Included by default
Sovereign Cloud
- Hosting by EU companies only
- AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure are not engaged
- No route for a US CLOUD Act order to reach your audio, text or voice profiles
- Included by default for EU/EEA customers
Voice AI Made in Europe
PlayHT alternative after the shutdown
EU Sovereign Cloud included on every plan, no enterprise contract.
GDPRZero data retention for content dataEU AI Act · aligned with Article 50
Play the demo
“Good afternoon, your appointment is on 03/15/2025 at 2:30 p.m. The office is located at 42a Bridge Street. For questions, reach us at 02079460123 or info@clinic.co.uk.”
Real model output · Kugel v3Dates, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, read correctly
Direct comparison
KugelAudio vs PlayHT
PlayHT is no longer available, so the question is where to move. This is what you get with KugelAudio.
| Decision criterion | KugelAudio | PlayHT |
|---|---|---|
| Service status | Live, as a hosted API and on-premise | Shut down on 31 December 2025 |
| Company | German GmbH, EU law | Team acquired by Meta in July 2025 |
| Streaming API | HTTP and WebSocket streaming | HTTP streaming and WebSocket API, now offline |
| Voice cloning | From under 1 minute of audio | Instant cloning from 30 seconds of speech, now offline |
| Hosting in the EU | EU Sovereign Cloud included on every plan | Not available since the shutdown |
PlayHT facts come from its archived website and API documentation, TechCrunch and a public migration guide, accessed October 2026. Please verify current terms for your plan.
Sources
- PlayHT website: "We have shut down the service" (Internet Archive capture of 6 January 2026), accessed October 15, 2026
- TechCrunch: Meta acquires voice startup Play AI (13 July 2025), accessed October 15, 2026
- Inworld AI: Migrate from PlayHT after the shutdown (shutdown date 31 December 2025), accessed October 15, 2026
- PlayHT API documentation: Quickstart, accessed October 15, 2026
Data sovereignty
Your data stays in Europe
Built, trained and hosted in the EU, outside the reach of the US CLOUD Act.
Live within days
On-premise
- Runs in your data centre, behind your firewall
- Same SDK and API as in the cloud
- Up to 192 concurrent calls per GPU, integrations unchanged
Custom dictionaries
Brand names? Right, every time.
Store the pronunciation once in your dictionary. From then on, the model says the name correctly in every single response.
- 1
Your text
“Order your new tableware at Villeroy & Boch.”
- 2
Your dictionary entry
Villeroy & Boch → [ˌvɪləɉɔɪ ʔʊnt ˈbɔx]
- 3
The output
Pronounced correctly. Every time, in every response.
Works the same for product names, technical terms and abbreviations, via IPA notation or a simple replacement.
Pricing
Priced per generated minute
No character accounting, no seat tiers.
kugel-2-turbo
Fast, budget-friendly text-to-speech model
€0.035 / min
~40–50 ms TTFA*~€42.42 / 1M characters**
- Guaranteed EU hosting
- EU Sovereign Cloud included (EU/EEA)
- Integrated normalizer
- Voice cloning
- Speed control
- Break tokens
- Word-level timestamps
- Dictionaries
kugel-3
Premium text-to-speech model with maximum naturalness
€0.07 / min
~60–80 ms TTFA*~€84.85 / 1M characters**
- Guaranteed EU hosting
- EU Sovereign Cloud included (EU/EEA)
- Integrated normalizer
- Voice cloning
- Speed control
- Break tokens
- Word-level timestamps
- Dictionaries
- IPA notations
On-premise, dedicated capacity and committed-usage rates are available on request.
* Inference TTFA, measured server-side. More in the latency docs · ** Character costs assume approximately 825 characters per minute.
FAQ
Questions about PlayHT alternatives
Is PlayHT still available?
No. The PlayHT website states that the service has shut down, effective 31 December 2025. Meta acquired the PlayAI team in July 2025.
What is a good PlayHT alternative for voice agents?
KugelAudio is a German company building real-time text-to-speech in 39 languages, hosted in the EU. The EU Sovereign Cloud option engages only EU companies as subprocessors, and it is included on every plan rather than sold as an enterprise add-on.
Can I re-create my PlayHT voice clones?
If you still have the original recordings and the speaker’s consent, yes. KugelAudio clones a voice from under one minute of audio.
How fast is KugelAudio?
In our benchmark run, Kugel v3 reached a 91 ms median time to first audio, measured over WebSocket streaming from an EU data centre with connection setup excluded.
Can I run the models on my own infrastructure?
Yes, within days. The models run in your data centre behind your firewall with the same SDK and API as the hosted service, handling up to 192 concurrent calls per GPU.
Ready to build your first voice?
Real-time, EU-hosted voice that scales with your product.