The short answer
ElevenLabs is billed per character (credits). It has a free tier: 10k credits/mo (~10 min audio). The paid plans we list start at $5/mo (Starter).
Plans and prices
| Plan | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 10,000 credits/month; attribution required; non-commercial. |
| Starter | $5/mo | 30,000 credits/month; commercial license; instant voice cloning. |
| Creator | $22/mo | 100,000 credits/month (~$11 first month promo); professional voice cloning, higher-quality audio. |
| Pro | $99/mo | 500,000 credits/month; 192 kbps audio, usage-based API access. |
| Scale | $330/mo | 2,000,000 credits/month; multiple seats for teams. |
| Business | $1,320/mo | 11,000,000 credits/month; low-latency, higher concurrency for production. |
How ElevenLabs bills you
The pricing model is per character (credits). The category-defining AI voice specialist with the broadest tooling, an official MCP server, and the deepest indie-developer mindshare. Best suited to: ultra-realistic ai voices for apps & agents.
What to watch for on the bill
- Credit model charges per generation attempt, regenerations, tests, and failed runs all consume credits
- Frequent user complaints about surprise overage charges and fast credit burn
- Pricing transparency is a recurring pain point (Trustpilot ~3.2/5 driven largely by billing)
- Highest-quality models cost more credits per character, raising cost at scale
The pricing page we read
Source: https://elevenlabs.io/pricing. Prices change, so confirm there before you commit.
Compare ElevenLabs with alternatives
- ElevenLabs vs Google Cloud Text-to-Speech pricing
- ElevenLabs vs Amazon Polly pricing
- ElevenLabs vs OpenAI TTS pricing
Other text-to-speech apis: Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, Amazon Polly, OpenAI TTS, Azure AI Speech, Cartesia.
Looking at quality rather than price? See the ElevenLabs score on APIbenchmarks. Full entry: ElevenLabs pricing.