Short answer: on Edesy IVR, text-to-speech costs Rs 0.50 per 1,000 characters with a Standard voice and Rs 2.00 per 1,000 characters with a Premium voice, charged only on the characters a call actually speaks. That sits on top of Rs 1 per minute for the call itself. A typical 300-character greeting and menu adds Rs 0.15 (Standard) or Rs 0.60 (Premium) to a call. Uploaded recordings add nothing. All prices exclude 18% GST.
The voice you pick is the one cost lever most IVR owners never look at. This post shows what each tier costs in practice, how characters are counted, and when the better voice earns its price.
How IVR voice pricing works
Every prompt your flow speaks from text (a Say step, a Menu prompt, an Ask question) is sent to text-to-speech. At the end of the call we count the characters that were spoken and price them by voice tier.
| Charge | Rate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Call minutes | Rs 1.00 per minute | Minutes round up; unanswered calls are free; no per-call fee |
| Standard voice | Rs 0.50 per 1,000 characters | Basic voices with "Standard" in the name |
| Premium voice | Rs 2.00 per 1,000 characters | Every other voice, including neural voices |
| Uploaded recording | Rs 0 | Played with a Play step, no text-to-speech |
Three details matter:
- Pro-rata, not per block. A 300-character prompt is charged for 300 characters, not rounded to 1,000.
- Only what was spoken. If a caller presses 1 halfway through your menu, the text was still sent for that prompt, but branches the caller never reached are not charged.
- Characters, not bytes. We count Unicode characters with leading and trailing spaces trimmed. Hindi in Devanagari costs the same per character as English, not three times as much.
The call log shows each call's billed minutes, Standard characters, Premium characters and the total, so you can check any bill line by line.
What prompts of different lengths cost
Here is the text-to-speech part of the cost for common prompt sizes. Add Rs 1 for each started minute of the call.
| Prompt | Approx. characters | Standard (Rs 0.50/1k) | Premium (Rs 2.00/1k) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short greeting ("Thanks for calling. Please hold.") | 40 | Rs 0.02 | Rs 0.08 |
| Greeting plus 3-option menu | 300 | Rs 0.15 | Rs 0.60 |
| Order confirmation with name, order ID and amount | 200 | Rs 0.10 | Rs 0.40 |
| Long after-hours message with address and timings | 600 | Rs 0.30 | Rs 1.20 |
| Menu repeated twice because the caller pressed nothing | 900 | Rs 0.45 | Rs 1.80 |
Two worked examples:
- A 45-second inbound call that plays a 300-character menu in a Standard voice: Rs 1.00 for the minute plus Rs 0.15 for speech, Rs 1.15 before GST. In a Premium voice: Rs 1.60.
- A 70-second outbound reminder that speaks 450 characters in a Premium voice: 2 minutes at Rs 1.00 plus Rs 0.90, Rs 2.90. With a Standard voice it would be Rs 2.23.
Paste your own prompts into the TTS character counter to get the exact count and cost, or model a whole month in the IVR cost calculator.
A monthly example (hypothetical)
This is an illustration, not a customer's numbers. Say a clinic's IVR takes 3,000 answered calls a month, each lasting under a minute and speaking a 300-character menu.
| Standard voice | Premium voice | |
|---|---|---|
| Minutes (3,000 x Rs 1) | Rs 3,000 | Rs 3,000 |
| Speech (900,000 characters) | Rs 450 | Rs 1,800 |
| Total before GST | Rs 3,450 | Rs 4,800 |
The voice choice is a Rs 1,350 difference at this volume, about 28% of the bill. Number rental is separate.
The default voice is Premium
The platform's default voices for English and Hindi are natural-sounding neural voices, which are billed as Premium. If you never pick a voice, your prompts are charged at Rs 2.00 per 1,000 characters. To pay Rs 0.50, choose a voice with "Standard" in its name in the flow's Config step or on the individual Say and Menu steps.
When Premium is worth it
Premium voices sound smoother, with more natural pauses and stress. They are worth the extra cost where the caller judges your business by the voice:
- Short, high-value calls: a sales line, a premium brand's greeting, a hospital's first menu. The menu is a few hundred characters, so Premium adds well under a rupee per call.
- Long spoken numbers and names: order IDs, amounts and addresses are easier to follow in a natural voice.
- Hindi prompts: test both tiers on your phone; the difference is easy to hear.
Standard is the sensible choice for:
- High-volume outbound reminders where the same short message goes to thousands of people.
- Internal or utility lines such as staff attendance or delivery-agent menus.
- Long informational messages where the speech cost would dominate the per-minute cost.
Cut the speech bill without changing voice
- Upload a recording for the fixed parts. Your greeting rarely changes. Record it once and play it; it costs nothing per character. Keep text-to-speech for the parts with per-call data, such as
{{var.name}}or an amount. See recorded prompts vs text-to-speech. - Trim the menu. "For sales, press 1" says the same as "If you would like to speak to a member of our sales team, please press 1" in a third of the characters. The IVR script generator and our guide on writing IVR scripts help.
- Watch re-prompts. A menu replays when the caller presses nothing, and every replay is spoken again. A short "Sorry, I didn't catch that" before the options is cheaper than replaying the whole greeting.
How to check what you are paying
Open any call in the IVR call log. It lists the billed minutes, the Standard and Premium characters, the rates and the total. If you see Premium characters you did not expect, a step is still on the default voice.
For the full price list, including number rental and the done-for-you package, see IVR pricing, the pricing docs and our IVR cost in India guide.
FAQ
How much does text-to-speech cost in an Edesy IVR?
Rs 0.50 per 1,000 characters spoken with a Standard voice and Rs 2.00 per 1,000 characters with a Premium voice, on top of Rs 1 per minute for the call. Prices exclude 18% GST.
Which voices are Standard and which are Premium?
Standard voices are the basic voices with "Standard" in their name. Every other voice, including the more natural neural voices, is Premium. The default English and Hindi voices are Premium, so choose a Standard voice in the flow if you want the lower rate.
Is a call charged for a full 1,000 characters?
No. The charge is pro-rata on the characters the call actually spoke. A 300-character menu costs Rs 0.15 with a Standard voice and Rs 0.60 with a Premium voice.
Do Hindi prompts cost more than English ones?
Not per character. Characters are counted as Unicode characters, not bytes, so Devanagari text is not inflated. A Hindi prompt costs the same per character as an English one.
Can I avoid the text-to-speech charge completely?
Yes. Upload a recorded audio file and play it with a Play step. Uploaded recordings have no text-to-speech charge; you pay only the per-minute rate.
Where do I see what each call cost?
The call log itemises every call: billed minutes, Standard characters, Premium characters and the total.
Try both voices on your own phone
Build a flow, switch the voice between a Standard and a Premium one, and place a test call to hear the difference. New accounts get Rs 20 free credit with no card needed. Start free on Edesy IVR or read more about Edesy IVR.