AI & MLCredits

Cartesia Startups Grant

Voice and audio AI platform granting startups 12 months on its Scale plan, with monthly Sonic and Ink credits plus agent credits.

CartesiaUpdated monthly · checked 13 h ago

Cartesia Startups Grant is an AI and ML perk from Cartesia worth $299, open to any startup.

Value
$299
Who qualifies
Any startup
Benefit type
Credits
Apply at Cartesia (opens the program details)

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While you apply

Also useful for building with AI models

Applying to Cartesia takes a few minutes.

ListnrAI voiceover studio with 1,000+ voices in 142+ languages1,000 credits (opens in new tab)VapiDeveloper platform for building voice AI agents and phone calls$5 (opens in new tab)Novita AIOpen-source model APIs, on-demand GPUs and agent sandboxes behind one API$100 (opens in new tab)
What you get

Inside Cartesia Startups Grant

  • 12 months on Scale, with 8 million shared Sonic and Ink credits each month plus $299 per month in Managed Agents credits.
  • After 12 months the plan converts to $299 a month unless you change it;
  • Cartesia may ask to use your logo and name.

Source: The provider's official program page (cartesia.ai/startups) · as of Nov 14, 2026

Eligibility

Who it's for

Voice AI startupsVC portfolio fast-trackGlobal
Funding / backing
Any startup
Startup stage
Idea, Pre-seed, Seed, Series A
Geography
Global
Recurring / expiry
12 months of free access; 2x rollover on unused credits
How to claim

How to apply for Cartesia Startups Grant

Steps to apply
  1. 1Apply on cartesia.ai/startups describing what you are building, your team and goals; approval typically within a week
  2. 2a coupon code is issued.
  3. 3VC partner portfolios are fast-tracked.
Good to know: Aimed at founders building voice AI products; detailed funding/age caps are not published.
Apply at Cartesia (opens the program details)

Source: The provider's official program page (cartesia.ai/startups) · as of Nov 14, 2026

Confirmed on : the page still states “12 months on Scale, with 8 million shared Sonic and Ink credits each month, plus $299 per month in Managed Agents credits”

Value is the headline maximum Cartesia advertises. What your company actually receives depends on your eligibility and how you use the program, and terms can change. A comparison, not endorsed by the programs listed. A program labeled Same owner comes from the company that runs StartupPerks. Confirm current terms on the provider's page.
Not accepted, or want more voice credits?

Startup credits for voice and text-to-speech APIs

Cartesia reviews each application and grants 12 months of credits. These programs give voice credits under different rules.

  • ElevenLabs Startup Grants$5.5KAny startup

    ElevenLabs gives “Scale for 12 months” with “33,000,000 characters” of credits. It is open to startups and companies with less than 25 employees that have a monetization strategy, and agencies and consulting firms are not eligible.

    Source: ElevenLabs Grants page (elevenlabs.io/startup-grants)

  • CAMB.AI Startup ProgramUp to 33 million creditsAny startup

    CAMB.AI offers 33M characters of speech AI credits plus an onboarding call with its engineers, for pre-seed through Series A startups founded within the last 5 years that raised under $5M in total.

    Source: CAMB.AI startup grants page (camb.ai/startup-grants)

  • Murf Startup Incubator Program$1.5KIncorporated

    Murf offers early-stage startups $1500 in free API credits for a 3-month period, for companies under 10 years since incorporation with a valid use case for the Murf API. After the credits you move to a Pay-As-You-Go plan.

    Source: Murf Startup Incubator Program page (murf.ai/startup-program)

Each value is the one its own program page shows today. The reasons were read on the linked pages on October 29, 2026.

Questions

Cartesia Startups Grant: what founders ask

Each answer restates what Cartesia and the pages linked under it say, read on October 29, 2026; every quoted line was still on those pages on November 14, 2026.

What does the Cartesia Startups Grant include?

Accepted startups get 12 months on the Scale plan, with 8 million shared Sonic and Ink credits each month plus $299 per month in Managed Agents credits. Unused model credits roll over up to 2x your monthly allowance.

Cartesia puts the model credits at “96M credits a year”. The grant covers Sonic text to speech, Ink speech to text and Managed Agents. Sonic and Ink share one credit allowance, and “Managed Agents has a separate monthly credit allowance”.

At list price, Cartesia's pricing page says “Scale costs $299/month and includes 8M credits plus $299 for voice agents”. The grant gives you that plan for a year.

Source: Cartesia Startups Grant page (cartesia.ai/startups), Cartesia pricing page (cartesia.ai/pricing)

Who is eligible for the Cartesia Startups Grant?

Startups at any stage. Cartesia also considers students and one-off projects on a case-by-case basis.

In return, participants “share their logo and give Cartesia the right to use their name and logo across marketing materials”, and agree to post about the grant on their social media accounts if Cartesia requests it.

Venture firms can become Cartesia partners: the page lists “Fast-tracked grant approval for your portfolio companies” among the perks of being a VC partner.

Source: Cartesia Startups Grant page (cartesia.ai/startups)

How do I apply for the Cartesia Startups Grant?

Apply on Cartesia's startups page with information about your team and what you are building. Cartesia reviews applications on a rolling basis and aims to respond within a week, then sends accepted teams a coupon code to apply the credits to their account.

Source: Cartesia Startups Grant page (cartesia.ai/startups)

What happens after the Cartesia grant ends?

Your account moves to $299 per month to stay on the Scale plan. You can also cancel or switch to a lower volume plan at any time, and Cartesia offers to talk through a tailored enterprise plan if your product takes off.

If you use all your model credits before then, you can “Enable pay-as-you-go overage to continue after your included model credits run out”. On the pricing page, Scale overage is listed at $38 per 1M credits.

Source: Cartesia Startups Grant page (cartesia.ai/startups), Cartesia pricing page (cartesia.ai/pricing)

Is the Cartesia Startup plan the same as the Startups Grant?

No. The Startup plan on Cartesia's pricing page is a paid plan at $49 a month with 1.25M credits and $49 of prepaid agents each month. The grant puts you on the higher Scale plan, which lists at $299 a month, for 12 months.

Cartesia also has a Free plan at $0 a month with 20K credits and $1 of prepaid agents each month.

Source: Cartesia pricing page (cartesia.ai/pricing), Cartesia Startups Grant page (cartesia.ai/startups)

Terms history

Cartesia Startups Grant's terms over time

We have read Cartesia's page for it (cartesia.ai/startups) twice since September 7, 2026, most recently on October 5, 2026. No read has found a different figure or a change in whether it takes applications.

Every startup program change we found this quarter
Free text to speech, comparedBefore you apply: what Cartesia and other voice tools give away freeWhat each text-to-speech tool gives you free today, its main limit and what the first paid plan costs, read from each tool's own page.
Related

Programs like Cartesia Startups Grant

Compared side by side in Best AI Credits for Startups.

ElevenLabs Startup Grants
ElevenLabs
$5.5K
Murf Startup Incubator Program
Murf AI
$1.5K
ElevenLabs Free plan
ElevenLabs
10,000 credits per month
Gradium Startup Program
Gradium
$2,000

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