Best for
Best for developers and creators who want expressive text-to-speech and quick voice cloning, including open-source models.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
AI Voice & Speech Comparison
Fish Audio vs. Speechmatics
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for teams transcribing real conversations across accents and languages, including where the audio may not leave their own infrastructure.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | Fish Audio | Speechmatics |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free tier; Plus from $15 / month Credit-based. Plus adds 250,000 credits per month, commercial use and API access; 33% off with annual billing. | lower value From $0.129 / hour of audio Pro tier rate, billed to the second with no commitment. Volume discounts of 20% apply automatically above 500 hours per month for each speech-to-text type, with further discounts above 24,000 hours a year. One credit equals one dollar. |
| Free trial | Free tier with 8,000 credits per month (about 7 minutes) | Free tier with $100 in credit, no card required |
| Commercial use | Not stated | Yes, usage-based |
| Output | Text-to-speech, speech-to-text and voice cloning (S2.1 Pro model) | Transcripts, translations and synthesised speech |
| API | Yes, REST API and SDKs | Yes, batch and real-time speech-to-text, text-to-speech, translation and a management API |
| Hosting | Not stated | Cloud, CPU or GPU containers, Kubernetes, on-premises virtual appliance, or on-device |
| Made in | Not stated | United Kingdom |
| Voice cloning | Yes, from about 15 seconds of audio | No, the text-to-speech API ships four fixed voices, sarah and theo in British English and megan and jack in American English, and the documentation describes no custom or cloned voice; speed, pitch and emphasis are not adjustable either |
| Real-time use | Yes, real-time with low latency | Yes, streaming transcription returned in under a second, alongside batch transcription of recorded files |
| Languages | 30+ languages | 55+ languages and dialects with accent, dialect and code-switching coverage; translation across 69 language pairs |
| Speech-to-speech and dubbing | Yes, a Voice Changer transforms existing audio into a different voice | Audio translation across 69 language pairs, returned as translated transcript rather than dubbed audio; a Voice Agent API is in early access |
| Editing and controls | Emotion tags and effects such as angry, sad, excited, whispering, laughing and pauses | Speaker diarization and identification, custom dictionary, language identification, background speech filtering, and speech intelligence for summaries, sentiment, topics and auto-chapters |
| Consent and trust | Professional clones require a live voiceprint check: the speaker reads a randomised passage that is matched against the training audio. Instant clones are unverified. The terms forbid using another person's voice without permission, with a voice ownership dispute process | Data is not logged as standard; container, Kubernetes, virtual appliance and on-device deployment keep audio inside your own infrastructure |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | more entries Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise |
| Support | more entries Email helpdesk, Community forum | Email helpdesk |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Freelancers, Small and mid-sized | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Not stated | LiveKit, Pipecat, Vapi, Zapier |
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The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price Fish Audio Free tier; Plus from $15 / month Speechmatics From $0.129 / hour of audio
- Free trial Fish Audio Free tier with 8,000 credits per month (about 7 minutes) Speechmatics Free tier with $100 in credit, no card required
- Deployment Fish Audio Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based Speechmatics Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based, On-premise
- Company size Fish Audio Freelancers, Small and mid-sized Speechmatics Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Support Fish Audio Email helpdesk, Community forum Speechmatics Email helpdesk
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
Fish Audio
Strengths
- Fast voice cloning and expressive emotion control
- Open-source models (Fish Speech and Fish Audio S2)
- Large community voice library and a developer API
Limitations
- API access and commercial use require a paid plan
- Cloned and community voices raise consent questions
Speechmatics
Strengths
- 55+ languages with explicit accent, dialect and code-switching coverage
- Runs in the cloud, in containers, on-premises or on-device
- $100 in credit to start, with no card required
- Data is not logged as standard
Limitations
- A developer API rather than a ready-made voice studio
- Text-to-speech on the free tier covers English only
- The Voice Agent API is still in early access
- Volume discounts start at 500 hours a month, so small workloads pay the full rate
Plans
Pricing
Fish Audio
- Free $0 8,000 credits per month (about 7 minutes) and 3 public voice slots. No API access.
- Plus $15 / month 250,000 credits (about 200 minutes), commercial use, API access and one professional voice slot. 33% off billed annually.
- Pro $100 / month 2,000,000 credits, 3 team seats and five professional voice slots. 33% off billed annually.
- Max $999 / month 25,000,000 credits, 10 team seats and 15 professional voice slots.
- Enterprise Not stated Custom terms with zero data retention, on-premise deployment and SOC 2 compliance.
Speechmatics
- Free $0 $100 in credit, no card required. 55+ languages for speech-to-text, 2 concurrent real-time sessions and low-latency English text-to-speech.
- Pro $0.129 Per hour of audio, billed to the second with no commitment. 50 concurrent real-time sessions, 10 file jobs per second and email support.
- Enterprise Not stated Volume-based pricing that scales with usage, unlimited concurrency and no rate limits, custom models, custom vocabularies and formatting rules, and SaaS or on-premises deployment.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
Fish Audio
- 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.
Speechmatics
- 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
Fish Audio https://fish.audio · no check date recorded yet
Speechmatics https://www.speechmatics.com · checked against the official source on 2026-08-30
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.