Speech-to-Text & Text-to-Speech
Deepgram vs Gladia: speech-to-text for voice agents and recorded calls
Pricing and features, side by side. Last verified October 27, 2026. Spot a wrong price? support@cozzo.io
Cozzo’s tip: start with the billing row. It’s where the surprises hide.
Cozzo’s verdict. Short answer: pick Deepgram for a live phone agent, because Flux English is $0.0065 a minute with turn detection built in and billing is per second. Pick Gladia for lots of recorded calls in English, French, German, Spanish or Italian (Solaria-3 files from €0.16 an hour), or when callers switch languages mid-call across Gladia’s 100. Cozzo’s pick for most English voice agents: Deepgram Flux.
| Detail | Deepgram | Gladia |
|---|---|---|
| TypeSame | BothSpeech-to-Text & Text-to-Speech | |
| Billing styleSame | BothPay as you go | |
| Starting priceDiffers | Nova-3 streaming $0.0048/min ($0.29/hr); $200 free credit | Files from €0.16/hr (Solaria-3); real-time €0.68/hr |
| BillingDiffers | Pay as you go, billed per second | Pay as you go, per hour (prepaid credits, billed in euros) |
| HIPAA / BAADiffers | HIPAA: BAA for Enterprise customers; SOC 2 Type 2 (deepgram.com/pricing, checked Oct 22, 2026) | GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II |
| Best forDiffers | Streaming speech-to-text for voice agents | Real-time multilingual transcription |
| Key featuresDiffers |
|
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| Last verifiedSame | BothOctober 27, 2026 | |
Deepgram review: pricing, features and alternatives →Gladia review: pricing, features and alternatives →
Both sell speech-to-text APIs that voice agent builders plug into LiveKit, Pipecat or Vapi. Deepgram bills in dollars per second: Flux English $0.0065/min and Nova-3 $0.0048/min on live audio (both limited-time promotional rates; regular $0.0077), and Nova-3 recorded files at $0.0043/min ($0.26 an hour), with $200 in free credit. Gladia bills in euros per hour from prepaid credits: real-time on Solaria-1 is €0.68 an hour (€0.0113/min), files are €0.16 an hour on Solaria-3 (five European languages) or €0.27 on Solaria-1 (100 languages), falling with monthly volume, with €50 of free credit valid for a year. Deepgram also sells Aura-2 voices and an all-in Voice Agent API; Gladia is speech-to-text only.
Deepgram vs Gladia: API prices
Deepgram
- Free to start
- $200 credit, no card, no expiry
- Live (real-time) transcription
- Flux English $0.0065/min with turn detection; Nova-3 $0.0048/min (both promotional; regular $0.0077)
- Live, multilingual
- Flux Multilingual (10 languages) $0.0078/min; Nova-3 Multilingual $0.0058/min (regular $0.0092)
- Recorded files
- Nova-3 $0.0043/min ($0.26/hr); Multilingual $0.0052/min
- Volume discounts
- Growth: $4K+/year prepaid, up to ~20% off (Flux $0.0057, Nova-3 $0.0042)
- Speaker labels
- Live +$0.0020/min; included on files
- Redaction
- +$0.0020/min, live or files
- Text-to-speech
- Aura-2 $0.030 per 1K characters (7 languages)
- All-in voice agent
- Voice Agent API $0.075/min (STT, LLM and voice)
- Concurrency (self-serve)
- 150 live streams, 50 REST requests
- Billing
- Per second, no rounding
- HIPAA
- BAA for Enterprise customers
- Your audio
- No training opt-in mentioned on the pricing page
Gladia
- Free to start
- €50 credit, valid one year (Gladia says about 73 hours of real-time)
- Live (real-time) transcription
- Solaria-1: €0.68/hr (€0.0113/min). No volume table for real-time
- Live, multilingual
- Same €0.68/hr, 100 languages with code switching
- Recorded files
- Solaria-3 from €0.16/hr (5 languages); Solaria-1 from €0.27/hr (100 languages)
- Volume discounts
- Automatic on files: down to €0.12/hr (Solaria-3) and €0.21 (Solaria-1) above 10,000 hrs a month. Top-up bonuses of 10% to 20% from €1,000
- Speaker labels
- Files only (not on live audio)
- Redaction
- PII redaction €0.07/hr, files only
- Text-to-speech
- None
- All-in voice agent
- None
- Concurrency (self-serve)
- 30 live sessions, 25 file jobs
- Billing
- Per hour of audio from prepaid euro credits
- HIPAA
- GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II listed on self-serve
- Your audio
- Self-serve is opted in to model training by default; free opt-out
Pay as you go list prices from deepgram.com/pricing and gladia.io/pricing, read Oct 27, 2026. Deepgram marks its Flux English and Nova-3 streaming rates as limited-time promotions. Euro prices are shown as published; Cozzo doesn’t convert them.
Worked example: one month of a busy voice agent
Deepgram
- Assumptions
- 10,000 live call minutes a month (about 167 hours), English
- Live transcription
- Flux English: 10,000 × $0.0065 = $65 ($77 at the regular rate). Nova-3: $48
- Plus 500 hours of recorded calls
- Nova-3 files: 500 × $0.26 = $130
- Total
- $195 with Flux, $178 with Nova-3
- Free credit covers
- About 30,000 Flux minutes ($200 ÷ $0.0065)
Gladia
- Assumptions
- Same
- Live transcription
- Solaria-1 real-time: 166.7 hrs × €0.68 ≈ €113
- Plus 500 hours of recorded calls
- Solaria-3 files: 500 × €0.15 = €75 (Gladia’s own calculator figure)
- Total
- About €188
- Free credit covers
- About 73 hours of real-time, per Gladia
Arithmetic on pay as you go list prices only. Your LLM, voice and phone line are extra. Growth discounts, Gladia top-up bonuses and free credits would lower these totals.
Questions
Is Deepgram or Gladia better for voice agents?
For most English phone agents, Deepgram. Flux has turn detection built into the model, live audio costs $0.0065 a minute against Gladia’s €0.0113, and billing is per second. Gladia makes sense when callers speak many languages or switch mid-call, since Solaria-1 covers 100 languages with code switching.
Is Gladia cheaper than Deepgram?
For recorded files, yes on list prices: Gladia Solaria-3 starts at €0.16 an hour against $0.26 for Deepgram Nova-3, as long as the audio is English, French, German, Spanish or Italian. For live audio, no: Deepgram lists $0.0048 to $0.0065 a minute, Gladia €0.0113.
Which has more languages, Deepgram or Gladia?
Gladia’s Solaria-1 covers 100 languages, live and on files. Deepgram’s Nova-3 covers 45+, and Flux Multilingual, the model built for agents, covers 10 (English, Spanish, French, German, Hindi, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian and Dutch).
Do Deepgram and Gladia have free tiers?
Deepgram gives $200 in free credit with no card and no expiry. Gladia gives €50, valid for one year, which it says is about 73 hours of real-time or 312 hours of Solaria-3 files.
Can I get a HIPAA BAA from Deepgram or Gladia?
Deepgram signs BAAs for Enterprise customers. Gladia lists GDPR, HIPAA and SOC 2 Type II on its self-serve plan. Either way, get the BAA signed before patient calls go through it.
Has Cozzo tested Deepgram or Gladia?
Not on their own. Cozzo’s phone tests measure whole voice agents. Deepgram Nova-3 was the listening model in Vapi’s default stack and in Cozzo’s own Pipecat build in published rounds; Gladia hasn’t been in a tested stack yet.