Amazon Polly review

Amazon Polly is the long-running AWS speech service and still one of the cheapest. Standard voices cost $4 per million characters, Neural voices $16, Generative voices $30 and Long-Form voices $100. New accounts get a free tier for the first 12 months, including 100 thousand Generative characters a month. Polly streams audio back as soon as you send text and supports common SSML tags plus Amazon extras such as a Newscaster speaking style on selected voices. Speech Marks return timing data for lip sync and karaoke-style highlighting, and custom lexicons fix how names are read. Polly works through every AWS SDK, from Python to C++, and integrates with Amazon Connect, Genesys Cloud CX and the Amazon Chime SDK. For an exclusive voice, AWS runs a Brand Voice engagement with your team. The voice catalog is less expressive than ElevenLabs or Cartesia, and AWS publishes no latency figure.

Who it is for

Teams on AWS that want cheap, reliable speech for IVR, alerts and Amazon Connect bots.

Price

Standard voices $4 per million characters, Neural $16, Generative $30, Long-Form $100; free tier for the first 12 months.

Amazon Polly’s Standard voices are priced at $4.00 per 1 million characters
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 7, 2026.

Key features

• Standard, Neural, Long-Form and Generative voice types
• Speech Marks for lip sync and word highlighting
• SSML plus custom Amazon tags such as the Newscaster style
• Custom lexicons for names and brand terms
• Brand Voice engagements for an exclusive custom voice

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Ties with Google for the lowest published rate at $4 per million characters
• Strength: SDKs for Java, Node.js, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, Go and C++
• Strength: Native fit with Amazon Connect contact centers
• Weakness: The free tier lasts only 12 months
• Weakness: Fewer expressive voices than the newer startups
• Weakness: Brand Voice is a custom engagement, not self-serve

Key facts

• Free tier: First 12 months; 100 thousand characters a month on Generative
• Generative voices: $30 per million characters
• SDK languages: Java, Node.js, .NET, PHP, Python, Ruby, Go, C++

Where it ranks

Amazon Polly is No. 8 in our Best Text-to-Speech APIs verdict.