# Is Cartesia still around? (2026) - Verdict

**Yes. Cartesia is live and price-verified as of Jul 21, 2026.**

Category: AI Voice & TTS

- Status: alive
- Lowest paid plan: $5/mo
- Free tier: yes (permanent)
- Verified: Jul 21, 2026 · price source: https://cartesia.ai/pricing

## What it is

Cartesia develops voice AI models for developers, centered on Sonic, a text-to-speech system aimed at real-time and conversational use. Its technical distinction is architectural: rather than the transformer designs common to most speech models, Cartesia builds on state space models (SSMs), an approach its founders helped pioneer and use to target low-latency streaming for voice agents. Access is credit-based, starting with a free tier of 20K monthly credits and a $5/month Pro plan that adds a commercial-use license and instant voice cloning, scaling to higher tiers and custom enterprise terms. The fit is teams building voice applications, from individual developers to enterprises in areas such as financial services and healthcare.
Sources: Cartesia homepage (https://www.cartesia.ai) · Cartesia Sonic model page (https://www.cartesia.ai/sonic) · Cartesia pricing (https://www.cartesia.ai/pricing) · Index Ventures - investment in Cartesia (https://www.indexventures.com/perspectives/building-the-next-generation-of-real-time-ai-models-our-investment-in-cartesia/)

## Use it

- Cartesia: https://verdict.tools/go/cartesia (rel="sponsored nofollow")

## Options

- The best AI Voice & TTS: https://verdict.tools/best/ai-voice

## FAQ

### Is Cartesia shutting down?
There is no official sunset announcement for Cartesia as of Jul 21, 2026. It is reachable and price-verified; a "dead" status is set only by a human.

### How much does Cartesia cost?
Its lowest paid plan starts at $5/mo (verified Jul 21, 2026); the price links to the vendor's live pricing page as its source.

---
Disclosure: some outbound links here may be affiliate links. Outbound links to tools route through /go/{slug} with rel="sponsored nofollow". We publish only verifiable facts, each with a date and a source; a "dead" status is set only by a human. Visitor IP addresses are not stored.

Canonical: https://verdict.tools/status/cartesia