Amazon Polly review

Amazon Polly is the AWS option, priced and built for developers. It offers four voice types: Standard at $4 per 1 million characters, Neural at $16, Generative at $30 and Long-Form at $100, the last designed for natural narration of longer content such as articles. The free tier is generous for Standard voices, at 5 million characters a month, while Neural, Long-Form and Generative free allowances apply only for the first 12 months. Polly supports SSML for phrasing, emphasis and intonation, custom lexicons for names and acronyms, and Speech Marks to sync audio with on-screen text. Organizations that want an exclusive voice can commission one through a Brand Voice engagement with the Polly team. What Polly lacks is a creator workflow: there is no voiceover editor, voice cloning is not self-serve, and AWS describes its catalog as dozens of voices, fewer than Google lists. It is a dependable, cheap engine for apps already running on AWS.

Who it is for

Teams on AWS that need cheap, scalable speech for apps, IVR and article audio.

Price

Pay as you go; Standard voices $4 per 1 million characters; Neural $16; Generative $30.

Amazon Polly’s Standard voices are priced at $4.00 per 1 million characters for speech or Speech Marks requests (when outside the free tier).
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 9, 2026.

Key features

• Standard, Neural, Long-Form and Generative voices
• SSML support for phrasing, emphasis and intonation
• Custom lexicons for names, acronyms and foreign words
• Brand Voice engagements for an exclusive custom voice
• Speech Marks for syncing audio with text

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Standard voices include 5 million free characters a month
• Strength: Long-Form voices suit articles and narration
• Strength: Pay only for characters processed
• Weakness: Neural, Long-Form and Generative free tiers last only 12 months
• Weakness: Long-Form voices cost $100 per 1 million characters
• Weakness: No creator studio; built for developers

Key facts

• Free tier: 5 million Standard characters per month
• Generative voices: $30 per 1 million characters
• Custom voice: Brand Voice engagement with AWS

Where it ranks

Amazon Polly is No. 9 in our Best AI Voice Generators verdict.