Ranking Free text to speech
The best free text to speech tools (2026): cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use)
The best free text to speech tools in October 2026 are MiniMax Audio, Narration Box and Amazon Polly. MiniMax Audio is the pick for creators and developers wanting many languages and cloned voices at low cost. We read the price of all 15 on their own sites.
15 ranked · each checked against its own site 27–31 October 2026
- Under $2599 of 13
- $25 to $9944 of 13
- $100 to $29900 of 13
- $300 or more00 of 13
- 15
- ranked
- $12
- median first paid plan
- 13
- of the 15 have a free plan
dubsheet.com · First paid plan from each tool's own pricing page, read 27–31 October 2026.
The short answer
MiniMax Audio ranks first. It has a free plan, and paid plans start at $5 a month.
Narration Box ranks second with a free plan, then $15 a month, and Amazon Polly third with a free plan, then $4 per 1m characters. Wondercraft has a free plan too.
Half of the 13 tools with a monthly paid plan charge $12 a month or less.
13 tools here have a free plan to try before you pay. The highest ranked are MiniMax Audio, Narration Box and Amazon Polly.
All 15 picks at a glance
| # | Tool | Best for | Starts at |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Creators and developers wanting many languages and cloned voices at low cost | Free, then $5 a monthits pricing page | |
| 2 | Creators, course makers and authors turning scripts or manuscripts into narrated audio | Free, then $15 a monthits pricing page | |
| 3 | Developers adding spoken output to apps, e-learning and phone systems | Free, then $4 per 1m charactersits pricing page | |
| 4 | Teams turning documents and scripts into narrated podcasts, ads and training video | Free, then $25 a monthits pricing page | |
| 5 | Creators and marketing teams localizing their own videos into many languages | From $6.99 a monthits pricing page | |
| 6 | Marketers and solopreneurs making social video who need voice-over and captions in-editor | Free, then $25 a seat a monthits pricing page | |
| 7 | Bloggers, authors, students and schools who need long documents read aloud or exported | Free, then $10.99 a monthits pricing page | |
| 8 | Creators making multilingual voice-overs, dubbing and music for social video | From $35.99 a monthits pricing page | |
| 9 | Marketing teams localizing brand video into many languages from one workspace | Free, then $12 a seat a monthits pricing page | |
| 10 | Creators and educators needing quick multilingual voice-over they can publish commercially | Free, then $5 a monthits pricing page | |
| 11 | Content creators and e-learning teams making multilingual voice-overs on a small budget | Free, then $5 a monthits pricing page | |
| 12 | Creators who need free multilingual voice-over within per-conversion limits | Free, then $9 a monthits pricing page | |
| 13 | Creators and teams localizing video into many languages without reshooting | Free, then $29 a monthits pricing page | |
| 14 | Creators narrating videos, audiobooks and character voices from their own cloned voice | Free, then $15 a monthits pricing page | |
| 15 | Course makers and video teams creating multilingual narration from scripts or slides | Free, then $6 per 30 minutesits pricing page |
Checked between 27 October 2026 and 31 October 2026.
15 tools, ranked. How we rank
About this list
15 of 40 free text to speech tools match “Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use)”. Of the rest: 13 on some plans only, 0 no, 12 unknown.
How the free text to speech tools matching “Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use)” differ: 14 of 15 also match “Cost for 2 hours a month”, against 5 of 25 in the rest of the category.
The ranking
A free plan before you pay
Best forcreators and developers wanting many languages and cloned voices at low cost
Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use): Yes — $17.60 a month on Starter for 10 hours of 60 minutes. credits counted per character or per word are converted at the standard hour: 52,000 characters, 9,300 words“Starter $5 /month $5 Billed monthly”Plan cards, Monthly billing tab selected, Starter column · checked 2026-10-28
- Price
- Free, then $5 a month · source
Creators, course makers
Best forcreators, course makers and authors turning scripts or manuscripts into narrated audio
Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use): Yes — $75 a month on Scale for 10 hours of 60 minutes. credits counted per character or per word are converted at the standard hour: 52,000 characters, 9,300 words Free ($0) includes 1000 credits; these hours need 93000, and past the allowance speech past it cannot be made.“Scale Perfect for small to medium sized teams. $75 per month”Pricing page, Scale plan card with the billing control on Monthly · checked 2026-10-28
- Price
- Free, then $15 a month · source
Developers adding spoken output to apps, e-learning and phone systems
Best fordevelopers adding spoken output to apps, e-learning and phone systems
Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use): Yes — $0 a month on AWS Free Tier - Standard voices for 10 hours of 60 minutes. credits counted per character or per word are converted at the standard hour: 52,000 characters, 9,300 words“For Amazon Polly's Standard voices, the free tier includes 5 million characters per month for speech or Speech Marks requests.”Free tier section, 'Millions of characters per month' · checked 2026-10-27
- Price
- Free, then $4 per 1m characters · source
Teams turning documents and scripts into narrated podcasts, ads
Best forteams turning documents and scripts into narrated podcasts, ads and training video
Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use): Yes — Ten hours is 600 minutes, about 6,000 credits at the stated 10 credits per minute, and that exact bundle is sold self-serve: the Pro plan's credit selector offers 6,000 credits at $140 per month billed monthly, or $117 per month paid yearly.“Speech 10 credits/minute of speech generated. For example, a 10 minute podcast will cost 100 credits, and a 25 minute podcast will cost 250 credits.”Detailed credit charges, Speech section · checked 2026-10-28
- Price
- Free, then $25 a month · source
The lowest monthly price we found
Best forcreators and marketing teams localizing their own videos into many languages
Cost for 10 hours a month (heavy use): Yes — $729 a month on PRO for 10 hours of 60 minutes (600 minutes of finished audio). Billing increment not stated: computed per second (60 min a hour). If they round each hour up to the minute (60 min), it is $729. an hour of finished speech is 60 minutes of audio; generation you do not download or keep is not counted where the vendor meters downloads Starter ($6.99) includes 7 minutes of audio; these hours need 600, and past the allowance speech past it cannot be made. Creator ($29) includes 40 minutes of audio; these hours need 600, and past the allowance speech past it cannot be made.“PRO $99 /per month”Plan cards, PRO column · checked 2026-10-27
- Price
- From $6.99 a month · source
Side by side
Every field, side by side
Scroll sideways to see them all.
| Feature | MiniMax Audio | Narration Box | Amazon Polly | Wondercraft | Perso Dubbing | VEED | TTSReader | TopMediai | Akool | TTSFree | Voicemaker | Speechma | HeyGen | Fish Audio | Narakeet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Description | 40 languages, 300+ system voices and 10-second voice cloning, in one studio and the matching API. | Block-based voice studio with 1500+ narrators, voice cloning and chapter-by-chapter audiobook production. | Pay-per-character cloud text to speech from AWS, with four voice engines and a browser console. | AI studio for voice-over, podcasts and video, with multi-engine voices, cloning and a timeline editor. | AI video dubbing in 99+ languages with voice cloning, lip sync and subtitles. | Browser video editor with AI voice-over, voice cloning, dubbing and subtitles in one workspace. | Browser text-to-speech reader and MP3/WAV voice-over studio with premium AI voices. | AI studio for text to speech, voice cloning and video dubbing on one shared credit balance. | AI video suite with video translation, lip sync, text to speech, voice cloning and a voice changer. | Browser text-to-speech with a no-signup free tier and character-metered paid plans. | Credit-metered AI text-to-speech studio with 2,000+ voices, voice cloning, speech-to-speech and SRT export. | Free text to speech and creator audio tools with no account or credit card. | AI avatar video, voice cloning and video translation into 175+ languages with lip sync. | Expressive text-to-speech, voice cloning and long-form studio with a credit-metered API. | Duration-priced browser voice-over and narrated-video maker with non-expiring capacity. |
| Category | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Ads and marketing | AI audiobook narration, Text to speech and AI voice-over, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Free text to speech you may publish, Ads and marketing, Courses and e-learning, YouTube and social video | Text to speech APIs, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Courses and e-learning | AI podcast studios, Text to speech and AI voice-over, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Free text to speech you may publish, Ads and marketing, Courses and e-learning | AI dubbing and video translation, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Free text to speech you may publish, YouTube and social video, Ads and marketing | AI dubbing and video translation, YouTube and social video, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Free text to speech you may publish | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Courses and e-learning | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Ads and marketing, Courses and e-learning, YouTube and social video | AI dubbing and video translation, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Free text to speech you may publish, Ads and marketing | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Cheapest for 2 hours a month, Free text to speech, Ads and marketing | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Free text to speech, Courses and e-learning, YouTube and social video | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Free text to speech, Ads and marketing, Courses and e-learning, YouTube and social video, Cheapest for 2 hours a month | AI dubbing and video translation, Free text to speech, Free text to speech you may publish, Ads and marketing, YouTube and social video | Voice cloning, Text to speech and AI voice-over, Free text to speech, Courses and e-learning, YouTube and social video | Text to speech and AI voice-over, Free text to speech, Courses and e-learning, Ads and marketing, YouTube and social video, Cheapest for 2 hours a month |
| Tags |
Questions buyers ask
How much do free text to speech tools cost?
The median first paid plan is $12 a month, across the 13 of the 15 that publish a monthly price. They run from $5 to $35.99.
Which free text to speech tools have a free plan?
13 of the 15 have a free plan.
How current are these figures?
The prices were read 27–31 October 2026.
Sources and method
Each price is quoted from the vendor’s pricing page.
Pricing pages 15 read
- MiniMax Audio minimax.io/audio/subscribe
- Narration Box narrationbox.com/pricing
- Amazon Polly aws.amazon.com/polly/pricing
- Wondercraft wondercraft.ai/pricing
- Perso Dubbing perso.ai/pricing
- VEED veed.io/pricing/index.html.md
- TTSReader ttsreader.com/docs/support/pricing
- TopMediai topmediai.com/app/pricing
- Akool akool.com/pricing
- TTSFree ttsfree.com/pricing
- Voicemaker voicemaker.in/pricing
- Speechma speechma.com/faq
- HeyGen heygen.com/pricing
- Fish Audio fish.audio/plan
- Narakeet narakeet.com/docs/pricing
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