---
id: "2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-07-20"
date_precision: day
category: model-release
importance: 3
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 4
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts/

# Alibaba's Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS takes #1 on the Artificial Analysis text-to-speech leaderboard

On 2026-07-20 Alibaba's Tongyi Lab released Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS in Flash (real-time) and Plus (quality) tiers. It supports 16 languages and 20 Chinese dialect regions. The Plus tier ranked first on the independent Artificial Analysis TTS leaderboard while costing about $27.6 per 1M characters, roughly a quarter of Eleven v3's price. It was the first Chinese hosted TTS to top that arena.

## Key facts
- API ids: qwen-audio-3.0-tts-flash, qwen-audio-3.0-tts-plus (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio)
- Artificial Analysis TTS arena: Plus #1 at Elo ~1,236-1,237 vs Speechify Simba 3.2 ~1,234 (press, July 2026)
- Technical report arXiv 2607.23938 (submitted 2026-07-27): 12.5 Hz tokenizer, five-stage LM + flow-matching training, SOTA claims on SEED-TTS-Eval and CV3-Eval
- 16 languages, 20 Chinese dialect regions, up to 3 minutes of one-pass long-form output, natural-language and inline-tag control, voice cloning and Voice Design
- Plus: $27.59 per 1M characters vs Eleven v3 $100 (press)
- The first-place ranking did not last: Inworld TTS-2, Cartesia Sonic 3.6 and Eleven v4 (2026-09-28) led later

## What happened

Alibaba released a new generation of hosted TTS models built on a low-frame-rate tokenizer and a multi-stage training recipe,
with strong control features (instructions, inline tags, dialects, long-form output). Its Plus tier topped the Artificial
Analysis blind-listening arena at launch.

## Why it matters

A Chinese lab led the main independent TTS leaderboard at a fraction of ElevenLabs' price, which started the
summer-2026 TTS price and quality race. Alibaba followed two months later with Qwen-Audio-3.1 and price cuts of about 70%.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 81 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 20 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): 111 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 50 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [arXiv 2607.23938 - Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS technical report](https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.23938) (arxiv.org, paper)
2. [Model Studio - non-real-time speech synthesis (qwen-audio-3.0-tts-flash)](https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/qwen-tts) (alibabacloud.com, docs)
3. [Artificial Analysis - text-to-speech leaderboard](https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-speech/leaderboard) (artificialanalysis.ai, docs)
4. [MarkTechPost - Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS in Flash and Plus tiers across 16 languages](https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/07/20/alibabas-tongyi-lab-releases-qwen-audio-3-0-tts-a-hosted-text-to-speech-model-in-flash-and-plus-tiers-across-16-languages/) (marktechpost.com, press)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2026-09-28: [ElevenLabs launches Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, #1 on Artificial Analysis TTS arena](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/index.md)
- 2026-09-23: [Alibaba launches Qwen-Audio-3.1 five-model voice stack and cuts audio API prices up to 95%](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1/index.md)
- 2026-08-31: [Inworld Realtime TTS-2 reaches GA with audio-aware, prompt-directed speech](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-31-inworld-realtime-tts-2/index.md)
- 2026-08-27: [Cartesia Sonic-3.6 goes GA and tops the Artificial Analysis Speech Arena](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-27-cartesia-sonic-3-6/index.md)
- Models: [Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS (Flash / Plus)](https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-audio-3-0-tts/) (`qwen-audio-3-0-tts`)