# Cartesia Ink vs Speechmatics Speech-to-Text (slim)

> Cartesia Ink and Speechmatics Speech-to-Text score within a point of each other for speech-to-text, 67.9 and 67.1 out of 100. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt.md (~2,750 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cartesia-ink-stt-vs-speechmatics-stt
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Cartesia Ink and Speechmatics Speech-to-Text score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 67.9 (B) and 67.1 (B). Speechmatics Speech-to-Text leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth, payments & pricing and transparency & trust. Both do speech-to-text.

- Cartesia Ink: B 67.9, rank #238 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/cartesia-ink-stt.min.md
- Speechmatics Speech-to-Text: B 67.1, rank #262 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/speechmatics-stt.min.md
- Cartesia Ink, 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 65; Maintenance & community, 85 against 75.
- Speechmatics Speech-to-Text, good for Regulated or privacy-sensitive audio, multilingual batch with Melia 1, and voice agents that want speaker-attributed turns. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 80 against 74; Security & auth, 65 against 52; Payments & pricing, 40 against 35; Transparency & trust, 75 against 67. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | Cartesia Ink | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 73 | 70 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 89 | 65 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 74 | 80 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 52 | 65 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 35 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 85 | 75 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 67 | 75 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Cartesia Ink | Speechmatics Speech-to-Text |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Cartesia | Speechmatics |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.cartesia.ai` | `https://eu1.asr.api.speechmatics.com/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| Price for speech-to-text | not published | $0.0027 per minute of audio |
| Licence | Proprietary hosted service under the Cartesia Terms of Service. The Python and JavaScript SDKs are Apache-2.0 | MIT (SDKs) |
| Last release | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-22 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-06-14 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-06-14 | 2026-05-27 |
| 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 |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 134 stars | 20 stars, 58k npm/wk, 48k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 3.5/5 (2) |