How to make AI Voiceovers that sound Human (2025 ElevenLabs Text to Speech Tutorial)
Published by ElevenLabsWatch on YouTube
Updated Oct 5, 2026
AI Content Tools
ElevenLabs
Text to speech, voice cloning and dubbing paid from one credit pool
From $5/mo
ElevenLabs at a glance
from our research
AI audio platform with text to speech, voice cloning, dubbing, sound effects and music in one account
One credit pool covers every product: speech costs up to 1 credit a character, dubbing 2,000 to 10,000 a minute
Free plan audio is non-commercial, and self-serve plans stop at zero credits until you buy a top-up
Creator: $22 a month, or $18.33 a month billed yearly, for 121,000 credits, about 121 minutes of speech
Overview
What is ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs is an AI audio platform made by ElevenLabs Inc., a US company founded in 2022. Its core product turns written text into speech, and the same account also covers speech to text, voice cloning, dubbing, sound effects, music and lip-synced avatar video. The pricing page groups all of this into ElevenCreative, ElevenAgents and ElevenAPI.
You paste a script, pick a voice and a model, and generate the audio. Eleven v4 reads more than 90 languages and accepts up to 10,000 characters at a time, while Eleven v3 covers 70+ languages and 5,000 characters. Longer jobs go into Studio, which splits a project into chapters on a timeline, regenerates one paragraph at a time and has a pronunciation editor for audiobooks, podcasts and long narration. Instant Voice Cloning builds a voice from a minute or two of audio once you confirm you have the right and consent to clone it. Professional Voice Cloning works on your own voice only and requires verification. Dubbing translates audio and video into 90+ languages, with up to 32 speakers in a file.
ElevenLabs runs in the browser, and developers reach the same models through an API with official Python and Node.js libraries. The Audio Native player has setup guides for WordPress, Webflow, Wix, Squarespace, Ghost, Framer and React sites, and files download as MP3 or WAV, or as M4A and FLAC under Advanced. Billing is a monthly or yearly subscription that buys a pool of credits shared by every product, with prepaid top-ups for anything beyond it.
Our verdict on ElevenLabs
Updated Oct 5, 2026Pricing checked Oct 5, 2026
ElevenLabs is built for people whose finished product is spoken audio: narrated videos, audiobooks, course voiceovers, translated versions of existing videos, or speech generated inside an app through the API. Its strength is breadth on one bill. Text to speech in 90+ languages, two levels of voice cloning, multi-speaker dubbing, sound effects and music all draw on the same credits, so a small studio can produce a complete soundtrack without a second subscription. On long projects, Studio's paragraph-level regeneration and pronunciation editor mean a misread name gets fixed without re-rendering a whole chapter.
Cost control is the weak spot. Products burn credits at very different rates: a minute of speech costs about 1,000 credits, a minute of dubbing 2,000 to 10,000, so a few dubbing jobs can drain a month's allowance. Self-serve plans have no overage billing, which protects the budget but stops generation at a zero balance until you buy a prepaid top-up (from $5, valid for 12 months) or the plan renews. Starter and Creator can't add seats, and an extra Pro seat is priced only inside workspace settings. You keep the rights to what you generate, though the customer indemnifies ElevenLabs rather than the reverse, and the training opt-out doesn't reach content already used.
Starter, at $6 a month or $5 a month billed yearly, is the cheapest way to get a commercial license and Instant Voice Cloning, though its 30,000 credits come to roughly half an hour of speech. Regular narrators will end up on Creator: $22 a month, or $18.33 a month billed yearly, for 121,000 credits and Professional Voice Cloning. Pro costs $99 a month, or $82.50 billed yearly, for 600,000 credits and 44.1kHz PCM output through the API. Unused credits roll over for two months, which evens out a slow month.
Choose ElevenLabs when you need narration, cloning and dubbing in one account and can budget in credits. If the job is editing recorded interviews or podcasts, Descript fits better: it edits audio and video through the transcript and adds AI speech with custom voice clones on its Hobbyist plan ($24 a month, or $16 billed yearly). For training videos with an on-screen presenter and quizzes, Synthesia builds the whole video, not just the voice.
Written by Lokesh Kapoor
Pros & cons
ElevenLabs pros and cons
What it does well
- Starter adds a commercial license and Instant Voice Cloning for $6 a month
- Paid plans roll unused credits over for up to two months, up to 3x the monthly quota
- Dubbing covers 90+ languages and up to 32 speakers in a single file
- Studio regenerates one paragraph at a time and has a pronunciation editor
Where it falls short
- Free plan audio is for non-commercial use and needs attribution
- Starter and Creator can't add seats; extra Pro seats are priced inside workspace settings
- Terms license your content to improve the service; the training opt-out isn't retroactive
Editor's assessment from vendor documentation and published pricing
Pricing
ElevenLabs pricing
ElevenLabs's paid plans start at $5/month, below the $12 median across the 5 tools in our AI Content Tools ranking. A free plan is available.
Free
$0
Free plan
For one person
- 10,000 credits a month
- Text to Speech, Speech to Text, Music
- Voice Design and Sound Effects
- 3 projects in Studio
Usage: About 10 minutes of speech a month; unused credits don't roll over. Output is for non-commercial use with attribution, and prepaid Pay As You Go top-ups are available.
Starter
$5/mo
per month, 30,000 credits
or $6/mo billed monthly
For one person
- 30,000 credits a month
- Commercial license
- Instant Voice Cloning
- Dubbing Studio
- 20 projects in Studio
Usage: About 30 minutes of speech a month, drawn from one credit pool shared by every product. Unused credits roll over for up to two months, so the balance can reach 3x the monthly quota. When credits run out, prepaid Pay As You Go top-ups (from $5, valid 12 months) extend the plan; there is no overage billing.
Creator
$18.33/mo
per month, 121,000 credits
or $22/mo billed monthly
For one person
- 121,000 credits a month
- Professional Voice Cloning
- Additional credits can be bought
- Everything in Starter
Usage: About 121 minutes of speech a month, drawn from one shared credit pool. Unused credits roll over for up to two months, so the balance can reach 3x the monthly quota. When credits run out, prepaid Pay As You Go top-ups (from $5, valid 12 months) extend the plan; there is no overage billing.
Pro
$82.50/mo
per month, 600,000 credits
or $99/mo billed monthly
For one person
- 600,000 credits a month
- 44.1kHz PCM output via API
- 192kbps audio quality
- Everything in Creator
Usage: About 600 minutes of speech a month; one seat is included, and more can be bought in workspace settings up to 11 in total, each adding credits. Unused credits roll over for up to two months, so the balance can reach 3x the monthly quota.
Scale
$249.17/mo
per month, 1.8M credits, 3 seats
or $299/mo billed monthly
Up to 3 users
- 1.8M credits a month
- 3 workspace seats
- Team collaboration
- 3 Professional Voice Clones
Usage: About 1,800 minutes of speech a month for 3 seats; extra seats up to 11 in total are bought in workspace settings, each adding credits. Unused credits roll over for up to two months, so the balance can reach 3x the monthly quota.
Business
$825/mo
per month, 6M credits, 10 seats
or $990/mo billed monthly
Up to 10 users
- 6M credits a month
- 10 workspace seats
- Low-latency TTS from 5c a minute
- 10 Professional Voice Clones
Usage: About 6,000 minutes of speech a month for 10 seats; one more seat can be added, up to 11 in total. Unused credits roll over for up to two months, so the balance can reach 3x the monthly quota.
Enterprise
Custom
Tailored pricing for larger teams
- Custom credits and seats
- Custom SSO
- DPA, SLAs and HIPAA BAAs
- Higher concurrency limits
- Priority support
Usage: Credits, seats and terms are set by contract. Enterprise accounts can be billed for overage once included credits are used, instead of prepaid top-ups.
Checked against ElevenLabs Inc.'s pricing page on October 5, 2026 · see the full breakdown
Capabilities
ElevenLabs features
Checked against the same feature list as every other tool in its category.
Platform
- Included:Developer APIProgrammatic generation for embedding in your own products or pipelines.
- Included:SSO & team adminCentral seat management and single sign-on for organisations.SSO on Enterprise only; seats from Scale
Generation Quality
- Included:AI presenters & avatarsGenerates a person on camera delivering your script without filming.Some models restricted in the US
- Included:Editing & refinementIterates on an existing asset rather than regenerating it from scratch.
- Included:Long-form generationProduces article-length output that stays coherent from start to finish.Long-form audio, not written text
- Included:Multilingual outputProduces natural output in languages beyond English.
- Included:Voice cloningReproduces a specific voice from a recorded sample, with consent controls.
Brand & Control
- Not included:Brand voice trainingLearns your tone and vocabulary from existing material and applies it to every output.
- Included:Fine-grained style controlParameters or references that steer output beyond a plain text prompt.
- Included:Shared team libraryAssets, prompts and brand settings shared across a team rather than per person.Multi-seat plans only
- Included:Templates & workflowsPrebuilt formats for common deliverables rather than a blank prompt box.In beta
Rights & Licensing
- Included:Commercial usage rightsPaid plans grant clear rights to use generated output commercially.
- Not included:IP indemnificationThe vendor defends you against third-party IP claims arising from generated output.
- Included:Private generationYour prompts and outputs are not visible to other users or published publicly.
Ecosystem
ElevenLabs integrations
Videos
Watch ElevenLabs in action
Product walkthroughs from ElevenLabs's own YouTube channel.
An Introduction to the ElevenLabs Creative Platform
Published by ElevenLabsWatch on YouTube
Alternatives
Top ElevenLabs alternatives
Tools that do the same job, from the same category.
Synthesia
Best for L&D and HR teams that make and update training videos in several languages
Free plan
Descript
Best for podcasters and creators who edit interviews and talking-head video by transcript
Free plan
Midjourney
Best for designers and marketers producing concept art, mood boards and campaign images
From $8/mo
Fit check
Will ElevenLabs fit your team?
Support
- Email support
- Knowledge base
- Community forum
Training
- Documentation
- Video tutorials
Deployment
- Web
Typical users
- Freelancers
- Small businesses
- Mid-size companies
- Enterprises
FAQs
ElevenLabs FAQs
Written by our editorial team.
Is ElevenLabs free?
Yes. The Free plan gives 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of speech, and includes text to speech, speech to text, music, sound effects, Voice Design and up to 3 Studio projects. Unused credits don't roll over, and the audio is for non-commercial use with attribution. A commercial license starts on Starter, at $6 a month or $5 a month billed yearly. See ElevenLabs pricing for all seven plans.
How do ElevenLabs credits work?
Each plan includes a monthly credit pool that every product shares. Text to speech on the V2 Multilingual model costs one credit per character, speech to text 330 credits a minute and dubbing 2,000 to 10,000 a minute. Paid plans roll unused credits over for up to two months. When the balance reaches zero, generation stops: self-serve plans have no overage billing, so you wait for renewal or buy prepaid Pay As You Go credits (minimum $5), which are used after plan credits and expire after 12 months.
Can ElevenLabs clone my voice?
Yes, in two ways. Instant Voice Cloning, included from the Starter plan up, builds a voice from about one to two minutes of audio, and you must confirm you have the right and consent to clone it. Professional Voice Cloning starts on Creator, works for your own voice only and goes through a verification process. Voices you create stay private to your account unless you share them.
Can I use ElevenLabs audio commercially?
Yes, on any paid plan. ElevenLabs' terms limit Free users to non-commercial use, and Free plan audio needs attribution, while paid subscribers may use the service commercially. The terms also say you keep all rights in your input and output. They do license your content to ElevenLabs to provide and improve its services, and you can opt out of training in the Data use menu, though the opt-out doesn't apply to content already used.
Can I cancel ElevenLabs and get a refund?
You can cancel whenever you like. The cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing cycle, and the account then moves to the Free plan. ElevenLabs offers a refund within 14 days of a payment, but only if no credits have been used. Pay As You Go credits bought on top of a plan stay valid for 12 months from purchase.
Sources & methodology
Product details come from ElevenLabs Inc.'s public website and documentation (United States). Every plan and price was checked against the vendor's pricing page on October 5, 2026. We haven't tested this product hands-on; the verdict is a desk assessment. How we research and rank tools
- Founded 2022
- 12 languages supported
- elevenlabs.io
Keep researching