Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs)
No free tier
- Speech to Text (batch)$0.10/per hour
- Speech to Text (streaming)$0.20/per hour
- Text to Speech$4.20/per 1M characters

Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs)
Our pickMuse Spark (Meta)
Tier-list head-to-head. Muse Spark (Meta) takes the A-tier slot — here's the breakdown.
Spec sheet
| Tier | A-tier | A-tierwin |
| Overall score | 8.1 / 10 | 8.8 / 10win |
| Free tier | No | Yeswin |
| Starting price | $0.10 | $0 |
| Best for | Developers building voice agents, real-time transcription tools, accessibility features, or high-volume TTS… | Anyone who wants frontier-level AI for free. |
| Last reviewed | 2026-04-18 | 2026-04-19 |
Head-to-head
Rated 1-10 on the same rubric across all 130 tools we cover.
What you'll pay
Look past the headline number -- entry-tier limits drive most cost surprises.
No free tier
Free tier available
Muse Spark benchmarks — Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) has no published benchmarks
| Benchmark | Description | Score |
|---|---|---|
| MMLU | Knowledge across 57 subjects | 89% |
| GPQA Diamond | Graduate-level science questions | 86% |
| HumanEval | Python code generation | 91% |
| Humanity's Last Exam | Frontier difficulty questions | 58% |
| HealthBench Hard | 42.8% |
The decision
Use-case anchors and category strengths, side by side.
Developers building voice agents, real-time transcription tools, accessibility features, or high-volume TTS workloads where the cost per hour of audio actually matters at scale. Strong fit for phone-call and meeting transcription use cases where xAI's published WER advantage (5.0% on phone-call entities vs. ElevenLabs 12.0%) compounds quickly.
Visit Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs)Anyone who wants frontier-level AI for free. If you use Meta's apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) already, Muse Spark is the most accessible high-quality LLM with zero cost.
Visit Muse Spark (Meta)Bottom line
Muse Spark (Meta) edges out Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) by 0.7 points (8.8 vs 8.1) -- a A-tier vs A-tier split that's narrow but real. Not a blowout; both belong on a shortlist. The score gap shows up most clearly in the categories that matter for Muse Spark (Meta)'s strengths, so if those categories are your priority, the lead translates.
On pricing, Muse Spark (Meta) starts free while Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) requires a paid plan from day one ($0.10+). If you're testing the waters or running an occasional workload, that gap matters more than the score differential. Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) starts at $0.10; Muse Spark (Meta) starts at $0. Compare what each entry tier actually unlocks before you compare list prices -- the limits matter more than the headline number.
By use case: pick Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) when developers building voice agents, real-time transcription tools, accessibility features, or high-volume tts workloads where the cost per hour of audio actually matters at scale. Pick Muse Spark (Meta) when anyone who wants frontier-level ai for free. The two tools aren't fighting for the same person -- they're aiming at adjacent jobs that occasionally overlap. If you're squarely in Muse Spark (Meta)'s lane, the tier-list ranking and the use-case fit point the same direction; if you're in Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs)'s lane, the score gap matters less than the fit.
Bottom line: Muse Spark (Meta) is the safer default for most readers, but Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) is competitive enough that the tie-breaker is your specific workload, not the spec sheet.
Keep digging
Full Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) review
Tier A · 8.1/10
Full Muse Spark (Meta) review
Tier A · 8.8/10
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Built from our daily AI-tool sweep, last touched April 19, 2026. Honest tier-list reviews — no affiliate-link pieces disguised as advice. See the rubric or how we review.