myPOS vs Cartesia
A detailed comparison to help you choose between myPOS and Cartesia.
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Verdict: Cartesia wins
Cartesia scores 4.3/5, edging out myPOS at 3.8/5. Developers building real-time voice agents, phone bots and interactive characters where time-to-first-audio is the user experience.
myPOS Betaalterminals (EU) | Cartesia Generate human-quality speech and sound effects with real-time AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 3.8 (1 review) | 4.3 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | paid | usage-based |
| Starting Price | Pricing varies | Pricing varies |
| Best For | Small European merchants — market traders, cafés, taxis, salons — who want to buy a card terminal outright and see card takings in a spendable account within seconds, without a monthly contract. | Developers building real-time voice agents, phone bots and interactive characters where time-to-first-audio is the user experience. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | — | api accessfree tier |
| Visit Cartesia → |
myPOS
Pros
- + Zero fixed monthly costs and no contract on the pay-as-you-go plan; hardware is bought outright from £39 (Go 2, excl. VAT) rather than rented.
- + Card takings settle into the built-in myPOS business account within seconds — in my testing the balance updated before I had pocketed the terminal.
- + Published UK rates are low and transparent: 1.10% + £0.07 for domestic consumer card-present payments, with the full tariff on the public fees page.
- + One stack covers a lot of ground: terminal, IBAN merchant account, free first Business Mastercard, hosted checkout, payment links, cart plugins and a documented API.
- + FCA-authorised electronic money institution (reference 900826) with Mastercard, Visa and Amex scheme membership — not an unregulated reseller.
Cons
- - £15/month inactivity fee after 12 idle months, £15 per chargeback and £1.50 per GBP bank transfer out — the 'free account' has a tariff tail.
- - Cross-border cards cost materially more: EEA consumer cards jump to 2.20% + £0.07 and Amex to 2.45% + £0.07 on the UK plan.
- - A recurring complaint pattern on Trustpilot and PissedConsumer describes account restrictions and held funds during compliance reviews.
- - Balances are e-money, not bank deposits: safeguarded under FCA rules but not FSCS-protected.
- - Above £10,000 monthly card turnover pricing becomes quote-only, and PCI compliance and early-termination terms are not published on the UK pages.
Cartesia
Pros
- + Independent benchmarks confirm the latency lead: 116ms median streaming (Vapi, June 2026) and 448ms end-to-end on live Sydney phone calls versus ElevenLabs' 499ms on identical servers
- + Full voice loop on one API and one WebSocket — Ink-2 turn detection removed the need for a separate VAD in my test call
- + $5/month Pro plan carries a commercial licence and instant cloning; effective rate falls to about $37–39 per million characters at Scale
- + Clean handling of the text that usually breaks agents: dates, currency, names, heteronyms and IPA input all read correctly on the first pass in my testing
- + Flat 1-credit-per-character billing with no latency tier markup — Turbo costs the same as the quality model
Cons
- - The sub-90ms headline is a lab figure; budget for 166–190ms streaming or 448ms full-stack on phone routes
- - Free tier is ~27 minutes of TTS with no commercial rights and 2 concurrent streams — barely enough to evaluate
- - No creator studio or visual editor; it is developer infrastructure, not a production workspace
- - Three major model versions in about a year means snapshot pinning and re-validation work on every upgrade
- - Non-English and tonal-language output trails ElevenLabs, and Line agent minutes bill separately from TTS credits
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, myPOS or Cartesia?▼
Cartesia scores higher at 4.3/5 vs 3.8/5 for myPOS, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between myPOS and Cartesia?▼
myPOS: myPOS sells card terminals and online payment services to European businesses, paying out into a built-in business account. Cartesia: Cartesia builds real-time voice AI, including a text-to-speech API with lifelike voices. Developers and companies use it to power voice agents and other speech applications.
Is myPOS or Cartesia more affordable?▼
myPOS starts at €0/mo, Cartesia starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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