Neets.ai Alternative — Cheap TTS That Actually Loads
Neets.ai's TLS certificate has been broken for months — as of July 2026 the site fails HTTPS and the API is effectively unreachable. No shutdown notice, no status page. $1 per million characters was a great price, but cheap only counts if the service is up.
If you picked Neets for the price, here's the honest math: EasyVoice's free tier is 5,000 characters/day with no card — about 150K/mo, which at Neets' advertised rate was 15 cents of usage. Most Neets-scale hobby projects move here and pay exactly $0. The ones that outgrow it pay $9.99/mo for unlimited characters.
Verified July 2026. Vendor-status and pricing claims dated and re-checked before publication.
Neets.ai status — Verified July 2026
Neets.ai's TLS certificate has been broken for months — as of July 2026 the site fails HTTPS and the API is effectively unreachable. No shutdown notice has been published, and there is no status page.
The 30-second answer
Switch to EasyVoice if…
- Your hobby or side project generates under ~150K chars/mo — the free tier covers it at $0
- Your integration speaks the OpenAI request shape — the swap is a base-URL change
- You want a service with a public live usage counter you can check before trusting it
- You occasionally spike — $9.99/mo unlimited beats re-doing the vendor hunt at every growth step
Look elsewhere if…
- You want the absolute cheapest metered API that's still online — DeepInfra serves Kokoro-82M at $0.62/1M (raw endpoint, no app or studio)
- You need voice cloning on a metered plan — EasyVoice's cloning is Pro-only
- You need a language outside EasyVoice's 9 — check /languages first
Why people are leaving Neets.ai
- “The site won't load — my browser has shown a certificate error for months”
- “My API calls just stopped, and there's no status page and no support reply”
- “$1 per million was perfect for my side project — but the service has to actually exist”
What TTS actually costs per 1M characters (Verified July 2026)
| Provider | Price | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Neets.ai | $1/1M (advertised) | Unreachable for months — broken TLS, no status page (July 2026) |
| EasyVoice Free | $0 — 5,000 chars/day | ~150K chars/mo, no credit card; covers most hobby workloads |
| EasyVoice Pro | $9.99/mo flat | Unlimited characters — the bill is $9.99 at any volume |
| DeepInfra (Kokoro-82M) | $0.62/1M | Cheapest metered API still online; raw endpoint only — no app, no long-form studio |
| OpenAI tts-1 | $15/1M | No free tier — bills from the first character |
| ElevenLabs API | $50–$100/1M | Creator plan: $22/mo = 121K credits (≈$182/1M effective) |
| AnySpeech | $9.99/mo = 50K chars | Copies the price, meters the characters (≈$200/1M effective) |
Rows re-verified against public pricing pages, July 2026. Effective $/1M for credit-based plans computed from the advertised credit allowance.
How to switch, step by step
1. Check whether the free tier already covers you
A Neets-scale hobby project rarely passes 150K chars/mo. EasyVoice free is 5,000 chars/day with no card — for most Neets refugees the honest answer is you'll pay $0.
2. Create a free account and API key
Sign up at easyvoice.ae, generate a key in the dashboard. No card, no trial clock.
3. Point your code at the OpenAI-compatible endpoint
POST https://easyvoice.ae/api/v1/audio/speech with a Bearer key and an 'input' field. If your Neets integration used an OpenAI-style shape, this is a base-URL change; otherwise the 5-line diff at /openai-tts-alternative/migration-guide covers Python and JavaScript.
4. Pick replacement voices
Play the free samples at /voices and swap your voice IDs. 56 voices across 9 languages.
5. Upgrade only if you hit the daily cap
If a project outgrows 5,000 chars/day, Pro is $9.99/mo unlimited — monthly, cancel in-app.
Frequently asked questions
Is Neets.ai shut down?▾
There has been no official shutdown announcement — what we can verify is what's observable: Neets.ai's TLS certificate has been broken for months, the site fails HTTPS, and the API is effectively unreachable as of July 2026. No status page, no timeline, no support response reported. Whatever the company's internal status, a service you can't reach is a service you can't build on.
Neets was $1 per million characters — isn't $9.99/mo a price increase?▾
Run the numbers for your actual usage. EasyVoice's free tier is 5,000 chars/day (~150K/mo) at $0 — at Neets' advertised rate that same usage cost 15 cents, so for most hobby projects the switch is free, not a price increase. Above the free cap, $9.99/mo unlimited beats metered billing once you pass ~666K chars/mo vs OpenAI-style pricing. And if you genuinely want the cheapest metered API that's still online, DeepInfra serves Kokoro-82M at $0.62/1M — raw endpoint only, no app or studio. We'd rather tell you that than pretend it doesn't exist.
Do I need a credit card to try EasyVoice?▾
No. The free tier needs an account but no card — 5,000 characters/day, resetting daily, indefinitely. You can even generate anonymously (2,000 chars/day) before creating an account at all.
No credit card — 2,000 chars/day anonymous, 5,000/day with a free account