Amazon Polly vs Cartesia (Sonic)
Amazon Polly and Cartesia (Sonic) are both Text-to-Speech APIs, compared here on pricing, compliance, capabilities, and developer experience from structured, cited data - not reviews or paid placement. Amazon Polly starts lower at $4 1m characters vs $50 for Cartesia (Sonic). For coding-agent use, Cartesia (Sonic) scores higher on agent-friendliness (50 vs 30).
| Field | Amazon Polly | Cartesia (Sonic) |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $4 1M characters | $50 1M characters |
| Pricing model | Usage | Hybrid |
| Free tier | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-serve signup | ✓ | ✓ |
| SOC 2 | Type II | Type II |
| HIPAA | ✓ | ✓ |
| GDPR | ✓ | ✓ |
| Webhooks | ✗ | ✗ |
| Sandbox | ✗ | ✗ |
| Documented actions | 22 | 17 |