specification: FinOps Framework
specificationVersion: '1.0'
schema: https://www.finops.org/framework/
provider: Cartesia
providerId: cartesia-ai
created: '2026-07-02'
modified: '2026-07-02'
reconciled: true
tags:
- AI
- Voice AI
- Text to Speech
- Speech to Text
- FinOps
- Cost Management
- FOCUS
description: >-
  FinOps view of Cartesia spend. Cartesia bills a monthly subscription per
  tier (Free/Pro/Startup/Scale/Enterprise) that includes a pooled monthly
  credit allowance consumed by TTS and STT generation, plus a separate
  prepaid Voice Agents balance metered per minute for calls and telephony
  and a one-time credit charge for professional voice cloning. Concurrency
  ceilings rather than per-request rate limits are the operative capacity
  constraint, so cost and throughput scale together per plan.
notes: >-
  Cartesia does not publish a flat credits-to-dollars or
  credits-per-character conversion table; verify current per-model/per-
  feature credit burn rates in the dashboard during reconciliation. Agent
  usage rates ($0.06/min calls, $0.014/min telephony) and the 225-credit
  professional voice cloning fee are as published on the pricing page.
sources:
- https://cartesia.ai/pricing
- https://docs.cartesia.ai
- https://docs.cartesia.ai/api-reference/usage/credits
- https://docs.cartesia.ai/api-reference/usage/agents
- https://focus.finops.org/focus-specification/v1-3/
alignedWith:
  framework: FinOps Foundation Framework
  frameworkUrl: https://www.finops.org/framework/
  dataSpec: FOCUS
  dataSpecVersion: '1.3'
  dataSpecUrl: https://focus.finops.org/focus-specification/v1-3/
publisherName: Cartesia
serviceCategory: AI and Machine Learning
billingModel:
  pricingCategory: Usage-Based
  billingFrequency: Monthly
  billingCurrency: USD
  chargeCategories:
  - Usage
  - Purchase
  - Subscription
  - Adjustment
focusColumns:
  ServiceName: Cartesia
  ServiceCategory: AI and Machine Learning
  ProviderName: Cartesia
  PublisherName: Cartesia
  InvoiceIssuerName: Cartesia
  BillingCurrency: USD
  ChargeCategory: Usage
  PricingCategory: Usage-Based
meters:
- name: tts_credits
  description: Credits consumed by Text-to-Speech generation (REST bytes/SSE and WebSocket), drawn from the plan's monthly credit pool.
  unit: credits
  aggregation: sum
  dimensions:
  - account
  - model
  - api
- name: stt_credits
  description: Credits consumed by Speech-to-Text transcription (batch REST and WebSocket), drawn from the plan's monthly credit pool.
  unit: credits
  aggregation: sum
  dimensions:
  - account
  - model
  - api
- name: agent_call_minutes
  description: Voice Agent call minutes billed against the prepaid agents balance at $0.06/minute.
  unit: minutes
  aggregation: sum
  dimensions:
  - account
  - agent
- name: telephony_minutes
  description: Cartesia-managed telephony number minutes billed at $0.014/minute.
  unit: minutes
  aggregation: sum
  dimensions:
  - account
  - phone_number
- name: voice_clone_operations
  description: One-time professional voice cloning operations billed at 225 credits each.
  unit: credits
  aggregation: sum
  dimensions:
  - account
  - voice
- name: dataset_storage
  description: Files and audio stored in Datasets for fine-tuning and voice creation.
  unit: bytes
  aggregation: sum
  dimensions:
  - account
  - dataset
principles:
- name: Visibility
  description: Pull credit and agent usage via GET /usage/credits and GET /usage/agents, bucketed by interval, and monitor concurrency utilization against plan ceilings.
- name: Allocation
  description: Scope API keys and access tokens per workload/team/agent; tag calls and phone numbers by agent_id to map spend to internal cost centers.
- name: Optimization
  description: Reuse a single TTS/STT WebSocket connection across many context_id generations instead of opening one connection per request; batch outbound calls; choose REST bytes over SSE/WebSocket for non-realtime one-shot synthesis to simplify billing review.
- name: Accountability
  description: Assign an owner per agent and per API key; review monthly credit burn and prepaid agents balance against plan allowances, upgrading tiers before hitting concurrency ceilings.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com