Webpage to Audio Cost Estimator
Estimate cost and audio duration for turning a webpage into speech. Compare TTS providers, speeds, and monthly budgets.
Page & voice settings
Used as a label; we don't fetch the live page.
Six preset voices. Simple API. Billed per character.
Add a margin if you resell audio or include hosting/transcription overhead.
Editing, cleanup, hosting, or distribution cost per webpage.
Estimated audio duration
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minutes : seconds
One-page TTS cost
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TTS only
Characters
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Cost per minute
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Monthly TTS cost
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Monthly total
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Prices are directional estimates based on public per-character or per-token TTS pricing. Provider rates change frequently; confirm current pricing before budgeting. Audio duration assumes clean article text with no markup, code blocks, or ads.
Provider comparison for this page
Same word count and speed across all providers. Sorted by estimated cost per page.
| Provider | Tier | Cost / 1M chars | Page cost | Monthly TTS | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenAI tts-1 | Standard | — | — | — | High |
| OpenAI tts-1-hd | High Definition | — | — | — | Very high |
| ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 | Fast / real-time | — | — | — | High |
| ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 | Premium | — | — | — | Very high |
| Google Cloud TTS Neural2 / WaveNet | Neural | — | — | — | High |
| Google Cloud TTS Chirp 3 HD | Studio HD | — | — | — | Very high |
| Amazon Polly Neural | Neural | — | — | — | High |
| Amazon Polly Generative | Premium | — | — | — | Very high |
| Microsoft Azure Neural TTS | Neural | — | — | — | High |
| Microsoft Azure Neural HD | HD | — | — | — | Very high |
| Speechmatics TTS | Economy | — | — | — | High |
| Fish Audio | Budget | — | — | — | High |
| Cartesia Sonic | Real-time | — | — | — | High |
| Unreal Speech | Budget | — | — | — | High |
| MiniMax Speech-02 | Premium | — | — | — | Very high |
| Self-hosted Kokoro / Piper | Self-hosted | — | — | — | Good |
| Google Cloud TTS Standard | Standard | — | — | — | Good |
| Amazon Polly Standard | Standard | — | — | — | Good |
How the estimate works
- Characters: word count × 5.5 chars/word including spaces and punctuation.
- Duration: word count ÷ words-per-minute, converted to minutes and seconds.
- TTS cost: characters ÷ 1,000,000 × provider price per 1M characters.
- Monthly cost: per-page TTS cost × articles per month + prep cost per article.
- Margin: optional markup applied on top of TTS cost before monthly totals.
Ways to cut cost
- • Use self-hosted Kokoro or Piper for batch content with no per-character fee.
- • Choose Polly Standard, Google WaveNet, or Speechmatics for cheap neural quality.
- • Strip HTML, ads, and navigation before counting words.
- • Cache generated audio; most pages don't change often.
- • Use 150 wpm unless your audience needs slower narration.
Frequently asked questions
How does the Webpage to Audio cost estimator work?▼
It converts a webpage's word count into characters, then multiplies by a TTS provider's per-character price. It also estimates audio duration using your chosen words-per-minute speech rate and shows monthly cost if you convert articles on a recurring schedule.
How accurate is the word-to-character conversion?▼
We use 5.5 characters per word including spaces and punctuation, which is typical for clean English prose. Actual HTML pages include navigation, ads, and markup, so paste the clean article text or use a readability extractor for better accuracy.
What speech speed should I pick?▼
Use 120 wpm for slow, accessible narration; 150 wpm for conversational content; 160 wpm for podcasts; and 180 wpm for fast narrators or speed-listening.
Why do costs vary so much between providers?▼
TTS pricing ranges from free self-hosted models to premium cloned voices. Hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, and Azure charge roughly $16/1M characters for neural voices. ElevenLabs and premium tiers can be 3-6× more per character.
Can I use this for newsletters or answer-engine content?▼
Yes. The tool is ideal for estimating the cost of turning blog posts, newsletter issues, and answer summaries into audio so you can budget for audio distribution or voice agents.