ElevenLabs is the leading AI voice platform, used for narration, voiceovers, dubbing, music, sound effects and voice agents, now organized into ElevenCreative, ElevenAgents and ElevenAPI. Its newest model, Eleven v4, launched in September 2026. The free plan includes 10,000 credits a month without a commercial license. Starter costs $6 a month for 30,000 credits, commercial use and instant voice cloning; Creator $22, or $11 for the first month, for 121,000 credits and professional voice cloning; and Pro $99 for 600,000 credits. Scale and Business add seats from $299.
Reviewed by EdGrows·Updated Sep 30, 2026
ElevenLabs started as a text-to-speech company and became the benchmark for AI voices. In 2026 it organizes its products into three lines: ElevenCreative for content creation, covering speech, voice cloning, dubbing, music, sound effects and video; ElevenAgents for conversational voice agents in customer service and sales; and ElevenAPI for developers building voice into their own products. Its homepage lists customers including The Walt Disney Studios, Meta, Nvidia, Epic Games, Stripe, Twilio, Cisco, Zoom and Revolut.
The newest model, Eleven v4, arrived in September 2026 and is billed as ElevenLabs' most emotive yet. Around it sit a voice library with thousands of community and professional voices, instant and professional voice cloning, a Studio for long-form productions such as audiobooks and podcasts, Dubbing Studio for translating video, speech to text, a voice changer, a voice isolator, and music and sound-effect generation.
I've taken ElevenLabs beyond just testing: I use it for actual business work, narrating full-length YouTube videos. It's a solid fit if you want to cut down on busywork without losing quality. Sure, the plans can get pricey, but the free tier gives you a real chance to try it out first. I also love that it's not limited to English; I've made Spanish content with it too.
Bottom line: this is easily one of the top players in the space, and I think it'll stay that way for a good while.
Everything in ElevenLabs runs on credits. Text to speech consumes them roughly by characters of text, faster models cost less than the highest-quality ones, and dubbing, music and voice changing have their own rates. The editor shows the cost of each generation before you run it, as in the example above, where a short story costs 285 credits. ElevenLabs' own calculator recommends the Creator plan for about 50 minutes of generated speech a month.
Two habits change how far credits go. Retakes cost the same as first takes, so a script that needs several passes to get the delivery right uses several times the credits. And model choice matters: Eleven v4 and Multilingual v2 give the most expressive results, while the Flash models trade some quality for speed and a lower cost, which suits drafts and real-time uses.
To launch v4, ElevenLabs is running a promotion: on Creator plans and above, extra v4 usage in the web and mobile apps does not count against your monthly credits until October 12, 2026.
ElevenLabs' pricing page for ElevenCreative on monthly billing as of September 30, 2026.
| Plan | Monthly price | Credits a month | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10,000 | Text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, voice design, music, image tools, 3 Studio projects |
| Starter | $6 | 30,000 | Commercial license, instant voice cloning, 20 Studio projects, Dubbing Studio, commercial music use, image and video |
| Creator | $22, $11 the first month | 121,000 | Professional voice cloning, option to buy additional credits |
| Pro | $99 | 600,000 | 44.1kHz PCM audio through the API, 192kbps audio |
| Scale | $299 | 1.8 million | 3 workspace seats, team collaboration, 3 professional voice clones |
| Business | $990 | 6 million | 10 seats, 10 professional voice clones, low-latency speech from about 5 cents a minute |
| Enterprise | By quote | Custom | DPA and SLA terms, HIPAA BAAs, custom SSO, more seats and concurrency, managed dubbing |
Prices exclude taxes; yearly billing is cheaper. Startups can apply for a grant of 12 months free with 33 million characters.
The allowances changed during 2026: Pro now includes 600,000 credits, while Scale and Business include 1.8 million and 6 million, so anyone comparing with older reviews should use these figures. For most individual creators, Creator is the plan that fits: professional voice cloning, enough credits for regular narration, and a first month at half price to test it on real projects. Starter works for occasional videos, and Pro is the step up when a channel or agency runs out of Creator credits every month.
Dubbing is where ElevenLabs saves creators the most time. Dubbing V2 translates a video's speech, keeps the original speakers' voices through automatic cloning, and syncs the result, with support for 92 languages; Dubbing Studio, from Starter, lets you edit the translated script and timing. Channels that publish in several languages can reach new audiences without re-recording.
Voice cloning comes in two strengths. Instant cloning, from Starter, copies a voice from a short sample. Professional cloning, from Creator, trains on a longer recording for a closer match, which is what audiobook narrators and brands use to keep a consistent voice. Cloning another person's voice requires their consent, and ElevenLabs has verification steps for professional clones.
The Studio handles long-form work, such as audiobooks, podcasts and course narration, with chapters, multiple voices and pronunciation controls, while the voice library offers thousands of ready-made voices filtered by language, accent and use.
For companies, ElevenAgents builds voice agents that combine speech recognition, a language model and ElevenLabs' voices to answer calls, handle customer service and qualify leads, with telephony integrations for phone lines. ElevenAPI exposes text to speech, speech to text, voice cloning, dubbing and music to developers, with Pro and above adding high-quality PCM output and Business offering low-latency speech from about 5 cents a minute.
Startups can apply for ElevenLabs' grant program, which offers 12 months free with 33 million characters to build and launch voice products.
Murf offers a simpler studio for business voiceovers and presentations, and Descript is the better tool when you are editing recorded audio or video rather than generating new speech. Speechify serves a different need: listening to text you want to read, with its voice products for creators sold separately. For presenter-led video, HeyGen and Synthesia combine avatars with voices, and many creators pair them with ElevenLabs voices for narration.
For natural-sounding voices, cloning and dubbing, ElevenLabs remains the reference point, and Creator at $22 a month is where most creators should start.
Disclosure: AIVario earns a commission if you sign up through our link. This does not affect our rating: we use ElevenLabs ourselves for aivario.com video content and consider it the best in its category.
On monthly billing, Free costs nothing for 10,000 credits a month, Starter $6 for 30,000, Creator $22 for 121,000 with the first month at $11, Pro $99 for 600,000, Scale $299 for 1.8 million with three seats, and Business $990 for 6 million with ten seats. Enterprise is priced by quote, and yearly billing is available at a lower rate.
From Starter upward. ElevenLabs lists a commercial license, instant voice cloning, Dubbing Studio and commercial use of music as Starter features, so the free plan is for personal projects and testing. For monetized YouTube videos, podcasts or client work, budget at least $6 a month.
ElevenLabs' newest text-to-speech model, which it calls its most emotive yet, launched in September 2026. As a launch promotion, Creator subscribers and above get extra v4 usage that does not count against their credits until October 12, in the web and mobile apps. Older models, including Multilingual v2 and the fast Flash models, remain available.
Text to speech consumes credits roughly by characters of text, with faster models cheaper than the highest-quality ones, and other features such as dubbing, music and voice changing have their own rates. ElevenLabs' own calculator recommends Creator for about 50 minutes of generated speech a month. Retakes use credits too, so budget more than a single pass.
Yes. Its voices speak dozens of languages, and ElevenLabs' Dubbing V2 advertises support for 92 languages with sync-aware translation, automatic voice cloning and preserved emotion. AIVario has produced Spanish-language content with it as well as English narration.
Instant voice cloning, from Starter, copies a voice from a short sample and is quick to set up. Professional voice cloning, from Creator, trains on a longer recording for a closer match, and higher plans include more professional clones: three on Scale and ten on Business. Cloning someone else's voice requires their permission.
Try nearly everything at small scale: text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, voice design, music and image tools, with 10,000 credits a month and three Studio projects. It excludes the commercial license and voice cloning, so it suits testing voices and personal projects rather than publishing.
ElevenLabs for the most natural voices, voice cloning, dubbing and developer APIs. Murf for a simpler studio aimed at business voiceovers and presentations. Creators who care most about how the voice sounds usually choose ElevenLabs; teams producing many straightforward training or marketing voiceovers may find Murf easier.
The design app for everyone, now with tiered AI allowances, Business in place of Teams and Affinity included.
The design tool most product teams use, priced per seat type: $3 to $16 a month on Professional, with AI credits for Figma Make and the agent attached to each seat.
The best-looking AI images, sold as GPU time; V8.2 adds an Edit model and images turn into clips up to 21 seconds.