# Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design vs PlayHT Voice Cloning API (slim)

> Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design scores 60.8 (C) to PlayHT Voice Cloning's 4.1 (F) for voice cloning. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gradium-voice-cloning-vs-playht-voice-cloning.md (~4,850 tokens) · this version ~2,630 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gradium-voice-cloning-vs-playht-voice-cloning.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gradium-voice-cloning-vs-playht-voice-cloning
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-11-07
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)

PlayHT Voice Cloning API shut down on 2025-12-31. Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design scores 60.8 (C) on agent readiness against PlayHT Voice Cloning API's 4.1 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do voice cloning.

- Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design: C 60.8, rank #637 of 1486 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/gradium-voice-cloning.min.md
- PlayHT Voice Cloning API: F 4.1, rank retired, not ranked · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/playht-voice-cloning.min.md
- Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design, good for Builders on Gradium's TTS who want instant clones and designed voices in five European languages with EU residency. Ahead on Reliability, 63 against 0; Schema & documentation, 83 against 31; Agent ergonomics, 67 against 0; Security & auth, 48 against 0; Payments & pricing, 30 against 0; Maintenance & community, 70 against 0; Transparency & trust, 63 against 35. Also Still running. PlayHT Voice Cloning API has shut down; Free to start without a card; No incidents deducted, where PlayHT Voice Cloning API loses 4 points for them.
- PlayHT Voice Cloning API, good for Nothing new. It shut down on 2025-12-31.

| Category | Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design | PlayHT Voice Cloning API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 63 | 0 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 83 | 31 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 67 | 0 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 48 | 0 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 30 | 0 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 70 | 0 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 63 | 35 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design | PlayHT Voice Cloning API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Gradium SAS | PlayHT |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.gradium.ai/api/voices/` | `https://api.play.ht/api/v2` |
| Transports | HTTP, websocket | HTTP |
| Pricing | Freemium | Paid |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Gradium's Terms of Service (version of 19 October 2026). The `gradium` Python SDK is on PyPI | Apache-2.0 (Python SDK) |
| Last release | 2026-11-06 | 2025-05-21 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2023-06-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2021-06-19 |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | none | 218 stars, 14k npm/wk, 6.6k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 1/5 (2) |

Why the edge:
- Maintenance & community, Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design +70: Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design 70 (Read as a model, on the lines the other hosted cloning listings use (recency 30, dated releases 10, deprecation notice 10, support 15, SDKs 15, health 10). Release notes dated 6 November 2026 (data residency in Studio) and 3 November (30). Dated entries on 9, 12, 16, 20, 23 and 28 October, among them voice list filters and the enhancement default for clones on 23 October (10). `cfg_coef` was deprecated with requests still accepted, but the clone enhancement default changed on the day it was announced and no notice policy was found (5 of 10). Public release notes, support@gradium.ai and a Discord server, with no evidence read of how they answer (10 of 15). `gradium` on PyPI at 0.6.4 (4 September 2026), with no SDK in a second language (10 of 15). The SDK repository was not cloned (5 of 10). 30+10+5+10+10+5 = 70.); PlayHT Voice Cloning API 0 (Last Python SDK release 0.1.14 on 2025-03-29, per the 1 October check, not re-read on 17 October. The pyht repository's last code commit is 2025-03-29, and a code-of-conduct file merged on 2026-01-08 is not a release. The npm package is still 0.21.0 of 2025-05-21 (0). No releases or changelog entries in the last 90 days (0). No support channel (0). SDKs abandoned (0). No package health (0).)
- Agent ergonomics, Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design +67: Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design 67 (Voice objects are compact metadata (20 of 25). `GET /voices/` takes `skip` and `limit` (default 100) and since 23 October filters by `locale`, `gender` and `use_case` (20). Validation errors are structured 422 bodies, while synthesis errors arrive as plain-text HTTP 500 with a numeric code to parse (12 of 20). No idempotency key. Saving a design candidate twice answers 409, and the clone call has none (5 of 20). Three required fields with sensible defaults, and one official SDK, in Python (10 of 15). 20+20+12+5+10 = 67.); PlayHT Voice Cloning API 0 (No live surface to call, so every line scores 0.)
- Reliability, Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design +63: Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design 63 (Graded on the hosted voice API with the hosted lines. Atlassian Statuspage at gradium.statuspage.io with five components, one of them Voice Cloning (20). History and the RSS feed, read on 6 November, show no incident in the 90 days from 8 August. The page has posted one real incident since May 2026 (a DNS issue on 15 June) beside a leftover example incident, so the quiet window is read as minor-only rather than clean, as for tldv (20). Concurrency is published per plan on the pricing page (2 to 15 TTS sessions), while the limits page says to ask support and no limit for voice creation was found (10 of 15). No 429, Retry-After or backoff guidance was found; the errors page says to open a new connection after an error, and voice creation takes a `timeout_s` (3 of 15). No SLA in the Terms or on the pricing page (0). Instant cloning carries no beta label (10). 20+20+10+3+0+10 = 63.); PlayHT Voice Cloning API 0 (Retired. On 2026-10-17 api.play.ht and play.ht didn't resolve, so nothing answers a call. Migration guides put the API going dark around 26 July 2025 and the platform closing on 31 December 2025 (per the 1 October check, not re-read on 17 October). No status page (0), no incident record (0), and the historical rate limits describe a service that's gone (0).)
- Schema & documentation, Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design +52: Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design 83 (Public OpenAPI 3.1 file at docs.gradium.ai/api-reference/openapi.json (25). llms.txt and Markdown pages (10). The guides say when to clone, design, enhance or localise a voice, and the custom-voice page explains the enhancement default and how to opt out (14 of 20). The clone body has `audio_file`, `name` and `language` required, a five-value language enum and typed defaults for `start_s`, `enhance` and `timeout_s` (14 of 15). curl and Python examples. The create call documents only 201 and 422, and the errors page covers synthesis, with plain-text 500 bodies (9 of 15). Routes carry no version, the OpenAPI file is 0.1.0, and release notes are dated per entry, newest 6 November 2026 (11 of 15). The API reference FAQ gives a 300-second session where the limits page says 3,000. 25+10+14+14+9+11 = 83.); PlayHT Voice Cloning API 31 (What's left is the docs, still served at docs.play.ht with pages last updated on 9 September 2025 and no shutdown notice. The Markdown copy of the clone reference page embeds an OpenAPI 3.0.3 fragment for `POST /api/v2/cloned-voices/instant`, and docs.play.ht serves an llms.txt that lists no cloning page. The fragment points at https://api.play.ht, which no longer resolves, and both describe the API as live. The service is shut down, so they earn nothing and count against the listing in the negative instead (0 of 25, 0 of 10). The clone endpoint page states the purpose and limits (8 of 20). Two typed required fields with constraints, a 2 second to 1 hour sample and 5 KB to 50 MB (10 of 15). Response codes listed (201, 400, 401, 403, 415, 429, 500) with examples (8 of 15). Versioned `/api/v2` path, and docs.play.ht/changelog returns 404 (5 of 15). Total 31. A model reading these pages would call an API that doesn't exist.)
- Security & auth, Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design +48: Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design 48 (Graded for voice cloning as the other listings in this category, with consent and misuse controls in place of the read-only line and training and retention of voice data in place of the prompt-injection line. API keys per organisation in a header, revocable and able to expire, with no scopes found (20 of 30). No consent or verification field and no watermark. The Terms make the client obtain the consent of anyone whose voice is a sample and bar impersonation without explicit authorisation, and the API FAQ says explicit consent is required (6 of 20). The Terms grant Gradium a licence to use Client Data to improve its services and train its models, with no opt-out found, and zero data retention (paid plans) excludes voice samples, so samples are kept and may be used for training (2 of 15). Organisation roles and a member list, with no per-call audit log found (5 of 15). SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 audited by A-LIGN, a trust centre and security@gradium.ai. No security.txt (404) and no bug bounty found (15 of 20). 20+6+2+5+15 = 48.); PlayHT Voice Cloning API 0 (No live surface. Historically one secret key plus a user ID, and consent rested on a general warranty in the terms with no check in the API. Clones and audio were reportedly deleted at shutdown with no export. Nothing left to score (0).)
- Payments & pricing, Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design +30: Gradium Voice Cloning and Voice Design 30 (No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Plan prices and credits are public, 1 credit a character for speech, with no dollar price per unit, as cartesia-voice-cloning is read. Creating a clone uses no credits in the docs (10). The free plan has 45,000 credits a month, 5 custom voices and Voice Design, and the site says no credit card is required. Commercial use starts on the $12 plan (20). Signup is a browser flow in Gradium Studio (0). 0+10+20+0 = 30.); PlayHT Voice Cloning API 0 (Nothing can be bought. No x402 was ever documented (0), no live pricing (0), no free tier (0), no signup (0).)