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Azure AI Speech pricing

Unified speech services for speech-to-text, text-to-speech and speech translation

The unified Speech services provide a wide range of speech recognition and generation capabilities including speech transcription, text-to-speech and speech translation. The Speech service provides a wide range of speech recognition and generation capabilities including speech transcription, text-to-speech, speech translation, and speaker recognition.

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Prices are estimates only and are not intended as actual price quotes. Actual pricing may vary depending on the type of agreement entered with Microsoft, date of purchase, and the currency exchange rate. Prices are calculated based on US dollars and converted using London closing spot rates that are captured in the two business days prior to the last business day of the previous month end. If the two business days prior to the end of the month fall on a bank holiday in major markets, the rate setting day is generally the day immediately preceding the two business days. This rate applies to all transactions during the upcoming month. Sign in to the Azure pricing calculator to see pricing based on your current program/offer with Microsoft. Contact an Azure sales specialist for more information on pricing or to request a price quote. See frequently asked questions about Azure pricing.

Free (F0)

Category Features Price
Speech to Text
(per second billing)
Standard 5 audio hours free per month3
Custom 5 audio hours free per month3
Endpoint hosting: 1 model free per month1
Conversation Transcription Multichannel Audio PREVIEW 5 audio hours free per month
Text to Speech
(per character billing)
Neural 0.5 million characters free per month
Speech Translation
(per second billing)
Standard 5 audio hours free per month
Speaker Recognition
(per transaction billing)
Speaker Verification2 10,000 transactions free per month
Speaker Identification2 10,000 transactions free per month
Voice Profile Storage 10,000 transactions free per month

See the documentation for information on quotas, limits and instructions on how to increase concurrent requests.

1Unused models will be automatically decommissioned after 7 days.

2Speaker Recognition is a limited access feature with a need to apply for access.

3Free audio hours for speech to text is shared between Standard and Custom, Batch is not supported.

Pay as You Go: pay only for what you use.

Category Features Price
Speech to Text
(per second billing)
Real-time Batch
v3.2 API or higher4
Standard $- per hour $- per hour
Custom $- per hour
Endpoint hosting: $- per model per hour
$- per hour
Endpoint hosting: N/A
Custom Speech Training6 $- per compute hour
Enhanced add-on features:
  • Continuous Language identification
  • Diarization
  • Pronunciation Assessment (prosody, grammar, vocabulary, topic)
$- per hour per feature Continuous Language Identification and Diarization Included5
Conversation Transcription Multichannel Audio PREVIEW $- per hour1 N/A
Text to Speech
(per character billing)
Neural Real-time & batch synthesis: $- per 1M characters
Neural HD Real-time & batch synthesis: $- per 1M characters
Custom Neural2 Training: $- per compute hour, up to $- per training
Real-time & batch synthesis: $- per 1M characters
Endpoint hosting: $- per model per hour
Personal Voice8 Voice creation: free
Voice profile storage: $- per 1,000 voice profiles per month
Synthesis: $- per 1M characters
Text to Speech Avatar (per second billing) Avatar Real-time & batch synthesis: $- per minute
Custom Avatar9 Real-time synthesis: $- per minute
Batch synthesis: $- per minute
Endpoint hosting: $- per model per hour
Speech Translation
(per second billing)
Standard $- per audio hour7
Speaker Recognition
(per transaction billing)
Speaker Verification3 $- per 1,000 transactions
Speaker Identification3 $- per 1,000 transactions
Voice Profile Storage $- per 1,000 voice profiles (10,000 free voice profiles per month)

See the documentation for information on quotas, limits and instructions on how to increase concurrent requests.

Speech to text hours are measured as the hours of audio sent to the service, billed in second increments.

1 This reflects public preview pricing. GA price will be announced later at GA.

2 Custom Neural Voice (CNV) is a limited access capability featuring Pro and Lite versions. With CNV Lite (public preview), customers can record their own voice and create a model for demonstration/evaluation, before applying for access to Pro. Check out where CNV is available.

3 Speaker Recognition is a limited access feature with a need to apply for access.

4 To take advantage of this new pricing you need to use the new Speech to text REST API V3.2 preview. See Create a batch transcription - Speech service - Azure AI services | Microsoft Learn for information on the use of the new v3.2 preview API.

5 Enhanced add-on features are included in the Batch price for all Batch API versions.

6 Custom Speech Training applies when customizing any base model released on or after Oct 1st 2023.

7 This price includes 1 audio input and output, up to 2 text translation language using standard or custom Speech to Text and standard Translation. For custom Translation or 3+ translation languages, please reference the Azure AI Translator Text Translation pricing page.

8 This reflects public preview pricing. GA price will be announced later at GA. Personal Voice is a limited access feature restricted to certain pre-approved use cases only, with a need to applying for access. To learn more about the service, check the document.

9 Custom Avatar is a limited access capability feature with a need to apply for access

Commitment Tiers – Azure - Standard

Category Features Price (per month) Overage
Speech to Text Standard $- for 2,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 10,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 50,000 hours $- per hour
Custom $- for 2,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 10,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 50,000 hours $- per hour
Enhanced add-on features:2
  • Continuous Language identification
  • Diarization
  • Pronunciation Assessment (prosody, grammar, vocabulary, topic)
$- for 2,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 10,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 50,000 hours $- per hour
Text to Speech Neural1 $- for 80M characters $- per 1M characters
$- for 400M characters $- per 1M characters
$- for 2,000M characters $- per 1M characters

1Real-time synthesis only, this does not include long audio creation.

2Real-time speech to text only, Continuous Language Identification and Diarization add-on features included with batch speech to text.

Commitment Tiers – Connected container

Category Features Price (per month) Overage
Speech to Text2 Standard $- for 2,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 10,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 50,000 hours $- per hour
Custom $- for 2,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 10,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 50,000 hours $- per hour
Enhanced add-on features:2
  • Language identification
  • Diarization
$- for 2,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 10,000 hours $- per hour
$- for 50,000 hours $- per hour
Text to Speech Neural1 $- for 80M characters $- per 1M characters
$- for 400M characters $- per 1M characters
$- for 2,000M characters $- per 1M characters

1Real-time synthesis only, this does not include long audio creation.

2Pricing applies to real-time and batch use cases. There is no separate batch pricing for containers.

See the documentation for information on Commitment tiers.

Commitment Tiers – Disconnected container

Sign up to access speech in disconnected containers, or learn more

Category Features Price (per year) Max usage (per year) Projected usage (per month)
Speech to Text2 Standard $-
$-
Sign up to get access
Learn more
120,000 hours
600,000 hours
10,000 hours
50,000 hours
Custom $-
$-
Sign up to get access
Learn more
120,000 hours
600,000 hours
10,000 hours
50,000 hours
Enhanced add-on features:
  • Language identification
  • Diarization
$-
$-
120,000 hours
600,000 hours
10,000 hours
50,000 hours
Text to Speech Neural1 $-
$-
Sign up to get access
Learn more
4.8B characters
24B characters
400M characters
2,000M characters

1Real-time synthesis only, this does not include long audio creation.

2Pricing applies to real-time and batch use cases. There is no separate batch pricing for containers.

These features are being deprecated and only available for existing customers to use. Check details and learn how to migrate to new features.

Instance Category Features Price
Free - Web/Container
1 concurrent request
Text to Speech Standard 5 million characters free per month
Custom 5 million characters free per month
Endpoint hosting: 1 model free per month
Standard - Web/Container
100 concurrent requests for Base model
20 concurrent requests for Custom model
Text to Speech Standard $- per 1M characters
Custom $- per 1M characters
Endpoint hosting: $- per model per hour

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Additional resources

Azure AI Speech

Learn more about Azure AI Speech features and capabilities.

Pricing calculator

Estimate your expected monthly costs for using any combination of Azure products.

Documentation

Review technical tutorials, videos, and more Azure AI Speech resources.

    • For Speech to Text and Speech Translation, usage is billed in one-second increments.
    • For Text to Speech: usage is billed per character. Check the definition of character in the pricing note.
    • For custom neural voice hosting: usage is billed per endpoint per second. Check details in the pricing note.
    • For personal voice profile storage: usage is billed per voice profile per day. Check details in the pricing note.
    • For Text to Speech Avatar, usage is billed per second.
    • For Speech to Text and Text to Speech (including Avatar), endpoint hosting for custom models is billed per second per model.
  • The Speech service enables users to adapt baseline models based on their own acoustic and language data, leading to custom speech models that can be used against both Speech to Text and Speech Translation.

  • The language model is a probability distribution over sequences of words. The language model helps the system decide among sequences of words that sound similar, based on the likelihood of the word sequences themselves. For example, “recognize speech” and “wreck a nice beach” sound alike but the first hypothesis is far more likely to occur, and therefore will be assigned a higher score by the language model. If you expect voice queries to your application to contain particular vocabulary items, such as product names or jargon that rarely occur in typical speech, it is likely that you can obtain improved performance by customizing the language model. For example, if you were building an app to search MSDN by voice, it’s likely that terms like “object-oriented” or “namespace” or “dot net” will appear more frequently than in typical voice applications. Customizing the language model will enable the system to learn this.

  • The acoustic model is a classifier that labels short fragments of audio into one of several phonemes, or sound units, in each language. These phonemes can then be stitched together to form words. For example, the word “speech” is comprised of four phonemes “s p iy ch”. These classifications are made on the order of 100 times per second. Customizing the acoustic model can enable the system to learn to do a better job recognizing speech in atypical environments. For example, if you have an app designed to be used by workers in a warehouse or factory, a customized acoustic model can more accurately recognize speech in the presence of the noises found in these environments.

  • Speech service offers a wide range of text-to-speech (TTS) voice fonts, however custom neural voice allows you to build your own custom voice that suits your needs and your brand. Read the blog for more information.

  • Language identification allows you to identify a switch in spoken language and transcribe speech accordingly. This can be applied in scenarios where the audio language is unknown, or when speaker(s) may speak multiple languages. Single Language Identification is available at no additional cost. Continuous Language Identification is an enhanced add-on feature. Visit docs to learn more.

    • Pronunciation assessment evaluates speech pronunciation and gives speakers feedback on the accuracy and fluency of spoken audio. With pronunciation assessment, language learners can practice, get instant feedback, and improve their pronunciation so that they can speak and present with confidence. Educators can use the capability to evaluate pronunciation of multiple speakers in real time. Visit docs to learn more.
    • It is charged as standard Speech to Text, example:
      For evaluation of 8 seconds of speech, you will be charged around $-

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