Voice AI BenchmarksBy

CARTESIASPEECH-TO-TEXT133,260 SAMPLES / 30 DAYSLAST RUN OCT 14, 2026, 06:00 UTC

official resource

Ink 2 speech-to-text benchmarks

Ink 2, hosted by Cartesia, measures mean 148 ms time to final segment (13th of 29) and 3.6% word error rate (8th of 31) among STT systems. Results cover the last 30 days. Coval benchmarks hosted endpoints daily using a consistent evaluation methodology. Last measured .

Ink 2 is Cartesia's real-time speech recognition model.

Time to Final Segment#13 / 29
148ms
Word Error Rate#8 / 31
3.6%
Time to First Token#21 / 27
1966ms

Overview

Cartesia provides Ink through a streaming speech-to-text API with voice activity and an on-premises option.

Ink 2 is tested every day on fixed public audio — clean, accented, noisy, reverberant, far-field, clipped and phone-codec speech — for transcription accuracy and streaming latency.

Technical specifications

Made by
Cartesia
Hosted by
Cartesia
Source
Official API
Licensing
Proprietary
Deployment
On-prem
Region
US
Features
VAD

How Ink 2 ranks

Full STT dashboard
Time to Final Segment — every measured STT modelMilliseconds · lower is better · 30-day averageEvery STT model ranked on Time to Final Segment, with Ink 2 highlighted.
  1. #1Qwen3 ASR 1.7b39 ms
  2. #2STT RT v545 ms
  3. #3Qwen3 ASR Fast47 ms
  4. #4STT 166 ms
  5. #5Nova 385 ms
  6. #6Nova 287 ms
  7. #7Parakeet TDT 0.6B v397 ms
  8. #8Flux Multilingual98 ms
  9. #9Flux99 ms
  10. #10Scribe v2 Realtime122 ms
  11. #11Whisper Large v3via Baseten131 ms
  12. #12Universal 3.6 Pro135 ms
  13. #13Ink 2148 ms
Show all 29 models
  1. #14Universal 3.5 Pro168 ms
  2. #15Whisper Large v3via Together AI200 ms
  3. #16Pulse205 ms
  4. #17Grok STT223 ms
  5. #18resonant-1252 ms
  6. #19Default258 ms
  7. #20Linden 1271 ms
  8. #21Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live317 ms
  9. #22Daytona STT399 ms
  10. #23Voxtral Mini Transcribe Realtime 2602410 ms
  11. #24GPT Realtime Whisper599 ms
  12. #25Solaria 1636 ms
  13. #26GPT-4o mini Transcribe708 ms
  14. #27Chirp 3768 ms
  15. #28GPT-4o Transcribe783 ms
  16. #29Chirp 2908 ms
median of all models · 200 ms
STT models over the last 30 days, ranked on Time to Final Segment.
#ModelHostTTFSWERTTFTSamples
1Qwen3 ASR 1.7bBaseten39 ms946 ms13,669
2STT RT v5Soniox45 ms1518 ms23,533
3Qwen3 ASR FastNari Labs47 ms1752 ms26,652
4STT 1Inworld AI66 ms1212 ms24,749
5Nova 3Deepgram85 ms1431 ms26,002
6Nova 2Deepgram87 ms1417 ms25,960
7Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3Together AI97 ms1228 ms26,460
8Flux MultilingualDeepgram98 ms1165 ms26,007
9FluxDeepgram99 ms1091 ms26,005
10Scribe v2 RealtimeElevenLabs122 ms2158 ms26,640
11Whisper Large v3Baseten131 ms924 ms13,663
12Universal 3.6 ProAssemblyAI135 ms1071 ms24,185
13Ink 2Cartesia148 ms1966 ms26,652
14Universal 3.5 ProAssemblyAI168 ms1025 ms26,654
15Whisper Large v3Together AI200 ms1261 ms26,445
16PulseSmallest205 ms1976 ms26,654
17Grok STTSpaceXAI223 ms—26,576
18resonant-1Reson8252 ms—26,653
19DefaultGradium258 ms1986 ms26,632
20Linden 1Speechmatics271 ms1537 ms26,595
21Gemini 3.5 Transcribe LiveGemini317 ms1609 ms26,567
22Daytona STTGuava399 ms5695 ms5,225
23Voxtral Mini Transcribe Realtime 2602Mistral410 ms1851 ms26,200
24GPT Realtime WhisperOpenAI599 ms1824 ms26,622
25Solaria 1Gladia636 ms1781 ms26,198
26GPT-4o mini TranscribeOpenAI708 ms—26,621
27Chirp 3Google768 ms5956 ms26,638
28GPT-4o TranscribeOpenAI783 ms—26,625
29Chirp 2Google908 ms6098 ms26,650
—Nemotron 3.5 ASR StreamingTogether AI—1544 ms26,542
—Universal StreamingAssemblyAI—1508 ms26,624
Under-sampled models are excluded; tied models share a place. Dotted WER values split into substitutions, deletions and insertions on hover or tap.

Highest relative placement: 8th of 31 on Word Error Rate.

Latency vs accuracy

TTFS vs WEREach point is one measured model · Ink 2 highlighted · 30-day averagesTime to Final Segment against Word Error Rate for every measured STT model, with Ink 2 highlighted.
Qwen3 ASR 1.7b — 39 ms, 2.9%STT RT v5 — 45 ms, 4.8%Qwen3 ASR Fast — 47 ms, 2.6%STT 1 — 66 ms, 7.1%Nova 3 — 85 ms, 5.3%Nova 2 — 87 ms, 6.7%Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3 — 97 ms, 11.1%Flux Multilingual — 98 ms, 7.5%Flux — 99 ms, 5.8%Scribe v2 Realtime — 122 ms, 4.4%Whisper Large v3 via Baseten — 131 ms, 4.5%Universal 3.6 Pro — 135 ms, 2.1%Universal 3.5 Pro — 168 ms, 2.4%Whisper Large v3 via Together AI — 200 ms, 7.4%Pulse — 205 ms, 4.6%Grok STT — 223 ms, 4.1%resonant-1 — 252 ms, 2.6%Default — 258 ms, 8.8%Linden 1 — 271 ms, 3.9%Gemini 3.5 Transcribe Live — 317 ms, 3.0%Daytona STT — 399 ms, 4.9%Voxtral Mini Transcribe Realtime 2602 — 410 ms, 5.4%GPT Realtime Whisper — 599 ms, 4.0%Solaria 1 — 636 ms, 6.0%GPT-4o mini Transcribe — 708 ms, 3.9%Chirp 3 — 768 ms, 3.2%GPT-4o Transcribe — 783 ms, 3.8%Chirp 2 — 908 ms, 3.9%Ink 2 — 148 ms, 3.6%

Where the errors come from

WER compositionInk 2's Word Error Rate split by error type · 30-day averageInk 2's WER split into substitutions, deletions and insertions.
  • Ink 23.6%
SubstitutionsDeletionsInsertions

Averages and tail latency

Averages hide slow outliers — these are the distributions behind each figure.

Ink 2 latency distributionMilliseconds · shared axis across metrics · last 30 daysInk 2's latency percentiles per metric: p25–p75 band, p50 tick, whisker to max.
  • Time to Final Segmentp50 146 ms · Max 548 ms
  • Time to First Tokenp50 1992 ms · Max 5656 ms
band p25–p75 · tick p50 · whisker to max with p90 and p95 stops
Average and percentile values per metric, with the number of samples behind each row.
MetricAveragep25p50p75p90p95MaxSamples
Time to Final Segment148 ms128 ms146 ms166 ms185 ms196 ms548 ms26,652
Word Error Rate3.6%0.0%0.0%6.3%12.5%18.2%83.3%26,652
Time to First Token1966 ms1620 ms1992 ms2216 ms2438 ms2805 ms5656 ms26,652

Last 30 days

Daily medians from the same measurement runs · gaps are days without qualifying runs.

Time to Final Segment — daily p50Line p50 · band p25–p75 · UTC daysInk 2's daily median Time to Final Segment over the last 30 days.
Ink 2 · Sep 14: 126 msInk 2 · Sep 15: 129 msInk 2 · Sep 16: 137 msInk 2 · Sep 17: 144 msInk 2 · Sep 18: 123 msInk 2 · Sep 19: 128 msInk 2 · Sep 20: 129 msInk 2 · Sep 21: 122 msInk 2 · Sep 22: 146 msInk 2 · Sep 23: 123 msInk 2 · Sep 24: 146 msInk 2 · Sep 25: 150 msInk 2 · Sep 26: 150 msInk 2 · Sep 27: 148 msInk 2 · Sep 28: 182 msInk 2 · Sep 29: 164 msInk 2 · Sep 30: 155 msInk 2 · Oct 1: 163 msInk 2 · Oct 2: 151 msInk 2 · Oct 3: 148 msInk 2 · Oct 4: 152 msInk 2 · Oct 5: 159 msInk 2 · Oct 6: 158 msInk 2 · Oct 7: 151 msInk 2 · Oct 8: 140 msInk 2 · Oct 9: 159 msInk 2 · Oct 10: 160 msInk 2 · Oct 11: 143 msInk 2 · Oct 12: 156 msInk 2 · Oct 13: 146 msInk 2 · Oct 14: 155 ms
Word Error Rate — daily averageDaily average · UTC daysInk 2's daily Word Error Rate over the last 30 days.
Ink 2 · Sep 14: 6.0%Ink 2 · Sep 15: 4.5%Ink 2 · Sep 16: 4.4%Ink 2 · Sep 17: 6.6%Ink 2 · Sep 18: 4.9%Ink 2 · Sep 19: 5.0%Ink 2 · Sep 20: 4.4%Ink 2 · Sep 21: 5.1%Ink 2 · Sep 22: 5.6%Ink 2 · Sep 23: 4.3%Ink 2 · Sep 24: 5.9%Ink 2 · Sep 25: 4.6%Ink 2 · Sep 26: 5.2%Ink 2 · Sep 27: 3.8%Ink 2 · Sep 28: 6.2%Ink 2 · Sep 29: 3.5%Ink 2 · Sep 30: 4.4%Ink 2 · Oct 1: 4.0%Ink 2 · Oct 2: 4.0%Ink 2 · Oct 3: 5.0%Ink 2 · Oct 4: 5.2%Ink 2 · Oct 5: 4.0%Ink 2 · Oct 6: 4.6%Ink 2 · Oct 7: 4.3%Ink 2 · Oct 8: 5.1%Ink 2 · Oct 9: 4.4%Ink 2 · Oct 10: 4.1%Ink 2 · Oct 11: 3.9%Ink 2 · Oct 12: 4.2%Ink 2 · Oct 13: 4.4%Ink 2 · Oct 14: 4.9%

Time to Final Segment by dataset

Ink 2 by test conditionMilliseconds · lower is better · best condition firstInk 2's Time to Final Segment on each benchmark dataset.
  1. PipeCat (production)147 ms
  2. WildASR clean148 ms
  3. WildASR noise gaps149 ms
  4. WildASR clipping150 ms
  5. WildASR far-field151 ms
  6. WildASR accents151 ms
  7. WildASR phone codec153 ms
Time to Final Segment per dataset, with the number of samples behind each figure.
DatasetTTFSSamples
ProductionPipeCat147 ms14,018
AccentsWildASR151 ms1,403
CleanWildASR148 ms5,612
ClippingWildASR150 ms1,405
Far-fieldWildASR151 ms1,406
Noise gapsWildASR149 ms1,403
Phone codecWildASR153 ms1,405

Strongest condition: PipeCat (production) at 147 ms · weakest: WildASR phone codec at 153 ms.

How fast is Ink 2?

On Cartesia, Ink 2 measures mean 148 ms time to final segment (13th of 29) and mean 1966 ms time to first token (21st of 27). Last measured 2026-10-14.

How accurate is Ink 2?

On Cartesia, Ink 2 measures 3.6% word error rate (8th of 31). Last measured 2026-10-14.

Who hosts Ink 2?

Ink 2 is created by Cartesia and served by Cartesia. Coval measures each hosted endpoint separately.

Limits of this comparison

Ink 2 is measured separately from Cartesia's Sonic synthesis models and ranked only against other STT models.

  • The benchmark does not combine Ink with Sonic, so end-to-end Cartesia agent latency must be evaluated separately.

Official sources

Results are re-measured daily using fixed datasets and reported over a rolling 30-day window. Same datasets, prompts and metric definitions for every model, measured by Coval’s open-source runner. Full methodology on the overview.

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