How to choose your voice agent’s voice

It is the first thing a caller hears. Before the agent says anything useful, the voice already tells them what your business is like, warm or formal, relaxed or in a hurry.

There is no single best voice. A family restaurant may want a warm voice and an unhurried pace, and a repair shop a more direct one. That is why you choose by listening, not by reading a list.

Picture a restaurant where many bookings come from older customers over the phone. There you will probably want a clear voice and a calm pace, and you can hear it before you decide.

In your agent, at the top, next to the model, you see the name of the voice it is using. Click it and the Agent voice window opens, with two tabs.

Platform voices holds the ones we have tested over the phone, with a Spain or Mexico accent. The recommended ones come first, and you can filter by female or male voice and by accent. If in doubt, start here.

Providers holds everything there is, sorted by provider, ElevenLabs, Cartesia and Deepgram. It is a longer list, for when you are looking for something specific.

Every voice has a Listen button. The sample is a short assistant greeting and plays with the settings you have chosen, so you can compare several in a row. Nothing changes in your agent until you click Save.

Inside the window, under More settings, you will find the details.

Speed is how fast it talks. 1 is normal, below that it speaks more slowly and above it more quickly. With some voices it only changes within a range, and the dashboard tells you which.

Match the caller’s pace makes the voice a little calmer with someone who speaks slowly and a little livelier with someone who is in a hurry.

Expressiveness goes from a flatter, steadier voice to a more expressive, varied one. Volume is how loud it sounds on the call, and 1 is normal.

With ElevenLabs and Cartesia you also choose the Voice model, which is what turns text into speech. With ElevenLabs, v4 Turbo sounds more natural and more emotional than Automatic, at the same price and almost as fast. With Deepgram there is no model to choose, because each voice already is its own model.

The voices come from three providers, ElevenLabs, Cartesia and Deepgram. Lera uses them to give your agent its voice, and you do not need to sign up for anything with them.

With ElevenLabs you can also add voices from its community. In Providers, ElevenLabs, click Add a voice, search by name or description and listen before adding them. These are voices published by their authors, and the dashboard tells you whether the author would give a few days’ notice before withdrawing one or could do it without warning.

If someone has shared a professional ElevenLabs voice with you and you have its owner’s permission to use it, you can also bring it in by pasting its link, under Import professional voice.

On pay as you go, the voice changes the cost per minute. The price comes from the voice and the model you choose. ElevenLabs costs the most, Cartesia sits in the middle and Deepgram costs the least. You see it under Cost, at the top of your agent’s page, before you publish.

On a plan, as long as you have minutes left, each one comes out of what is included, whatever the voice. Only if you go over what is included is the extra minute charged at the price Cost shows you.

You can change the voice as often as you like. Once you have it, publish the agent so it is used on calls. Calls already in progress keep the old one, and the new voice is used on calls that start afterwards.

If you would rather not touch the dashboard, ask Maite in your own words, for example “give it a calmer male voice” or “I want a voice with a Mexican accent”. She shows you the change before saving it.

And if you do not have your agent yet, the Lera team creates it for you with the voice that suits your business best and gives you a quote.

Can I change the voice whenever I want? Yes. Pick another one, save and publish, and the new voice is used on calls that start afterwards.

Are there voices with other accents? Platform voices include Spain and Mexico. With ElevenLabs you can search for more among its community voices.

Does changing the voice change the cost? On pay as you go, yes, and you see it under Cost before you publish. On a plan, your included minutes are the same with any voice.

Can I make it speak more slowly? Yes, under More settings, Speed. Listen to the sample after moving it to hear how it sounds.

Can I use the voice of someone on my team? Cloning a voice is not done from the dashboard. If you are interested, write to us and we will look at it with you. It needs that person’s written consent, and they must be free to say no without any consequence and to withdraw it whenever they want.

How much does it cost to try? €20 free credit, no card needed. You can listen to the voices, pick one and test your agent by audio from the dashboard to hear it in a conversation.