Last updated: 2026-11-02
What changed
ElevenLabs is an AI voice company whose Eleven v4 model, launched in September 2026, handles text-to-speech in more than 90 languages, alongside voice cloning, dubbing, music and conversational voice agents. Every product draws on one monthly credit pool, with a free plan and paid plans up to Business.
About ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs is an AI audio research and deployment company founded in 2022. On 30 September 2026 it said its valuation had risen to $22 billion on enterprise demand for conversational agents, and earlier that month it signed a multi-year agreement with Universal Music Group. ElevenLabs lists Twilio, Disney, Nvidia, Meta, Salesforce and Deutsche Telekom among its customers.
The platform is split into ElevenCreative for content (text-to-speech, music, dubbing and sound effects), ElevenAgents for conversational voice agents, and Scribe for speech-to-text, and every product draws on one shared credit pool. Eleven v4, launched on 28 September 2026, is now the flagship text-to-speech model: ElevenLabs says it supports more than 90 languages, keeps a cloned voice's identity when it speaks another language, and follows inline audio tags such as [laughs] or [phone buzzing]. Its low-latency sibling, Eleven v4 Turbo, is tuned for agents, and the October launch of Eleven Realtime packages it into a simpler way to build voice agents.
In September 2026 ElevenLabs shipped Music v2.5, now the default model behind ElevenMusic, ElevenCreative, and the Music API. Across a blind listening test spanning 47,885 comparison pairs against the prior Music v2, the newer model was the preferred take most often, with the widest margins in vocal-led and acoustic genres such as R&B, hip hop, and orchestral scoring. The release landed one day after ElevenLabs signed a separate multi-year licensing deal with Universal Music Group for a distinct UMG-branded music platform; both companies have said no UMG catalog was used to train Music v2.5 itself.
ElevenLabs sits in the AI voice assistants category. Cartesia is the closest rival for low-latency agent voices, while PlayHT competes on narration voices. Murf AI folds voiceover into a video workflow, Speechify is mainly a reading-aloud app, and Resemble AI leans on custom cloning. For video projects it often pairs with Runway or HeyGen. The best AI text-to-speech guide ranks it against the field, and Suno vs Udio covers the music alternatives.
Who should look elsewhere: because every product spends the same credits, a team that dubs video will drain a plan far faster than one that only reads text aloud. People who just want documents read to them get more from a dedicated reading app than from a production platform, and buyers who need a fixed price per minute of audio may prefer a provider that bills that way instead of by character.
Pricing
Free: $0 with 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of text-to-speech, for non-commercial use. Starter $6/month (30,000 credits, commercial licence, instant voice cloning). Creator $22/month (121,000 credits, professional voice cloning; $11 for the first month).
Pro $99/month (600,000 credits). Scale $299/month (1.8 million credits, 3 seats). Business $990/month (6 million credits, 10 seats).
Enterprise is custom. Yearly billing charges ten months for twelve, so Starter works out to $5 a month and Business to $825. Credits are shared across products: text-to-speech costs about 1 credit per character, speech-to-text 330 per minute, music 900 per minute and dubbing 2,000 to 10,000 per minute.
Unused paid credits roll over for up to two months. Source: ElevenLabs pricing page, read on 2026-11-02. Compare the voiceover plans of Murf AI before choosing.
| Tier | Monthly price | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | 10k monthly credits, 3 Studio projects, Personal, non-commercial use |
| Starter | $6/mo | 30,000 credits a month, Commercial licence, Instant Voice Cloning, 20 Studio projects, Commercial music use |
| Creator | $22/mo | 121,000 credits a month, Professional Voice Cloning, Buy additional credits, 192 kbps audio |
| Pro | $99/mo | 600,000 credits a month, Everything in Creator, Lower per-minute cost for extra audio |
| Scale | $299/mo | 1.8 million credits a month, 3 workspace seats, 3 Professional Voice Clones |
| Business | $990/mo | 6 million credits a month, 10 workspace seats, 10 Professional Voice Clones |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credits and seats, More voices, Fully managed dubbing with Productions, Volume discounts |
Feature Comparison by Tier
| Feature | Pro | Free | Scale | Creator | Starter | Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly credits | 600K | 10K | 1.8M | 121K | 30K | 6M |
| Approx. TTS minutes | ~600 | ~10 | ~1,800 | ~121 | ~30 | ~6,000 |
| Commercial licence | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Voice Cloning | Professional | — | 3 Professional | Professional | Instant | 10 Professional |
| Workspace seats | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
| Credit rollover (up to 2 months) | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Top MP3 bitrate (kbps) | 192 | 128 | 192 | 192 | 128 | 192 |
| Conversational Agents (ElevenAgents) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Key Features
- Text-to-Speech with Eleven v4: The flagship model since late September 2026 follows inline audio tags for emotion, accents and background sounds, and keeps a cloned voice sounding native in each language.
- Voice Cloning & Design: Instant clones on Eleven v4 need about 10 seconds of audio, professional clones from longer recordings start on Creator, and voices can also be designed from a text prompt.
- ElevenAgents and Eleven Realtime: A platform for deploying conversational voice agents at volume, with Eleven Realtime added in October 2026 as a simpler way to build natural-sounding agents.
- ElevenMusic: AI Song Generation App: ElevenMusic now runs on Music v2.5 by default for song generation; the free plan creates 5 tracks a day with commercial use allowed under attribution, and Pro adds stem separation, cover art, and 400 tracks a month with 10 HQ WAV downloads included
- Speech-to-Text with Scribe: Scribe transcribes recordings with speaker labels and word-level timestamps, at 330 credits per minute of audio from the shared pool.
- Dubbing across languages: Automatic dubbing keeps the original speaker's voice in the target language, priced from 2,000 credits a minute with a watermark.
- Eleven v4 Turbo for live agents: The low-latency v4 variant has a median time to first speech of about 150 milliseconds, per ElevenLabs, so an agent answers within a normal conversational pause.
Pros
- Voice quality and expressiveness stand out, with Eleven v4 following audio tags for sighs, laughs, accents and background sounds
- A dedicated low-latency model for live agents means one account can cover narration and real-time phone or app conversations
- Extensive language support across both text-to-speech and transcription workflows, with authentic accent and dialect handling
- Enterprise-grade compliance certifications (SOC2 Type II, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR) with optional Zero Retention Mode and regional data residency
- Flexible credit-based pricing with a free tier, rollover of unused paid credits for up to two months, and two months free on yearly billing
- Full API access with official SDKs (Python, JavaScript) and pre-built integrations (Salesforce, Slack, Zendesk, Stripe, Twilio, etc.)
Cons
- Complex pricing structure with multiple models, feature-based gating, and tiered overages makes cost prediction difficult for variable workloads
- Dubbing and voice changing cost thousands of credits a minute, so video localisation drains a plan quickly
- The free tier is small, non-commercial only, and its credits do not roll over
- First-month discounts on Starter and Creator differ from the renewal price, so the second month costs more than the first
Product Information
- Cloud
- Yes
- Self-Hosted
- No
- On-Premise
- No
- Languages
- English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Vietnamese, Turkish, Thai, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian
- Training
- Official Documentation, API Reference, SDK Examples (Python, JavaScript), Discord Community, Video Tutorials, Enterprise Onboarding
Data Handling
- Compliance
- SOC2 Type II · ISO 27001 · PCI DSS Level 1 · HIPAA (with BAA) · GDPR · EU-US Data Privacy Framework
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does ElevenLabs cost per month?
Starter is $6 a month and Business $990, with Creator, Pro and Scale in between and Enterprise priced on request. Each plan is a monthly credit allowance shared across voice, music and dubbing, from 30,000 credits on Starter to 6 million on Business. Paying yearly gives two months free.
Is the ElevenLabs free plan enough to get started?
For testing, yes. It gives 10,000 credits a month, roughly ten minutes of generated speech, for personal, non-commercial projects. Commercial use and instant voice cloning start on Starter, and free credits do not roll over to the next month.
Which voice AI tools compete with ElevenLabs?
Cartesia and PlayHT are the closest rivals on raw voice models, Murf AI wraps voiceover in a video editor, Descript covers transcription and podcast editing, and Synthesia suits avatar video where the voice is one part of the output.
ElevenLabs or Murf AI: which fits better?
Murf AI suits people building narrated videos who want templates and avatars in the same place. ElevenLabs is the better fit when the voice itself is the product, such as audiobooks, dubbing, cloned brand voices or a live phone agent, where expressiveness and latency matter most.
What changed at ElevenLabs in autumn 2026?
Eleven v4 and its faster Turbo variant launched on 28 September as the new flagship voice models, and the company announced a higher valuation two days later. Eleven Realtime followed on 20 October, and the price list now puts Scale and Business well below their earlier rates.
Top Alternatives
- Murf AI: Pick Murf AI if you need an all-in-one video creator with built-in TTS; pick ElevenLabs if you need superior voice expressiveness and lower latency.
- Synthesia: Pick Synthesia if you want to generate videos with AI avatars; pick ElevenLabs if your focus is voice quality, voice cloning, or agent deployment.
- Descript: Pick Descript if you want an all-in-one transcription + editing + export tool; pick ElevenLabs if you need advanced voice cloning, multilingual agents, or real-time voice synthesis.
Hokai guides covering ElevenLabs
- Best AI Text to Speech in 2026: What an Hour of Audio Really Costs: Best AI text to speech in 2026 compared on one number, dollars per hour of audio: ElevenLabs, Gemini, Murf, Deepgram, KugelAudio, Fliki and Descript prices.
- Best AI Voice Assistants in 2026: A Buyer's Guide to Synthesis, Transcription and Agents: Best AI voice tools in 2026: ElevenLabs for cloning, Speechmatics, AssemblyAI and Deepgram for transcription, Retell AI and Vapi for agents. Priced 7 Nov.
- How to Create AI Video and Visual Content Without a Production Team: DALL-E is retired. Here is the 2026 camera-free AI video stack, with every price re-read from the vendors' own pages on 19 October 2026 and a $67 core budget.
Also mentioned in
- Best AI Dubbing and Video Translation Tools in 2026: Six AI dubbing tools compared on price per minute, lip sync, language count and length caps, with vendor pricing read on 9 October 2026 and a test to run.
- Suno vs Udio in 2026: Only One Still Lets You Download Your Songs: Suno vs Udio in 2026: Udio disabled downloads in October 2025, while Suno Pro allows 20 a month with commercial rights. Plans, limits and ownership compared.
- Trigger.dev vs Inngest: Which Should You Use in 2026?: Trigger.dev starts at $10 a month, credit-billed and TypeScript-only. Inngest Pro starts at $99. Self-hosting caveats, the agent-pause gap, and which to use.