, run on 10/13/2026.

OpenAI TTS 1 HDCheapest

This clip: $0.0037
Ready in: 2.0 s

Cost per minute of audio$0.030

The audio it returned

voice: alloy (default)
length: 7.5 s
file: MP3, 119 KB

ElevenLabs Flash v2.5Fastest

This clip: $0.0186
Ready in: 0.5 s

Cost per minute of audio$0.142

The audio it returned

voice: ElevenLabs default
length: 7.9 s
file: MP3, 128 KB

ElevenLabs v3Emotion tags

This clip: $0.0373
Ready in: 2.3 s

Cost per minute of audio$0.259

The audio it returned

voice: ElevenLabs default
length: 8.6 sslowest pace of the three
file: MP3, 139 KB

What comes back

What you get on every lookup, whichever source answers.

Link to the MP3, hosted for you to download or play
Characters read, which is what you pay for
The voice used; pass voice to pick another
What each model cost and how long it took, when you compare

Providers

Same input and output for every provider. Success rate over 30 days shows after 5 real calls.

Provider	Price per call	Status
TTS 1 HD	$0.0324	Available
Flash v2.5	$0.162	Available
Eleven v3	$0.324	Available
Index TTS 2.0 · text to speech	$0.0108	Available
TTS 1	$0.0162	Available
Eleven v4 Turbo	$0.162	Available
Turbo v2.5	$0.162	Available
VibeVoice 7B · text to speech	$0.216	Available
VibeVoice 1.5B · text to speech	$0.216	Available
Multilingual v2	$0.324	Available
Eleven v4	$0.324	Available
Async Text to Speech Pro V1.0 · text to speech	$0.0108	Coming soon

See all 34 on the compare page

Frequently asked questions

Which text to speech API is cheapest?

OpenAI TTS 1 HD in our run: $0.0037 for a 115-character sentence, about $0.03 per minute of audio. ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 cost five times as much and ElevenLabs v3 ten times as much for the same sentence. OpenAI TTS 1 costs half of TTS 1 HD.

Which is fastest?

ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 returned the whole clip in 0.5 s. OpenAI TTS 1 HD took 2.0 s and ElevenLabs v3 2.3 s. Speed matters for live phone calls and voice agents; for pre-recorded audio it rarely does.

Which one sounds best?

Play the three clips above. Voice quality is a matter of taste and of the voice you pick, so we show the audio and leave the judgment to you. ElevenLabs v3 also accepts emotion tags such as [whispers] or [laughs] in the text.

How is it priced?

Per 1,000 characters of text: OpenAI TTS 1 HD $0.032, ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 $0.162 and ElevenLabs v3 $0.324. Failed calls are not charged. New accounts get $5 of credit, enough for about 1,300 sentences like this one with OpenAI.

Can my AI agent do this?

Yes. Add the Superpowers MCP server to Claude, Cursor, Codex or ChatGPT and ask it to read your text aloud, or call POST /v1/run with a tool such as openai.tts-1-hd. To hear several models on your own text, call POST /v1/compare with category audio.tts.

For developersAPI request, full response, returned fields and MCP setup

We sent one shipping notification to three voice models through one API key and kept the audio each returned, what it cost and how long it took. Play them below and pick by ear.

Returned fields

audio_urlLink to the MP3, hosted for you to download or play

charsCharacters read, which is what you pay for

voiceThe voice used; pass voice to pick another

summary[].charge_usd / latency_msWhat each model cost and how long it took, when you compare

Request

curl -X POST https://superpowers.tools/v1/run \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer $SUPERPOWERS_KEY' \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"tool":"openai.tts-1-hd","idempotency_key":"example-1","input":{"text":"Your order has shipped. It should arrive on Thursday, October 16th, between 9 a.m. and noon. Reply STOP to opt out."}}'

Normalized response

Call made on 10/13/2026 through OpenAI and ElevenLabs through Superpowers, answered in 1987 ms. Comparisons cmp_8UKWfSkyiUQAZg and cmp__LhOHN84Wjo6cw, same text. Play each clip below.

{
  "compare_id": "cmp_8UKWfSkyiUQAZg",
  "category": "audio.tts",
  "input": {
    "text": "Your order has shipped. It should arrive on Thursday, October 16th, between 9 a.m. and noon. Reply STOP to opt out."
  },
  "summary": [
    {
      "tool": "elevenlabs.eleven-flash-v2-5",
      "status": "completed",
      "charge_usd": 0.01863,
      "latency_ms": 509
    },
    {
      "tool": "openai.tts-1-hd",
      "status": "completed",
      "charge_usd": 0.003726,
      "latency_ms": 1987
    }
  ],
  "results": [
    {
      "tool": "openai.tts-1-hd",
      "normalized": {
        "audio_url": "https://superpowers.tools/files/K5nxF6_VEn6tl0YQ.mp3",
        "chars": 115,
        "voice": "alloy"
      }
    },
    "…"
  ]
}

MCP configuration

Add the MCP server to Claude, Cursor or another client and ask in plain language.

Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http superpowers https://superpowers.tools/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $SUPERPOWERS_KEY"

Cursor (.cursor/mcp.json)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "superpowers": {
      "url": "https://superpowers.tools/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:SUPERPOWERS_KEY}"
      }
    }
  }
}

Codex

codex mcp add superpowers --url https://superpowers.tools/mcp \
  --bearer-token-env-var SUPERPOWERS_KEY

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