Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) Pricing
All plans and pricing as of 2026-10-15
Voice Agent API (Grok Voice 3.0, 2026-10-14)
- ✓grok-voice-3.0; grok-voice-latest moved to it automatically on launch day
- ✓Same price as grok-voice-2.0, which the docs pricing table now labels Deprecated
- ✓Sub-second latency claimed; powers Grok in Tesla vehicles, Grok Bot voice mode and Starlink support lines
Speech to Text (batch)
- ✓Grok Voice Transcribe 2.0 (2026-09-18) is now the default model; pin grok-voice-transcribe-1.0 to stay on the original during its retirement window
- ✓Key term biasing (up to 100 terms per request), filler-word removal, smart turn detection, up to 8 channels
- ✓REST API for large audio files
- ✓Word-level timestamps
- ✓Speaker diarization
- ✓Multichannel support
- ✓Inverse Text Normalization (numbers, dates, currencies)
Speech to Text (streaming)
- ✓Lowest-latency WebSocket API
- ✓Real-time speaker ID
- ✓Same accuracy as batch
- ✓Supports 25+ languages seamlessly
Text to Speech
- ✓Verified 2026-09-21 on docs.x.ai/docs/pricing and x.ai/api (model grok-tts); this page previously listed $4.20, which no vendor page now supports
- ✓Natural expressive voices (ARA voice etc.)
- ✓Speech tags: [laugh], [sigh], [whisper], <emphasis>, <slow>, <pause>
- ✓REST + WebSocket streaming
- ✓Usage-based billing, no hidden fees
Is Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) Worth the Price?
Value Score: 9/10
Overall Score: 8.1/10 · 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.
Grok Speech is xAI's clearest 'we are a platform, not just a chatbot' shot at the voice-API category, and on day-one pricing alone it's a credible threat to ElevenLabs, Deepgram, and AssemblyAI for production STT workloads. The published WER numbers are aggressive but plausible given the Tesla / Starlink deployment footprint. TTS at $15 per 1M characters (the rate xAI publishes as of 2026-09-21; this review previously said $4.20) no longer undercuts ElevenLabs on price, though the expressive tags still narrow the quality gap. With Transcribe 2.0 (2026-09-18) xAI held the STT price flat while claiming a 2x accuracy gain and a first-place Artificial Analysis streaming rank, so STT is where the value case lives. The open questions are (1) how it handles long-tail accents and non-English quality in practice, (2) whether the post-SpaceX procurement pathway slows enterprise adoption, and (3) how ElevenLabs responds on price. For new voice-API buyers shipping in Q2 2026, Grok Speech is now a first-call option alongside ElevenLabs and Deepgram.
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How Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs) Pricing Compares
| Tool | Free Tier | Starting Price | Value Score | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grok Speech (STT + TTS APIs)(this tool) | No | $0.08/per minute ($4.80/hr) + $0.004 per text input | 9/10 | 8.1 |
| GPT-Live (ChatGPT Voice) | Yes | $0 extra | 9/10 | 8.6 |
| ElevenLabs | Yes | $0 | 7/10 | 8.5 |
| Descript | Yes | $0 | 8/10 | 8.5 |
| Cohere Transcribe | Yes | $0 | 9/10 | 8.0 |
| Microsoft MAI-Voice-2 | Yes | $22/per 1M characters | 8/10 | 7.3 |