Cartesia models on the Humanness Index™
| Rank | Model | Humanness | Latency | Languages | Price / 1M chars |
|---|
| #21 | Sonic | 0 | 116 ms | 15 | $50 |
| #18 | Sonic 2 | 44 | 159 ms | 15 | $50 |
| #20 | Sonic 3 | 23 | 166 ms | 42 | $50 |
| #3 | Sonic 3.5 | 82 | 128 ms | 42 | $50 |
About Cartesia
Cartesia was founded by the researchers who created state space models, the S4 and Mamba architectures from their academic work. Every Sonic generation is a state space model rather than a Transformer, which is the architectural basis of the latency claims the family is known for.
Sources: cartesia.ai
Platform and compliance
Four Sonic generations sit on the Humanness Index™, from the May 2024 debut model to the current Sonic 3.5 flagship. Since Sonic 3 the platform has carried SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and PCI Level 1 compliance, aimed at regulated phone work.
Sources: docs.cartesia.ai
Cartesia stats
- docs.cartesia.ai (checked 2026-06-10) Sonic 3 and 3.5; earlier Sonic and Sonic 2 shipped 15, encoded per model.
- cartesia.ai/pricing (checked 2026-06-10) 1 credit per character (docs.cartesia.ai/pricing); entry self-serve Pro plan is $5/mo for 100K credits, a $50 per 1M effective rate; larger plans drop to $37-39 per 1M. Same credit rate for every Sonic.
How human does your model really sound?
The benchmark is open source. Suggest a model, read the methodology, or ask us to put your voice in the arena.