ElevenLabs is the leading text-to-speech and voice AI API — realistic narration, voice cloning and dubbing. Unlike LLMs, it bills by characters of text converted to speech, bundled into monthly tiers. Here's what it costs, the free plan, and how to get your key.
| Plan | Price / mo | Characters / mo | ≈ Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free free | $0 | 10,000 | ~10 min |
| Starter | $6 | 30,000 | ~30 min |
| Creator | $22 | 121,000 | ~121 min |
| Pro | $99 | 600,000 | ~600 min |
| Scale | $299 | 1,800,000 | ~1,800 min |
| Business | $990 | 6,000,000 | ~6,000 min |
Try ElevenLabs free →
Referral link — start on the free tier, upgrade only if you need more.
→ Building a voice feature into an app? Estimate the surrounding LLM cost with the AI app cost estimator and the full backend with the API stack calculator.
Yes — the Free plan gives about 10,000 characters per month (~10 minutes of audio), enough to prototype, with attribution and non-commercial terms. To remove attribution, unlock commercial use and get more characters plus API headroom, you move to a paid tier. For voice, there's no truly unlimited free option — characters are the meter.
1. Sign up at elevenlabs.io.
2. Click your profile (top right) → Profile + API key (or Settings → API Keys).
3. Generate / reveal your API key and copy it.
4. The free tier works right away; upgrade for commercial rights and higher character limits.
Test text-to-speech with a simple request:
Count the characters you'll convert: roughly 1,000 characters ≈ 1 minute of speech. A 5-minute daily podcast intro is ~5,000 chars/day ≈ 150,000/month — that's a Creator/Pro tier. For app features, combine this with your LLM bill on the AI API cost calculator.
Cheaper or different voice options include OpenAI TTS (priced per character, often lower), Google Cloud Text-to-Speech and Amazon Polly (pay-as-you-go per character, generous free tiers), and Deepgram or PlayHT for streaming. ElevenLabs leads on voice realism and cloning; the others can be cheaper at scale.
Yes — about 10,000 characters/month (~10 minutes), non-commercial with attribution.
By characters of text converted to speech, bundled into monthly tiers (Free, Starter $6, Creator $22, Pro $99, Scale $299, Business $990). ~1,000 characters ≈ 1 minute.
Sign up at elevenlabs.io, open Profile + API key in settings, generate and copy the key.
No — OpenAI TTS, Google and Amazon Polly are often cheaper per character. ElevenLabs leads on realism and voice cloning.
Not affiliated with ElevenLabs. Prices are reference estimates — always verify on the official pricing page.