Azure Speech alternative

Our voices and transcripts are made for calls.

Voices that switch into English mid-sentence and transcripts that keep each word in its own script, on one rupee wallet.

Azure’s numbers checked 17 October 2026.

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Azure Speech and Voice Infra at a glance
Azure Speech Voice Infra
Text to speech price
₹1,424per 10 lakh characters, neural voices ($15) ₹1,800per 10 lakh characters
Speech to text price
₹17.09an hour, batch ($0.18) ₹15an hour, recorded calls
Indian languages
Hindi and eight more Hindi and seven more, plus Hinglish
Phone-line audio
8 kHz μ-law and A-law 8 kHz μ-law and A-law
Speaker labels
Extra on real-time Included on recorded calls
Every detail, with sources

Side by side

Here is Azure beside Voice Infra.

Every price in rupees², from their own pages and ours.³

Price

Text to speech, ₹ per 10 lakh characters
Text to speech, Azure Speech and Voice Infra, in rupees per 10 lakh characters
OptionBar₹ per 10 lakh characters
Neural and Neural HD Flash ₹1,424$15
Neural HD and MAI-Voice ₹2,089$22
Mira TTS every plan, from the first character ₹1,800
How we read these numbers

Dollar prices converted at ₹94.96, the ECB reference rate on 16 October 2026. The rate.

  • Neural and Neural HD Flash: “$15”, azure.microsoft.com
  • Neural HD and MAI-Voice: “$22”, azure.microsoft.com
  • Mira TTS: 1.80 rupees per 1,000 characters, on every plan, from our price list.

10 lakh is 1 million. The first half-million neural characters each month are free.

From azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/speech, checked . Ours from our price list.

Speech to text, ₹ per hour of audio
Speech to text, Azure Speech and Voice Infra, in rupees per hour of audio
OptionBar₹ per hour of audio
Real-time live audio ₹94.96$1
Fast transcription ₹34.19$0.36
Batch ₹17.09$0.18
Mira Transcribe recorded calls, speaker labels included ₹15
How we read these numbers

Dollar prices converted at ₹94.96, the ECB reference rate on 16 October 2026. The rate.

  • Real-time: “$1 per hour”, azure.microsoft.com; + ₹28.49 ($0.3) an hour for speaker labels
  • Fast transcription: “$0.36”, azure.microsoft.com
  • Batch: “$0.18”, azure.microsoft.com
  • Mira Transcribe: 15 rupees an hour of recorded audio, speaker labels included, from our price list.

From azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/speech, checked . Ours from our price list.

What speech costs, Azure Speech and Voice Infra, in their words
DetailAzure SpeechVoice Infra
Text to speech price Neural and Neural HD Flash: $15 per 1M characters Neural HD and MAI-Voice: $22 per 1M characters azure.microsoft.com ₹1.80 per 1,000 characters, on pay as you go and on Business (₹50,000/month commitment), before GST
Speech to text price Real-time $1 per hour fast transcription $0.36; batch $0.18; speaker diarization on real-time $0.3 per hour per feature azure.microsoft.com Recorded calls: ₹15 per hour of audio (₹0.25 a minute), speaker labels included, charged once when the job completes. Live recognition is ₹0.30 a minute of audio over HTTP or a WebSocket

What it costs

To speak, Azure lists ₹1,424 per million characters on neural voices and ₹2,089 on Neural HD. Ours is ₹1,800 per million, and a request that fails costs nothing.

To transcribe, Azure’s batch rate is ₹17.09 an hour, fast transcription ₹34.19 and live ₹94.96. Ours is ₹15 an hour of recorded audio, which is 25 paise a minute, with speaker labels included. We charge once, when the job is done. A job that fails or comes back degraded is free. Azure’s free tier, 5 hours and half a million characters a month, is a nice way to prototype.

How it sounds

How good is our Hindi transcription?

On 499 public Hindi phone recordings at 8 kHz, Mira STT made 18.3% word errors, against 21.6% for Sarvam’s Saaras v4 on the same clips. On clean read speech Saaras does better, 5.8% against our 10.1%. Azure wasn’t in that test, so it tells you nothing about Azure. The fair test is twenty of your own calls, sent to both.

Indian languages

Languages and voices, Azure Speech and Voice Infra
DetailAzure SpeechVoice Infra
Indian languages hi-IN neural voices (Swara, Madhur, Aarav, Ananya, Kavya and others) and MAI-Voice voices in preview two neural voices each for Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, Malayalam and Punjabi learn.microsoft.com Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, plus Hinglish, in speech recognition and voice

Where it runs

Where it runs, Azure Speech and Voice Infra
DetailAzure SpeechVoice Infra
Where it runs Central India supports neural TTS and real-time, fast and batch transcription South India is not supported for standalone speech learn.microsoft.com Speech recognition and the model run on our own GPUs in India

Getting started

Getting started, Azure Speech and Voice Infra
DetailAzure SpeechVoice Infra
How to switch Azure's Speech SDK and REST APIs, with an endpoint per region learn.microsoft.com TTS on OpenAI's POST /v1/audio/speech transcription on POST /v2/transcriptions; one sk_live_ key for both
Try it free Free F0 tier: 0.5 million neural characters and 5 audio hours of real-time transcription a month azure.microsoft.com No sign-up to look around the sandbox ₹200 of credit once you confirm a work email; clips you play in the console are not charged

Spot something out of date? Tell us. Every platform in one table: voice AI platforms compared.

Why switch

Why people switch to Voice Infra.

Everything a phone call in India needs, from one team, priced in rupees.

Mira TTS

₹1.80 per 1,000 characters.⁴

And ₹15 an hour to transcribe a recorded call. Both from one rupee wallet.

Eight Indian languages, live.

Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. And the Hinglish in between, mid-sentence.

Speech recognition and the model run on our own GPUs in India.

The listening and the thinking: Mira STT and Gemma 4 26B. Mira TTS speaks.

Ready for the phone line.

Ask for 8 kHz μ-law or A-law and send it straight down the line. Or take 48 kHz PCM for everything else.

Phone agents, on the same key.

When you want the whole call, the same key and wallet run our voice agents.

AI agents: ₹5/min to start · ₹1.50/min all-in at volume.¹

Hear it before you decide.

Real lines from Mira TTS, one request each, unedited. Pick a language and press play.

Hear it

Broad, or close to the call

Here is how Azure and Voice Infra differ.

Azure Speech is a broad, safe choice, with many Indian languages and a region in Central India. We're narrower and closer to the phone call. Our voices switch into English inside a sentence, our transcripts keep each word in its own script, and both bill one rupee wallet: ₹1.80 per 1,000 characters to speak, ₹15 an hour to transcribe.

Azure Speech lives inside Microsoft’s cloud and does a great deal. Its Hindi voices include Swara and Madhur, plus the newer MAI-Voice voices in preview. It transcribes Hindi live, in batch and in a fast mode, and it does all of that from Central India. It also speaks Bengali, Marathi, Kannada and more, which we don’t yet.

We do two things, both for calls in India. Mira TTS speaks Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, and the mix in between. Mira Transcribe turns a recorded call into a transcript that says who spoke, with each word in its own script, just as people switched. One key and one rupee wallet cover both, and transcription runs on our GPUs in India.

Hear it.

Real lines from Mira TTS. Pick one, press play.

Text149 characters

Hi, मैं नेहा बोल रही हूँ Acme Store से। आपका order dispatch हो गया है और Friday तक deliver हो जाएगा। Address में कोई change करना हो तो अभी बता दीजिए।

48 kHz · MonoReady when you are

0:00 / 0:09

voice
Neha
language
Hinglish
speech
0:09
characters
149

Mira TTS, voice neha, rendered 16 Oct 2026. One request, not edited.

Text119 characters

नमस्ते, मैं श्रुति बोल रही हूँ, दाँतों के क्लिनिक से। कल सुबह डॉक्टर साहब से आपका मिलना तय है। क्या आप समय पर आ पाएँगे?

48 kHz · MonoReady when you are

0:00 / 0:08

voice
Shruti
language
Hindi
speech
0:08
characters
119

Mira TTS, voice shruti, rendered 16 Oct 2026. One request, not edited.

Text117 characters

નમસ્તે, હું આશુ બોલું છું. તમારી લોનનો હપ્તો આવતા અઠવાડિયે ભરવાનો છે. તમે કહો તો હું અત્યારે જ ભરવાની રીત સમજાવી દઉં.

48 kHz · MonoReady when you are

0:00 / 0:08

voice
Ashu
language
Gujarati
speech
0:08
characters
117

Mira TTS, voice ashu, rendered 17 Oct 2026. One request, not edited.

Text167 characters

வணக்கம், நான் நேஹா பேசுகிறேன். உங்கள் பார்சல் நாளை மாலைக்குள் வந்து சேரும். அந்த நேரத்தில் நீங்கள் வீட்டில் இல்லையென்றால் சொல்லுங்கள், வேறு நாளுக்கு மாற்றி விடுகிறோம்.

48 kHz · MonoReady when you are

0:00 / 0:10

voice
Neha
language
Tamil
speech
0:10
characters
167

Mira TTS, voice neha, rendered 17 Oct 2026. One request, not edited.

Text114 characters

నమస్కారం, నేను సమీర్ మాట్లాడుతున్నాను. నిన్న మీరు మా కొత్త ఇళ్ళ గురించి అడిగారు. ఇప్పుడు కొంచెం సేపు మాట్లాడవచ్చా?

48 kHz · MonoReady when you are

0:00 / 0:08

voice
Sameer
language
Telugu
speech
0:08
characters
114

Mira TTS, voice sameer, rendered 17 Oct 2026. One request, not edited.

Which to pick

Which is right for you?

Sometimes it's them. We'll say so.

Choose Azure if…

  • You need Punjabi today.
  • You want streaming speech to text from the same supplier, right now.
  • Your company already buys Azure, or you want to start on its free tier.

Choose Voice Infra if…

  • Your calls mix English into Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam.
  • You want speaking and listening on one key and one rupee wallet.
  • Your code already calls OpenAI's speech API.
  • You transcribe recorded calls and need to know who said what, at no extra charge.

Moving

Moving your code across is easy.

Your code stays. Three values change.

  1. Step 1

    Get an API key.

    Look around with no sign-up. When you are ready, create a key in Developers.

  2. Step 2

    Change three values.

    The base URL, the model and the voice. The rest of your OpenAI code stays as it is.

  3. Step 3

    Pick a voice.

    Four voices, each speaking Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

Get an API key

Switching

For speech, swap the Speech SDK call for OpenAI’s speech API: POST /v1/audio/speech, with model mira-tts, a voice and a format. Ask for ulaw_8000 or alaw_8000 when the audio goes to a phone line.

For recordings, upload the file to POST /v2/transcriptions with a line of context and any names you want spelled right. Then check the job until it’s done. A recording can run to two hours. The transcription docs show both steps.

Building a calling agent on Azure? Ours already listen, think and speak in one place, for ₹1.50 a minute all-in on the volume plan.

import os
from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    api_key=os.environ["MIRA_API_KEY"],
    base_url="https://sandbox.voice.miraiminds.co/v1",  # 1. our URL
)

with client.audio.speech.with_streaming_response.create(
    model="mira-tts",       # 2. our model
    voice="ashu",           # 3. one of our voices
    response_format="pcm",  # always send it
    input="चलिए, आपका order कल deliver होगा।",
) as response:
    for chunk in response.iter_bytes():
        ...  # raw 16-bit mono PCM at 48 kHz, playable as it arrives

Questions

Here is what people ask before switching from Azure.

Which is cheaper for speech?

At the ECB rate, Azure's neural voices come to ₹1,424 ($15) per million characters, and Neural HD to ₹2,089 ($22). We charge ₹1,800. Azure's first half-million characters each month are free.

And for transcription?

Azure's batch rate is ₹17.09 ($0.18) an hour, a little above our ₹15. Fast transcription is ₹34.19 and real-time ₹94.96. Our ₹15 includes speaker labels; on Azure's real-time service they cost extra.

Can you transcribe live calls, like Azure's real-time transcription?

Inside our voice agents, yes, on every call. As a standalone API, live transcription is in private preview, so ask us for access. Recorded calls work through the public API today.

Does Mira TTS support SSML?

Our docs cover plain text, up to 2,000 characters per request. If you rely on SSML tags or speaking styles, Azure has them and we don't document them.

Still deciding? Ask us.

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  1. AI agents: T5 is ₹5 a minute, pay as you go, with our phone line and call insights included. At volume, T1 is ₹1 a minute on ₹1,00,000 a month, and ₹1.50 with our phone line (₹0.30) and call insights (₹0.20). Prices exclude GST.

  2. Dollar prices converted at ₹94.96, the ECB reference rate on 16 October 2026. The rate.

  3. Azure Speech’s figures are from its own pages, linked beside each one and listed under Sources, checked . Ours are from our price list and docs.

  4. Mira TTS is ₹1.80 per 1,000 characters on pay as you go and on Business (₹50,000 a month); Mira Transcribe is ₹15 an hour of recorded audio. All prices exclude GST.

Get an API key