use case
verified July 2026
TTS for AI receptionists.
A receptionist is an always-on workload: the line exists so that any call, at any hour, gets a voice inside the first ring. Always-on is exactly the shape a per-character meter prices worst.
01
The ceiling month
Real desks do not talk 24/7 — they must be *reachable* 24/7. A meter prices reachability by how often it is used; a line prices the reachability itself, so the busy line costs the same as the quiet one, which is the point of having it.
Fig. — One line, talking around the clock for a month
43,200 min
24 hours × 60 minutes × 30 days — the always-on ceiling
$150
the flat line, unchanged at the ceiling
The same month runs $1,296 – $4,320 on published $30–$100/1M meters. Real front desks never hit the ceiling — but a meter makes you pay toward it in proportion to how reachable you are.
02
What the front desk demands of synthesis
- Answer inside the greeting — the voice is there when the ring stops, not a beat after.
- Sound like the practice, not a stock voice: cloning from a ten-second reference of whoever runs the desk today.
- Speak the neighborhood’s languages — one cloned identity across 23 of them, same reference.
03
Sizing it
One line holds one conversation at a time. A desk that rarely stacks calls runs on one line, with the 8 AM Monday wave spilling to burst lines at $10 a line-day; a clinic with three simultaneous callers at peak buys three. The pilot exists to find the number on real traffic — 20 lines for 30 days, $1,000 credited.
See also
Related sheets.
use case
8,000 min
TTS for AI customer-support agents
The latency budget and cost arithmetic for a voice support desk: why first audio decides whether callers interrupt, and what 8,000 minutes a month costs.
use case
20 ports
Replacing IVR menus with voice agents
Tearing out press-1 menus for a conversational agent changes the latency and concurrency math. What the synthesis layer must do, with measured figures.
capability
$1,000
The pilot: a month on real traffic
The pilot is 20 lines for 30 days at $1,000, credited toward the first annual invoice — sized to shadow one real queue with your production prompts.
glossary
1 line
Concurrent lines
A line is one simultaneous conversation. Why concurrency — not minutes — is the real capacity unit for voice agents, and how metered plans cap it quietly.
Thirty minutes, your production script, the live latency readout — measured in front of you.
Bring this use case to the call