# Cartesia Ink vs Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP

> Gladia Speech-to-Text scores 69.5 (B) to Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B) for speech-to-text. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on reliability and maintenance & community. Both do speech-to-text.

- Cartesia Ink: grade B, 67.9/100, rank #238 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.json
- Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP: grade B, 69.5/100, rank #180 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gladia-stt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gladia-stt.json
- Best speech-to-text APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/speech-to-text/index.md
- All 91 stt comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/speech-to-text/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Cartesia Ink (B)

Good for: Suited to voice agents that need turn detection and transcription from one model in English, French, Hindi, Japanese or Spanish, and to teams already using Cartesia text-to-speech.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 73 against 60
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 80

Watch for: The terms let Cartesia train models on inputs and outputs unless otherwise agreed. Opting out is a form in the Playground's data controls

### Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP (B)

Good for: Multilingual meetings and calls where translation, summaries and NER are wanted in one price, and for teams who want an MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 95 against 89
- Security & auth, 70 against 52
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 35

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: Starter costs $0.61 an hour async and $0.75 real time, several times the cheapest rivals


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cartesia Ink | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 60 | Cartesia Ink +13 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 95 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 75 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +1 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 52 | 70 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +18 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 40 | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 80 | Cartesia Ink +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 67 | 64 | Cartesia Ink +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.9 · B** | **69.5 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cartesia Ink | Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Cartesia | Gladia |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cartesia.ai` | `https://api.gladia.io/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under the Cartesia Terms of Service. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are Apache-2.0 | MIT (SDKs and MCP server) |
| Tools exposed | none | 8 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-24 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-06-14 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-06-14 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 134 stars | 4 stars, 4.8k npm/wk, 126k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Cartesia Ink.** Ink 2 streams transcripts with turn detection built into the model, documented by an AsyncAPI file with typed ranges and structured errors. The terms, last revised 14 June 2024, let Cartesia train on inputs and outputs unless the customer opts out, and zero data retention is an Enterprise setting. Ink 2 has no batch endpoint and no diarisation.

**Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP.** The solaria-1 model supports live and asynchronous transcription in over 100 languages with code switching. Starter pricing is $0.61 an hour for asynchronous transcription and $0.75 for real-time audio.

## Before you call either

### Cartesia Ink

1. Use `wss://api.cartesia.ai/stt/turns/websocket` with `model=ink-2`, `encoding`, `sample_rate` and `cartesia_version=2026-08-14`. All four are required.
2. Send raw mono audio in chunks of about 100 ms at the speed it was spoken. Pushing a whole file into the socket can return an internal server error.
3. Read the final text from `turn.end` only. `transcript` is cumulative within a turn, so joining `turn.update` events duplicates text.
4. Send `{"type": "close"}` after the last audio and keep reading until the server closes the socket, or the buffered tail is lost.
5. Check `encoding` and `sample_rate` against the source before sending. The docs say the server might not return an error when they are wrong.

### Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP

1. Don't resubmit a pre-recorded job after a 200 or a `transcription.created` webhook. It's already queued
2. Pick `solaria-3` only for async EN, FR, DE, ES or IT audio. Anything live or multilingual needs `solaria-1`
3. A 429 means the concurrency limit, 3 async and 1 live on the free plan. Wait for a running job to finish
4. Upgrade off the free plan before sending sensitive audio
5. Split files over 135 minutes or 1,000 MB

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cartesia Ink or Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP?

Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP scores 69.5 (B) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on reliability and maintenance & community.

### Do Cartesia Ink and Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Cartesia Ink and Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP without installing anything?

Yes. Cartesia Ink has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cartesia.ai and Gladia Speech-to-Text API + MCP at https://api.gladia.io/v2.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-gladia-stt.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "cartesia-ink-stt", "b": "gladia-stt"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare cartesia-ink-stt gladia-stt`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/gladia-stt.json

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