ElevenLabs

1:13 ElevenLabs is an AI audio company that turns text into speech, clones voices, dubs videos into other languages, generates music and sound effects, and runs voice agents for phone and web support. As of Nov 6, 2026 it is free for 10,000 credits a month (about 10 minutes of speech), and paid plans run from Starter at $6 a month to Business at $990. Its newest voice model, Eleven v4, came out on Sep 28, 2026 and speaks more than 90 languages.

ElevenLabs is the pick when voice quality matters most: on Artificial Analysis's Provider Voice leaderboard, read Nov 6, 2026, Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo were ranked first and second. It is not the cheapest, though: the same board lists Eleven v4 at $80 per million characters through the API, against $6.58 for Simba 3.5 and $16.49 for Google's Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS. For editing recordings of real people, Descript fits better; for talking avatars, HeyGen or Synthesia. Best AI Voice Generator compares them all.

Quick facts

Plans and prices

Source: ElevenLabs pricing, read Nov 6, 2026. Yearly billing costs 10 times the monthly price. Credits are shared across speech, music (900 credits a minute) and the other tools; Free credits do not roll over. Starter and Creator were discounted for the first month.

Features

0:00 Text to speech. Type or paste text, pick a voice and get narration. Eleven v4 is the flagship for quality and long projects; ElevenLabs says it follows inline tags such as [laughs] more accurately than earlier models, holds a speaker's identity across long projects and handles multi-speaker dialogue better (ElevenLabs). Eleven v4 Turbo answers in about 150 ms for live agents, and Flash v2.5 is the cheaper, faster option for bulk work (models).

5:13 Voice cloning. Instant clones need about 10 seconds of audio on v4 and come with Starter; professional clones, trained longer on more recordings, start on Creator. Professional clone fine-tuning for v4 reached every workspace on Nov 2, 2026.

10:11 Dubbing. Dubbing Studio translates a video's speech into another language in the original speakers' voices, from Starter up (pricing).

Music and sound effects. Eleven Music writes songs with vocals or instrumentals; ElevenLabs says tracks are cleared for broad commercial use, with rights that vary by plan, and Free is personal use only. SFX v3 became the default sound effects model on Nov 2, 2026. See Best AI Music Generator.

1:38 ElevenAgents. A platform for voice agents that answer calls and chats. Eleven Realtime, launched Oct 20, 2026, bundles speech recognition, turn-taking, a language model and the voice in one model, and reached every workspace on Nov 2, 2026.

Speech to text. Scribe v2 transcribes in 90 or more languages, with a realtime version and a medical version.

History

• Feb 2, 2026: Eleven v3 generally available.
• Feb 4, 2026: $500 million Series D at an $11 billion valuation.
• May 5, 2026: ElevenLabs said it had passed $500 million in annual recurring revenue.
• Sep 10, 2026: multi-year agreement with Universal Music Group.
• Sep 28, 2026: Eleven v4 and v4 Turbo.
• Sep 30, 2026: the company said its valuation rose to $22 billion.
• Oct 20, 2026: Eleven Realtime for voice agents.

ElevenLabs vs the alternatives

Google's Gemini TTS (in Gemini and Google's API) costs far less per character: Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS was sixth on Artificial Analysis's board at $16.49 per million characters, read Nov 6, 2026. Pick it for cheap, large volumes.

Descript clones your voice to fix words in your own recordings and edits audio and video by editing the transcript. Pick it for podcasts and talking-head videos.

HeyGen and Synthesia add an on-screen avatar and translate videos with lip sync. Pick them when you need a face, not just a voice.

Suno is the stronger music generator: Suno v6 led Artificial Analysis's vocal music board, with Eleven Music v2.5 seventh, read Nov 6, 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Is ElevenLabs free? Yes. ElevenLabs' free plan gives 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of speech, for personal use without a commercial license, as of Nov 6, 2026.

How much does ElevenLabs cost? ElevenLabs costs $6 a month for Starter, $22 for Creator, $99 for Pro, $299 for Scale and $990 for Business, as of Nov 6, 2026; yearly billing costs 10 times the monthly price.

What is Eleven v4? Eleven v4 is ElevenLabs' newest text to speech model, released Sep 28, 2026, with more emotional delivery, better cloning from about 10 seconds of audio and more than 90 languages; Eleven v4 Turbo is its fast version for voice agents.

Can I use ElevenLabs voices commercially? Yes, on any paid ElevenLabs plan from Starter ($6 a month) up; the free plan has no commercial license.

Can ElevenLabs clone my voice? Yes. ElevenLabs makes instant voice clones from Starter up and professional clones from Creator up.

Sources

• Pricing, ElevenLabs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Models, ElevenLabs docs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Introducing Eleven v4, our most emotive model, ElevenLabs, Sep 28, 2026
• Blog, ElevenLabs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Changelog, ElevenLabs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Eleven Music, ElevenLabs, read Nov 6, 2026
• Introducing Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, ElevenLabs, Sep 28, 2026 (video)
• How to Use ElevenLabs AI (Complete Voiceover Beginner Tutorial), Kevin Stratvert, Jul 21, 2026 (video)
• Provider Voice Leaderboard, Artificial Analysis, read Nov 6, 2026
• AA-Music-Vocal Leaderboard, Artificial Analysis, read Nov 6, 2026