Pricing guide
ElevenLabs pricing guide: plans, credits & costs
Every ElevenLabs plan, credit allowance, and real monthly cost — verified on elevenlabs.io/pricing on 2026-08-14, with what each tier is actually for.
- Tool
- ElevenLabs
- Best for
- Creators who need consistent narration, multilingual voiceover, or automated voice agent workflows.
- Hands-on
- Controlled benchmark pending
Quick answer
ElevenLabs sells one shared credit pool across TTS, speech-to-text, music, sound effects, dubbing, and image tools. Plans (verified 2026-08-14): Free $0 (10,000 credits/month), Starter $6 (30,000), Creator $22 (121,000; $11 for the first month), Pro $99 (600,000), Scale $299 (1.8M, 3 seats), Business $990 (6M, 10 seats), Enterprise custom. Annual billing is roughly monthly x 10 per the official FAQ. Text-to-speech costs about 1 credit per character, so 10,000 credits is roughly 10 minutes of generated speech per month on Free.
PremiumPeek has not completed a same-input hands-on test for this guide. Vendor-documented facts and the reader-run test remain clearly separated.
Worth evaluating when
- Creators who want a rough monthly budget before choosing between ElevenLabs tiers
- Teams comparing ElevenLabs against cheaper or free alternatives (PlayHT, Kokoro, FishAudio)
- Anyone confused by the credit system and per-product credit costs
Check before paying
- Credits are shared across every product — using dubbing (2,000-10,000 credits/minute) drains the pool far faster than TTS (1 credit/character)
- Annual billing (monthly x 10) is the cheapest official option; the $11 first-month Creator price is a one-time promo
- Prices are verified as of 2026-08-14; ElevenLabs changes tiers often, so re-check the official page before committing
The plan table
Verified on elevenlabs.io/pricing (2026-08-14): Free $0/month with 10,000 credits, 3 Studio projects, and no commercial license. Starter $6/month with 30,000 credits, commercial license, instant voice cloning, 20 projects, music commercial use, and Dubbing Studio. Creator $22/month (121,000 credits; $11 first month) adds professional voice cloning and is marked popular. Pro $99/month (600,000 credits) adds 44.1kHz PCM API output and 192kbps audio. Scale $299/month (1.8M credits, 3 workspace seats) adds team collaboration and 3 professional voice clones. Business $990/month (6M credits, 10 seats) adds low-latency TTS from 5c/minute and 10 professional voice clones. Enterprise is custom.
How credits actually work
One credit pool serves every product: Text-to-Speech about 1 credit per character; Speech-to-Text 330 credits per minute; Eleven Music 900 credits per minute; Sound Effects 200 credits per generation; Voice Changer and Voice Isolator 1,000 credits per minute; dubbing 2,000-10,000 credits per minute depending on watermark and Studio.
Practical math: 10,000 Free credits ≈ 10 minutes of TTS audio; 121,000 Creator credits ≈ roughly 2 hours of TTS per month. For dubbing, the same credits vanish 10x faster, which is why the official calculator recommends Creator for 50 minutes of TTS per month.
Free plan vs paid — what you actually lose
The Free plan is enough to test voice quality but has no commercial license, only 3 Studio projects, and 10,000 credits (~10 minutes of TTS). The moment you publish monetized content with ElevenLabs voices, you need Starter ($6/month) for the commercial license.
For YouTube creators, the usual upgrade path is Starter or Creator: Starter covers commercial use at $6/month; Creator adds professional voice cloning and more headroom at $22/month.
Cheaper alternatives in this directory
PlayHT: Starter free (10,000 credits), Creator $9.99/month ($8.33 annual) for 1M credits — far more characters per dollar, with 1,000+ voices and voice cloning. FishAudio: free tier 8,000 credits (~7 min) personal non-commercial; Plus from $5.50/month annual for commercial use. Kokoro: free and open source (Apache-2.0) 82M-parameter TTS you run locally.
PremiumPeek's directory profiles these tools with verified pricing — compare before you commit to an ElevenLabs annual plan.
Related comparisons
Compare ElevenLabs against the tools creators most often weigh it against.
Related guides
More Voice workflows from the same verified catalog.
Run a same-input test
Check the current plan table
Open elevenlabs.io/pricing and read the monthly prices and credit allowances; they change regularly.
Estimate your own usage
Use the official cost calculator with your minutes of TTS/dubbing per month and see which plan it recommends.
Test quality on the free tier
Generate sample voiceover on the Free plan before paying, and confirm the commercial-license requirement on Starter.
Official sources
These external sources support the source-checked product and pricing record. Recheck them before purchasing because plans and limits change.
Frequently asked questions
Is ElevenLabs free to use?
Yes — Free $0/month with 10,000 credits (~10 minutes of TTS), but no commercial license and only 3 Studio projects. Paid plans start at Starter $6/month for commercial use.
How much does ElevenLabs cost per month?
Verified 2026-08-14: Starter $6, Creator $22 ($11 first month), Pro $99, Scale $299, Business $990, Enterprise custom. Annual billing is approximately monthly x 10.
Which ElevenLabs plan is best for YouTube voiceovers?
Starter ($6/month) is the minimum for commercial use; Creator ($22/month, 121k credits) is the common choice for channels publishing regularly. For heavy dubbing, expect much higher credit use per minute.
Is ElevenLabs cheaper than its alternatives?
Not per character: PlayHT Creator gives 1M credits for $9.99/month and Kokoro is free open-source. ElevenLabs' value is voice quality and product breadth, not raw price — compare the directory profiles before subscribing.