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Azure Neural TTS

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microsoft-azure/neural-tts · by Microsoft · neural-tts

Pricing — 1 offering(s)

Microsoft Azure

About this offering: Microsoft Azure's text-to-speech service, with four voice tiers: Standard (non-neural, $4 per 1M characters, closed to new customers), Neural ($15), Custom Neural Voice ($24, trained on your own recordings, approval required) and HD voices ($22). The free tier includes 500K neural characters a month. It covers 400+ voices across 140+ languages, with SSML speaking styles and role play on supported voices.

Standard voices

  • $4.00 / 1M characters Current 2019-09-01 → present
    Azure has moved its non-neural Standard voices to the deprecated section of its pricing page: they're…

    Azure has moved its non-neural Standard voices to the deprecated section of its pricing page: they're available only to existing customers. No end date has been announced.

Neural voices

  • $16.00 / 1M characters Historical 2019-09-01 → 2026-08-30
  • $15.00 / 1M characters Current 2026-08-31 → present
    Covers Neural and Neural HD Flash voices, real-time and batch. Azure cut this rate from $16 to $15 per 1M…

    Covers Neural and Neural HD Flash voices, real-time and batch. Azure cut this rate from $16 to $15 per 1M characters; it doesn't publish the change date (checked 2026-08-31).

Custom Neural Voice (trained)

  • $24.00 / 1M characters Current 2021-01-01 → present
    Custom Voice (Professional Voice) synthesis, real-time and batch. Neural HD custom-voice synthesis is billed…

    Custom Voice (Professional Voice) synthesis, real-time and batch. Neural HD custom-voice synthesis is billed separately at $48 per 1M characters.

HD voices (DragonHD / Neural HD)

  • $30.00 / 1M characters Historical 2025-03-01 → 2026-02-28
    DragonHD / Neural HD voices reached GA in March 2025 at $30/1M characters. Rate reconstructed from…

    DragonHD / Neural HD voices reached GA in March 2025 at $30/1M characters. Rate reconstructed from Microsoft's HD-voice update coverage — the live pricing page shows only the current rate. Superseded by the March 2026 reduction to $22/1M.

  • $22.00 / 1M characters Current 2026-03-01 → present
    HD voices (DragonHD / Neural HD), cut from $30 to $22 per 1M characters in Azure AI Speech's March 2026 voice…

    HD voices (DragonHD / Neural HD), cut from $30 to $22 per 1M characters in Azure AI Speech's March 2026 voice update. Same Speech SDK and REST API as the Neural tier. The lighter DragonHD Flash voices are billed at the Neural rate ($15 per 1M).

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

See how Azure Neural TTS fits into a cost-aware routing setup

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Capability profile

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

voice naturalness Strong

High naturalness on neural voices; some (for example Aria and Guy) are widely rated very natural. In the Artificial Analysis Text to Speech Arena (checked 2026-08-19), Azure Neural ranks #70 of 98 voices (Elo 1031). The HD voice tier ranks higher; see Benchmarks.

language support Strong

140+ languages and locales, 400+ neural voices — broadest language coverage among major cloud TTS providers.

voice variety Strong

400+ voices including speaking styles and role play capabilities. Custom Neural Voice allows brand voice training.

streaming latency Moderate

REST and streaming (WebSocket) APIs available. Latency is reasonable but not purpose-built for sub-50ms conversational AI.

cloning support Moderate

Custom Neural Voice (CNV) enables brand voice creation from recorded samples — a contracted enterprise feature, not instant cloning.

Benchmarks

Benchmark Score Config Source
MOS (naturalness, Azure en-US Aria — vendor-published) — Microsoft publishes internal MUSHRA and MOS scores favourably; no independent third-party MOS comparison published. —
Text to Speech Arena Elo (Artificial Analysis — "Azure HD 2.5" / DragonHD voice) 1132 #23 of 98 voices: the independent Elo for this service's HD voice tier, well above the standard Azure Neural voice (#70, Elo 1031). source ↗

Operator guidance

The natural choice for organisations running on Azure. Neural voices cost $15 per 1M characters, slightly less than Google Neural2 and Amazon Polly Neural ($16), and Azure offers the widest language support (140+ languages) plus speaking-style controls. For voice cloning without Azure's approval process for Custom Neural Voice, ElevenLabs or Fish Audio are simpler. For real-time conversational AI, Cartesia Sonic is faster.

Use cases

Limitations

Citations