Google Cloud TTS

google-cloud/tts · by Google · neural-tts

Pricing — 1 offering(s)

Google Cloud

About this offering: Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, with four voice tiers: Standard and WaveNet ($4 per 1M characters), Neural2 ($16) and Studio ($160, near-human quality for professional narration). Free tier: 4M Standard/WaveNet and 1M Neural2/Studio characters a month. Google also sells Gemini-TTS (billed per token), Chirp 3 HD voices ($30 per 1M) and Instant custom voice ($60 per 1M), which aren't listed as tiers here. All tiers support SSML, pitch and speaking-rate control and audio profiles, across 40+ languages and 380+ voices.

Standard voices

$4.00 / 1M characters Current 2018-03-01 → present

WaveNet / Neural2 voices (superseded — see wavenet-voices / neural2-voices below)

No current price · last price $16.00 / 1M characters, until 2026-09-19

$16.00 / 1M characters Historical 2018-03-01 → 2026-09-19
Historical: until 2026-09-20 WaveNet and Neural2 voices shared this single price. They're now separate tiers.

WaveNet voices

$4.00 / 1M characters Current 2026-09-20 → present

WaveNet voices now cost $4 per 1M characters, the same as Standard voices, down from the $16 they used to…

WaveNet voices now cost $4 per 1M characters, the same as Standard voices, down from the $16 they used to share with Neural2. Free tier: the first 4M characters a month, shared with Standard voices.

Neural2 voices

$16.00 / 1M characters Current 2026-09-20 → present

Neural2 voices stay at $16 per 1M characters and are no longer priced together with WaveNet. Free tier: the…

Neural2 voices stay at $16 per 1M characters and are no longer priced together with WaveNet. Free tier: the first 1M characters a month.

Studio voices

$160.00 / 1M characters Current 2022-01-01 → present

Showing the active price and any recorded history. Full pricing history is available via the paid API — see API docs.

See how Google Cloud TTS fits into a cost-aware routing setup

About Google Cloud TTS

Google Cloud TTS is not one model but three generations under one API. WaveNet, from 2016, was Google DeepMind's original neural TTS architecture (the source paper reported a 4.21 MOS on English). Neural2, from 2022, is a successor with improved naturalness and prosody. Studio voices, also 2022, are human-supervised and the highest-quality tier. All run on Google's TPU infrastructure, covering 40+ languages and 380+ voices, with SSML support but no voice cloning — Custom Voice is a separate contracted service.

It is a REST API oriented to batch synthesis rather than real-time conversational use. Pricing is $16 per 1M characters for WaveNet/Neural2 — identical to Azure Neural TTS and Amazon Polly Neural — with Studio voices at $160 per 1M, and a 1M-character-per-month free tier for the WaveNet and Neural2 tiers.

Independent measurement (checked 2026-08-19) shows something worth keeping separate rather than smoothing into one quality claim: the Artificial Analysis Text-to-Speech Arena tracks the three tiers individually, and while Studio ranks #40 of 98 voices (Elo 1081, clearly the strongest), WaveNet (#90, Elo 913) and Neural2 (#93, Elo 890) rank surprisingly low. Google's own published evaluations rate Neural2 highly; there is no independent MOS against competitors beyond that Arena.

Capability profile

How Google Cloud TTS rates across core capability dimensions, with the task-level evidence behind each rating.

voice naturalness Strong

Neural2 and WaveNet sound natural for an API TTS, and Studio voices approach human quality on professional narration. In the Artificial Analysis Text to Speech Arena (checked 2026-08-19), Studio ranks #40 of 98 voices (Elo 1081), well ahead of WaveNet (#90, Elo 913) and Neural2 (#93, Elo 890).

language support Strong

40+ languages, 380+ voices across Standard, WaveNet/Neural2, and Studio tiers.

voice variety Strong

380+ voices across the portfolio; no voice cloning, but broad preset coverage.

streaming latency Moderate

REST API primarily for batch synthesis. SSML and audio profile support adds processing time; not purpose-built for real-time conversational AI.

cloning support Weak

No voice cloning. Preset voices only; Custom Voice is available via a separate contracted service.

Benchmarks

Benchmark	Score	Config	Source
MOS (naturalness)	—	Neural2 voices score highly in Google's own published evaluations. No independent MOS published against competitors.	—
WaveNet original MOS (published)	4.21 MOS (1–5)	Original WaveNet paper MOS on English, not directly comparable to current Neural2 quality.	source ↗

Operator guidance

Best for teams already on Google Cloud who want tight ecosystem integration and a large per-month free tier (1M WaveNet/Neural2 chars/month). At $16/1M chars (WaveNet/Neural2) it is price-identical to Azure and Polly Neural. Choose ElevenLabs for naturalness, Cartesia Sonic for latency- critical conversational AI, or OpenAI TTS-1 for the lowest price.