# Cartesia Ink vs Google Cloud Speech-to-Text

> Google Cloud Speech-to-Text scores 70.2 (BB) 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-google-speech-to-text
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-google-speech-to-text.md (~2,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-google-speech-to-text.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-google-speech-to-text.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

Google Cloud Speech-to-Text scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing 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
- Google Cloud Speech-to-Text: grade BB, 70.2/100, rank #159 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-speech-to-text.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-speech-to-text.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:
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 80
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 25

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

### Google Cloud Speech-to-Text (BB)

Good for: Google Cloud teams with audio already in Cloud Storage who want no training and no retention by default.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 85 against 73
- Security & auth, 95 against 52
- Transparency & trust, 86 against 67

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better

Watch for: No release note since 2025-11-13


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Cartesia Ink | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 73 | 85 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text +12 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 89 | 80 | Cartesia Ink +9 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 70 | Cartesia Ink +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 52 | 95 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text +43 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 35 | 20 | Cartesia Ink +15 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 85 | 25 | Cartesia Ink +60 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 67 | 86 | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67.9 · B** | **70.2 · BB** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Cartesia Ink | Google Cloud Speech-to-Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | Cartesia | Google Cloud |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cartesia.ai` | `https://speech.googleapis.com/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth |
| 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 | Apache-2.0 (SDKs) |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-28 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-06-14 | 2026-09-02 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-06-14 | 2026-10-01 |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | yes |
| 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 | 713k npm/wk, 3.7M 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.

**Google Cloud Speech-to-Text.** Audio isn't stored or used for training unless the project opts in to data logging. No release note since 2025-11-13.

## 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.

### Google Cloud Speech-to-Text

1. Call Chirp 3 on the `us` or `eu` endpoint. It isn't listed for the `global` location
2. Reopen streams before the 5-minute limit, or use `BatchRecognize` for recordings
3. Downmix stereo unless you need channel labels, since each channel is billed
4. Set dynamic batch on offline jobs to cut the price from $0.016 to $0.003 a minute
5. Back off on `RESOURCE_EXHAUSTED`. The Speech docs don't give a retry interval

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Cartesia Ink or Google Cloud Speech-to-Text?

Google Cloud Speech-to-Text scores 70.2 (BB) on agent readiness against Cartesia Ink's 67.9 (B), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Cartesia Ink leads on schema & documentation, payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Do Cartesia Ink and Google Cloud Speech-to-Text need an API key?

Cartesia Ink needs an API key. Google Cloud Speech-to-Text uses an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Cartesia Ink and Google Cloud Speech-to-Text without installing anything?

Yes. Cartesia Ink has a hosted endpoint at https://api.cartesia.ai and Google Cloud Speech-to-Text at https://speech.googleapis.com/v2.


## For agents

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

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