A vocal harmoniser turns one recorded vocal into a stack. The good ones know your key, so the harmony stays right when the melody moves. Here is the category in 2026, and what each one actually costs.
| Plugin | Voices | Price | Subscription? |
|---|---|---|---|
| RysUpHarmony | 8 | $29.99 | None |
| Waves Harmony | 8 | $199 list | Creative Access |
| iZotope Nectar 4 (Voices) | Module only | $199 suite minimum | — |
| Antares Harmony Engine | 4 (+choir) | $150 from $250 | $17.50/mo |
Waves Harmony — $199 list, $39.99 on 3 September 2026
Up to 8 voices from one vocal, with Automatic, MIDI and Graphic workflows, 450+ presets, and per-voice pitch, formant, pan, delay, filtering and modulation. Well built. Priced at $199 and discounted most weeks, which tells you what Waves thinks $199 is worth.
iZotope Nectar 4 (Voices) — $199 Standard, $299 Advanced
Harmony as one module inside a vocal suite. Preset-first, and not available on its own at any price, so the entry cost for harmony is a whole suite.
Antares Harmony Engine — $150 from $250, or $17.50/month
Four independent voices, each thickenable with Choir into up to 16. Manual, MIDI or chord-driven arranging, plus Auto-Key 2 integration and Humanize controls. Half the independent voices of the others.
RysUpHarmony — $29.99
Eight voices. Twenty-nine ninety-nine. Every week, not just sale week.
Every other harmoniser in this category asks somewhere between five and ten times that, or asks for a monthly payment that never ends. RysUpHarmony is one price, paid once, and it does the thing they all do — with the one control none of them give you.
You see what every voice sings on every note
The others hand you a preset browser and a chord mode. RysUpHarmony puts the whole map on screen: one row per voice, one column per note you might sing, and the cell where they meet is the interval that voice takes. A third on the verse root, a fifth where the melody turns, unison where you want thickness instead of harmony. Click a cell and change it. That is the whole workflow, and nothing else in the category exposes it.
Everything the expensive ones have
- 8 independent voices — matching the most expensive plugin in the category, double what Antares gives you
- Chord following — each voice takes a role in the chord it hears from a sidechain, MIDI, or its own song map
- 125 factory stacks — tight pop thirds, gospel walls, indie fifths, choir pads, doubler beds, jazz sevenths
- Per-voice level, pan, formant, tone, timing drift and pitch drift — so eight voices sound like eight singers, not one voice copied eight times
- Unison voices double you instead of retuning you, so a doubler thickens the lead rather than fighting it
- macOS and Windows, AU / VST3 / AAX, no iLok, no dongle, no subscription
It is also included with the Rys Up Suite, along with every paid plugin we release while your access is active.
The bottom line
Every plugin on this page makes vocal harmonies. Only one of them costs $29.99 every day of the year, gives you eight voices, and lets you decide what each voice sings on each note instead of hunting for a preset that nearly fits.
Competitor prices were read from each vendor's own product page on 3 September 2026. Waves and Antares were both discounting that day, and their sale prices move constantly — ours does not.
Before you choose a stack, write a second melody that fits the chords. Our guide to harmonizing vocals around the lead starts with one useful part and shows when another layer helps the hook.