Compare
The affordable ElevenLabs alternative
Giggy Fast text to speech costs $5 per million characters. ElevenLabs lists Flash v2.5 at $40 and its Multilingual models at $80. Speech to text is $0.04 per audio hour on Fast and $0.08 when streaming.
Text to speech: what you pay
| Provider | Mode or model | USD per 1M characters |
|---|---|---|
| Giggy | Fast | $5.00 |
| Giggy | Streaming | $10.00 |
| Fish Audio | S2.1 Pro | $15.00 |
| Inworld | Realtime TTS-2 Flash | $15.00 |
| OpenAI | tts-1 | $15.00 |
| Azure | Neural TTS | $15.00 |
| Inworld | Realtime TTS-2 | $25.00 |
| Amazon | Polly Generative | $30.00 |
| Deepgram | Aura-2 | $30.00 |
| Chirp 3: HD | $30.00 | |
| OpenAI | tts-1-hd | $30.00 |
| Cartesia | Sonic-3.6 · Scale overage | $38.00 |
| ElevenLabs | Flash v2.5 | $40.00 |
| ElevenLabs | Multilingual v2 / v3 / v4 | $80.00 |
| MiniMax | Speech-02-HD | $100.00 |
ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Deepgram, Google, Amazon and Azure checked November 11, 2026; Fish and Inworld October 20; Cartesia and MiniMax October 13.
Speech to text: what you pay
| Provider | Mode or model | USD per audio hour |
|---|---|---|
| Giggy | Fast | $0.040 |
| AssemblyAI | Universal-2 | $0.150 |
| OpenAI | gpt-4o-mini-transcribe | $0.180 |
| Google Cloud | Speech-to-Text V2 · Dynamic batch | $0.180 |
| Azure | Speech · Batch transcription | $0.180 |
| ElevenLabs | Scribe v3 | $0.200 |
| AssemblyAI | Universal-3.5 Pro | $0.210 |
| Deepgram | Nova-3 · Pre-recorded | $0.258 |
| Deepgram | Nova-3 Multilingual · Pre-recorded | $0.312 |
| OpenAI | Whisper / gpt-4o-transcribe | $0.360 |
| Amazon | Transcribe · Standard batch | $0.360 |
| Provider | Mode or model | USD per audio hour |
|---|---|---|
| Giggy | Streaming | $0.080 |
| Soniox | stt-rt-v5 · Streaming (est.) | $0.120 |
| ElevenLabs | Scribe v2 Realtime | $0.220 |
| Speechmatics | Linden-1 · Agent STT | $0.300 |
| OpenAI | GPT-4o Transcribe (est.) | $0.360 |
| Speechmatics | Real-time Enhanced | $0.430 |
| AssemblyAI | Universal-3.6 Pro Realtime | $0.450 |
| Deepgram | Nova-3 · English streaming | $0.462 |
| Deepgram | Flux Multilingual · Streaming | $0.468 |
| Google Cloud | Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live (est.) | $0.536 |
| Amazon | Transcribe · Standard Streaming | $0.600 |
| Google Cloud | Chirp 3 · Streaming | $0.960 |
| Azure | Speech · Standard realtime | $1.00 |
| OpenAI | GPT-Live-Transcribe | $1.02 |
All recorded-audio prices checked November 11, 2026 on each provider's pricing page or official price API. ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Deepgram, Google, Amazon, Azure and AssemblyAI checked November 11, 2026; Speechmatics October 8; Soniox token-based estimate October 20.
Why teams compare Giggy with ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs set the bar for expressive AI voices. Giggy was built to deliver comparable quality at a fraction of the cost, so voice can run in every part of a product instead of only the parts that justify the bill.
Both APIs take text and a voice ID and return audio. Giggy uses the same xi-api-key header, returns 24 kHz MP3 for Fast and progressive 24 kHz PCM for Streaming, and bills prepaid credits with no monthly plan.
How quality compares
In the Coval tts-v1 snapshot published October 12, 2026, Giggy Streaming recorded a 5.02% word error rate and ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 recorded 7.1%. On the five-language Gradium set, Giggy Streaming scored 1.46% against 1.52% for Flash v2.5 and 1.68% for Multilingual v2. Lower is better; the methodology is on the text-to-speech page.
Where ElevenLabs may suit you better
ElevenLabs offers more products, including music, sound effects and large-scale dubbing, plus a wider set of enterprise agreements and integrations. If you need those, it may be the better fit. If you need affordable speech and transcription APIs, Giggy costs far less per character and per hour.
Frequently asked questions
Is Giggy cheaper than ElevenLabs?
Yes. Giggy Fast text to speech costs $5 per 1,000,000 characters and Streaming main0. ElevenLabs lists Flash v2.5 at $40 and its Multilingual models at $80 per million characters. Giggy speech to text costs $0.04 per recorded audio hour against $0.20 for ElevenLabs Scribe v3.
Do I need a subscription to use Giggy?
No. Giggy uses one-time prepaid credit packs that are shared across text to speech, speech to text and voice creation. Purchased credits expire one calendar year after purchase.
Can I clone or design voices like ElevenLabs?
Yes. Voice Clone creates a reusable voice from 3 to 10 seconds of authorized speech, and Voice Design creates one from a written description. Each costs 1,000 credits, about $0.01.
How hard is it to switch from ElevenLabs?
Giggy uses the same xi-api-key header and a similar text-to-speech request with text, a voice ID and an output format. Most integrations change the base URL, key, voice IDs and model ID.