Google Cloud Text-to-Speech
cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/pricingInference APIcompute/google-cloud-text-to-speechJSONcomparereport an errorprovider JSON
- Free allowance
- A recurring monthly free allowance per voice class, not a one-time credit: 'WaveNet voices 0 to 4 million characters', 'Standard voices 0 to 4 million characters', 'Chirp 3: HD voices 0 to 1 million characters', 'Studio voices 0 to 1 million characters', 'Neural2 voices 0 to 1 million characters'.
- Verdict
- caveatusable, with a named limit or an unprobed read path
- Cost
- free tier
- Identity
- cardcard required, no phone
- Binding limit
- volume-quotathe allowance resets monthly but the account must be a billing account: 'You must enable billing to use Text-to-Speech, and will be automatically charged if your usage exceeds the number of free characters allowed per month', so a card...
- Evidence
- documented7 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-12-05checked 2026-11-04 (live); stale on 2026-12-05
| Free tier | A recurring monthly free allowance per voice class, not a one-time credit: 'WaveNet voices 0 to 4 million characters', 'Standard voices 0 to 4 million characters', 'Chirp 3: HD voices 0 to 1 million characters', 'Studio voices 0 to 1 million characters', 'Neural2 voices 0 to 1 million characters'. Over the allowance the price is 'US$4 per 1 million characters' for WaveNet and Standard, 'US$30 per 1 million' for Chirp 3 HD and Studio at 'US$160 per 1 million'. At the common 1,000 characters a minute, 4 million characters is about 66 hours of speech a month. unit hours; metered on wall-clock; recurring-monthly-allowance |
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| Price | none stated |
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| Limits | - volume-quota (binding) the allowance resets monthly but the account must be a billing account: 'You must enable billing to use Text-to-Speech, and will be automatically charged if your usage exceeds the number of free characters allowed per month', so a card is required before the first character is synthesised and an overrun bills silently. source
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| Identity | card not published |
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| Egress | not stated |
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| Interface | rest REST API at texttospeech.googleapis.com (v1 and v1beta1), documented; Cloud Client Libraries wrap it. |
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| Tooling | Cloud Client Libraries (Python google-cloud-texttospeech, Node.js @google-cloud/text-to-speech, Go, Java, C#, C++); the REST API directly. |
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| Composes with | What breaks: the Gemini-family TTS models have 'Not available' in the free column, so the newest voices are excluded, and an accidental loop over a long document bills at USD 4 per million characters. |
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| Reliability | no reliability event recorded |
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| Notes | These are inference credits, not general compute. The 66-hour figure is a division at 1,000 characters a minute; Google publishes characters, not hours. Not probed: no project was created; the card requirement is documented on the pricing page. |
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| Parsed numbers | |
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Evidence 7
| date | source | what it proved |
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| 2026-10-22 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/pricing | the free usage table prints 'WaveNet voices 0 to 4 million characters', 'Standard voices 0 to 4 million characters', 'Chirp 3: HD voices 0 to 1 million characters', 'Studio voices 0 to 1 million characters', 'Neural2 voices 0 to 1 million characters', quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/pricing | 'You must enable billing to use Text-to-Speech, and will be automatically charged if your usage exceeds the number of free characters allowed per month', quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/pricing | 'Chirp 3: HD voices ... US$0.00003 per character (US$30 per 1 million characters)' and 'WaveNet voices ... US$0.000004 per character (US$4 per 1 million characters)', quoted |
| 2026-10-22 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/pricing | the Gemini TTS rows print 'Free usage limit: Not available', so the newest models are outside the allowance, quoted |
| 2026-11-03 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/reference/rest | the service is a REST API |
| 2026-11-04 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/reference/rest | the documented REST service endpoint of Cloud Text-to-Speech |
| 2026-11-04 | cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/docs/libraries | google-cloud-texttospeech is the documented Python client library |
More fields 1
| facets | {"class": "perpetual-free-allowance","free_tier_kind": "recurring-monthly-allowance","shape": {"vcpu": null,"ram_gib": null,"gpu_class": null,"gpu_count": 0}} |
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Unknown values 5
- egress metered: egress metering was not published
- egress terms: a source was read and is silent on this field
- per object cap stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer
- reliability note: nothing of this kind was observed
- retention stated: the field does not apply to this kind of offer