Voice Output (TTS) enabled
Hello guys, sorry if this question sounds dumb or illogical. I’m new to building things with Voiceflow, and I discovered that TTS costs me credits even I don’t need it. Is there any way to disable it so it won’t affect my credit usage?
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How TTS billing works
• Text-to-Speech (voice output) only consumes credits when Voiceflow has to generate audio for a voice experience (phone, web-voice, etc.).
• Pure chat experiences – the website chat-widget, a share-link, the Dialogue Manager API, or the in-canvas test tool – reply with plain text and do not trigger TTS billing.
Can I simply switch TTS off?
At the moment there isn’t a “None” option in Settings ▸ Behaviour ▸ Voice. If the project is set up as a voice agent it must synthesize audio, so TTS charges are unavoidable for that channel. To avoid those charges you have two options:
1. Build / publish the agent only as a chat agent (Interfaces ▸ Widget / Pop-over / Embed) and don’t connect a phone or web-voice channel. Chat messages are free of TTS credits.
2. If you do need calls but want to minimise cost, pick a cheaper provider / voice and keep your prompts short – credit cost is billed per character (see pricing table).
What about the “Voice Output (TTS)” toggle in the preview?
That button just asks your own browser to read the bot’s messages aloud. Because the audio is generated locally it’s free and does not draw credits.
Docs for reference:
• Credits & what is billed – https://docs.voiceflow.com/docs/credits
• Voice behaviour settings – https://docs.voiceflow.com/docs/configuring-voice-settings
Hope that clarifies why you’re seeing TTS costs and the options you have to avoid them! Let me know if anything’s still unclear.