Svara TTSTurbovs Sarvam.
Bulbul v3 lists ₹3 per 1,000 characters across 11 Indian languages. Svara TTS Turbo is ₹1 per 1,000 across 82. The rest of the comparison, dated and sourced, is below.
The short answer.
For Indian-language speech behind an API, Svara TTS Turbo costs a third of Bulbul's rate and covers every language Bulbul does, then dozens more, in the same model, from the same voices, with zero-shot cloning and about 80 ms to first audio. Sarvam fits if you are buying their wider Indic stack, speech to text, translation, LLMs, and staying inside its 11 languages.
| Side by side |  Svara TTS Turbo |  Sarvam (Bulbul v3) |
|---|---|---|
| Rate per 1,000 characters | ₹1 | ₹3 (₹30 per 10,000) |
| Roughly per minute of audio | ~₹1 | ~₹3 |
| Currencies | ₹ for India, $ everywhere else | INR only, prepaid credits |
| Free tier | 100,000 characters a month, every month | ₹100 in credits, one time |
| Languages | 82 in one model, Indic, African, and the world's majors | 11 (10 Indian languages + Indian English) |
| Voices | Hundreds; every voice speaks every language | 35+ (bulbul:v3) |
| Voice cloning | Zero-shot in the API, self-serve | Enterprise only, via their team |
| Time to first audio | ~80 ms, with input streaming | Not published |
| Plans and limits | Published plans with concurrent streams; Growth is ₹1,000 per month | Prepaid credits; requests-per-minute tiers; volume via their sales team |
| API compatibility | OpenAI-style and ElevenLabs-style endpoints | Sarvam API |
Per-minute estimates use the rule of thumb that 1,000 characters is about a minute of audio.
Where Svara wins.
- A third of the rate: ₹1 against ₹3 per 1,000 characters, and $0.01 internationally, where Sarvam prices only in rupees.
- 82 languages in one model, including all 11 Bulbul covers; Bulbul covers Indian languages only. One vendor whether your product speaks Hindi, Swahili or Spanish.
- Hundreds of voices against their 35+, and every one of ours speaks every language and code-switches mid-sentence.
- Voice cloning is an API call, zero-shot, from a few seconds of reference audio. Bulbul's cloning is an enterprise conversation with their team.
- About 80 ms to first audio with input streaming for live agents; Sarvam publishes no latency figure.
- Plans you can read before you buy, monthly tiers with concurrent-stream limits, a recurring free tier, no sales call.
Where Sarvam fits.
- A wider Indian-language stack, speech to text, translation and LLMs beside TTS.
- An Indic-focused research effort with a public roadmap in that direction.
Switching is an afternoon, not a project
The request shape is the OpenAI speech standard, POST /v1/audio/speech with text, voice and language, and Indic text normalization is a built-in parameter, so numbers, dates and amounts read aloud properly. The free tier is 100,000 characters a month with no card, so you can run your own traffic through both before deciding.
Questions
Competitor rates as of September 2026, read from each vendor's own site, check the sources before deciding, since prices change. Sources, with our own pages beside them: docs.sarvam.ai pricing · docs.sarvam.ai text-to-speech · sarvam.ai/blogs/bulbul-v3 · kenpathlabs.com/pricing · API overview.
Also compared: Svara TTS Turbo vs ElevenLabs · ElevenLabs alternatives