EasyVoice vs PlayHT
Honest comparison. See which TTS service fits your needs.
Verified July 2026.
Vendor status — Verified July 2026
Play.HT's API servers have been offline since December 31, 2025 (re-verified July 2026). The marketing site still loads, but API calls fail — production integrations built on Play.HT are currently dead, with no restoration timeline published.
| Feature | EasyVoice | PlayHT |
|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | 5K chars/day (~150K/mo) | API offline since Dec 31, 2025 |
| Pro Price | $9.99/mo | API offline (service ended) |
| Voices | 66 | 800+ (while operational) |
| Languages | 9 | 142 |
| API Access | ✓ | ✓ |
| Voice Cloning | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open Source | ✗ | ✗ |
TL;DR
Play.HT built the largest voice library in the market — 800+ voices across 142 languages. But its API servers went offline on December 31, 2025 and have not come back (re-verified July 2026). If your integration is down, the least-code replacement is an OpenAI-compatible endpoint: EasyVoice takes a base-URL and key change; the six OpenAI voice names work as they are. It costs $9.99/mo flat unlimited and has a free tier so you can test before routing production traffic.
Common reasons people look for PlayHT alternatives
- My Play.HT API calls have been failing since New Year's Eve — no fix, no timeline
- The silence is the worst part — I can't tell my users when their audio comes back
- I don't want to rebuild my integration from scratch — I need a quick swap, not a rewrite
- 800 voices meant nothing the day the endpoint stopped answering
Where EasyVoice wins
- ✓Actually online — live public character counter on the homepage
- ✓OpenAI-compatible endpoint: replacing Play.HT is a base-URL change, not a rewrite
- ✓$9.99/mo flat unlimited characters, with an API that actually answers
- ✓Free tier (5,000 chars/day with a free account, no card) to verify audio quality before switching traffic
- ✓66 voices across 9 languages — narrower than 800, but every one of them answers
Where PlayHT wins
- •(While operational) largest voice library in the market — 800+ voices
- •(While operational) 142 languages — unmatched breadth
- •(While operational) built-in Studio editor for multi-speaker scripts
What TTS actually costs per 1M characters (Verified July 2026)
| Provider | Price | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Play.HT | API offline | API offline since Dec 31, 2025 — $/1M is moot while requests fail |
| EasyVoice Pro | $9.99/mo flat | Unlimited characters — the bill is $9.99 at any volume |
| DeepInfra (Kokoro-82M) | per character; see provider | Raw endpoint only — no app, no long-form studio, no cloning |
| OpenAI tts-1 | $15/1M | List price checked September 2026; no free tier — bills from the first character |
| ElevenLabs Creator | $22/mo = 121K credits | ≈$182/1M effective (checked September 2026) |
| Metered credit APIs (AnySpeech and similar) | Billed per month | A flat-looking price that meters the characters |
How to switch from PlayHT
1. Get a free API key
Sign up at easyvoice.ae (no card required) and create a key in the dashboard — under a minute end to end.
2. Swap the base URL
EasyVoice's endpoint is OpenAI-compatible: POST /api/v1/audio/speech with a Bearer key and an 'input' field. If your code already speaks the OpenAI TTS shape, you change the base URL and the API key; the six OpenAI voice names work as they are. If it speaks Play.HT's shape, the migration guide at /openai-tts-alternative/migration-guide covers Python and JavaScript.
3. Choose voices
Play.HT voice names don't exist here. Browse /voices, listen to the free samples, and pick the closest match — am_michael for a measured male narrator, af_heart for a warm female voice — then hard-code the mapping. A free key can use the 12 free voices (such as af_nova, af_heart and am_michael); the other voices need Pro and return 403 plan_required on a free key.
4. Test on the free tier
5,000 characters/day free is enough to A/B your real production scripts before you switch traffic.
5. Upgrade when volume does
Pro is $9.99/mo unlimited characters — monthly billing, cancel in-app anytime.
Frequently asked questions
Is Play.HT still working?▾
No. Play.HT's API servers have been offline since December 31, 2025, and by September 2026 its own domains no longer served the product either: play.ht had no DNS record, and playht.com resolved to an unrelated ad/domain-parking redirect (both checked live, September 2026). There is no published restoration timeline. If your product depends on the Play.HT API, it has been down for months.
How do I replace the Play.HT API with an OpenAI-compatible one?▾
Point your TTS calls at EasyVoice's OpenAI-compatible endpoint: POST https://easyvoice.ae/api/v1/audio/speech with a Bearer API key and an 'input' field for the text. If your code already uses the OpenAI TTS request shape, the migration is a base-URL and key change; the six OpenAI voice names work as they are. If it uses Play.HT's SDK, the migration guide at /openai-tts-alternative/migration-guide is the fastest path — most teams are generating audio again within an hour.
Does EasyVoice support as many languages as PlayHT?▾
No. EasyVoice covers 9 languages (Arabic, American and British English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese), each with voices made for it. PlayHT advertised 142 — but breadth doesn't help while the API is offline. If you genuinely need long-tail languages, you'll need a different vendor either way; for the high-volume locales most apps actually ship to, EasyVoice covers you at $9.99/mo flat.