Best for
Best for developers already on AWS who need speech synthesis inside an application, billed per character.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
AI Voice & Speech Comparison
Amazon Polly vs. Voicemod
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for streamers, gamers and creators who need the voice changed live in the call rather than rendered into a file.
- Freelancers
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Amazon Polly | Voicemod |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free tier, then from $4 per 1 million characters Pay-as-you-go by characters sent for synthesis, including spaces and most SSML tags. Standard $4, Neural $16, Generative $30 and Long-Form $100 per 1 million characters. Speech Marks requests are charged at the same rates. | Not stated |
| Free trial | AWS Free Tier: 5 million Standard characters a month, plus 1 million Neural, 500,000 Long-Form and 100,000 Generative characters a month for the first 12 months | Free version for Windows and Mac |
| Output | Synthesised speech as MP3, Ogg Vorbis or raw PCM, plus Speech Marks metadata | A changed voice delivered live through a virtual microphone, plus soundboard clips and recordings |
| API | Yes, the Amazon Polly API through the AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI | Yes, a Control API with an API key and bindings for Unity, JavaScript, C/C++ and Java |
| Hosting | Cloud (AWS) | Desktop application for Windows and Mac, a mobile soundboard app, and the Voicemod Key device for consoles |
| Voice cloning | Brand Voice only, and not as a self-service feature. It is a custom engagement in which the Amazon Polly team builds a Neural voice for the exclusive use of one organisation, covering persona, casting an actor, recording their speech and training the model, after which the voice is released to that customer's AWS account. It starts with an AWS account manager rather than an upload | No. Voicelab builds a voice by layering more than 140 effects over your own, and the vendor publishes no way to reproduce a specific person's voice |
| Real-time use | Yes, the API returns an audio stream that an application can begin playing as it arrives, in near real time, with a choice of sampling rates to trade bandwidth against audio quality | Yes, and it is the whole product: a virtual microphone changes the voice live in Discord, OBS, Fortnite, Valorant, Minecraft, League of Legends and more than 30 other applications |
| Languages | Voices in 42 languages and language variants, from Arabic and Cantonese to Icelandic and Korean. Which of the four engines a given voice supports differs by voice, and the Generative and Long-Form engines cover far fewer voices than Standard and Neural | No published language list. The vendor states the AI voices were built from data recorded by English-speaking voice actors, so English gives the best results, and that other languages can still work but the AI may have difficulty with some of their sounds and articulations |
| Speech-to-speech and dubbing | No. Polly synthesises speech from text and nothing else. Transcription and translation are separate AWS services rather than features of this one | Real-time voice changing transforms your own speech into another voice; no dubbing or translation is published |
| Editing and controls | SSML for phrasing, emphasis, intonation, pitch, rate and volume, custom Amazon SSML tags such as the Newscaster speaking style, custom lexicons that set the pronunciation of particular words through IPA-style phonemes, and Speech Marks metadata for speech-synchronised facial animation or word highlighting | Over 200 AI voices, Voicelab for building or remixing voices from more than 140 effects including pitch, tone, Reverb, Delay and Robotifier, plus a soundboard with keybinds, a recorder for YouTube and in-game audio and a 30-second instant replay |
| Consent and trust | Brand Voice is a managed engagement rather than an upload, so a custom voice exists only where an actor has been cast and recorded for that purpose, and the finished voice is restricted to the commissioning organisation's AWS account IDs. There is no self-service cloning path that could be pointed at a voice without its owner taking part | The vendor states its AI voices are trained by professional voice actors and carry a Fairly Trained certification |
| Deployment | more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | On-premise |
| Support | Not stated | Email helpdesk |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | Freelancers |
| Integrations | Not stated | Discord, OBS, Fortnite, Valorant, Minecraft, League of Legends, Elgato, Corsair, Razer, MSI, Qualcomm |
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The short version
Key Differences
- Free trial Amazon Polly AWS Free Tier: 5 million Standard characters a month, plus 1 million Neural, 500,000 Long-Form and 100,000 Generative characters a month for the first 12 months Voicemod Free version for Windows and Mac
- Deployment Amazon Polly Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Voicemod On-premise
- Company size Amazon Polly Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise Voicemod Freelancers
- Hosting Amazon Polly Cloud (AWS) Voicemod Desktop application for Windows and Mac, a mobile soundboard app, and the Voicemod Key device for consoles
- Output Amazon Polly Synthesised speech as MP3, Ogg Vorbis or raw PCM, plus Speech Marks metadata Voicemod A changed voice delivered live through a virtual microphone, plus soundboard clips and recordings
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Amazon Polly
Strengths
- Four voice engines let quality be traded against cost per character, from $4 to $100 per million
- Generous free tier, with 5 million Standard characters a month that does not expire
- Generated speech may be cached and replayed at no additional cost
- Speech Marks and custom lexicons cover lip-sync and awkward pronunciations properly
- Brand Voice cannot be used without the voice owner being cast and recorded
Limitations
- Text to speech only: no transcription, translation or dubbing in this service
- No self-service voice cloning, and Brand Voice starts with an AWS account manager
- The Generative and Long-Form engines cover far fewer voices than Standard and Neural
- Long-Form voices cost $100 per million characters, twenty-five times the Standard rate
- Useful only from code, so it suits developers rather than anyone wanting an editor
Voicemod
Strengths
- Works live in more than 30 games and applications through a virtual microphone
- Voicelab builds custom voices from over 140 effects and publishes them to the community
- Control API drives the app from Unity, JavaScript, C/C++ or Java
- AI voices are trained with professional voice actors under a Fairly Trained certification
- Free version for Windows and Mac
Limitations
- No voice cloning: Voicelab shapes effects rather than reproducing a specific person's voice
- Plan amounts are not published on the site
- Built around gaming, streaming and chat applications rather than rendered audio files
Plans
Pricing
Amazon Polly
- AWS Free Tier Free 5 million Standard characters a month. Neural 1 million, Long-Form 500,000 and Generative 100,000 characters a month for the first 12 months.
- Standard voices $4 Per 1 million characters for speech or Speech Marks requests, outside the free tier.
- Neural voices $16 Per 1 million characters for speech or Speech Marks requests, outside the free tier.
- Generative voices $30 Per 1 million characters for speech requests, outside the free tier.
- Long-Form voices $100 Per 1 million characters for speech or Speech Marks requests, outside the free tier.
Voicemod
- Free Not stated
- Pro Not stated
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Amazon Polly
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Voicemod
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
Amazon Polly https://aws.amazon.com/polly/ · checked against the official source on 2026-09-13
Voicemod https://www.voicemod.net · checked against the official source on 2026-09-12
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.