AIPickr
Short answer: Free covers drafts. In our test, one generation of a 718-character script used 718 credits in total and returned two versions; the one we downloaded was a 47.1-second MP3. Most people only need to leave Free ($0, 10,000 credits a month) for Starter ($6/mo) once they publish for money, because it is the cheapest plan with the Commercial License, which lets you use the audio in work you earn money from (Last checked: 2026-11). Creator ($22/mo) is the step up for a Professional Voice Clone (an AI copy of a specific person’s voice) or higher-bitrate MP3s from Text to Speech; we did not test any paid plan, so these picks follow the official feature list.
This page is about which plan to pay for. The full Free plan walkthrough is in our ElevenLabs Free plan review.
ElevenLabs plans and prices
ElevenLabs charges in credits (the allowance you spend each time you generate something). For text to speech, the pricing page says one credit covers about one character (a letter, space or punctuation mark), so a longer script costs more credits. All products, from speech to music, draw on the same monthly pool.
Last checked: 2026-11, on ElevenLabs’ official pricing page (elevenlabs.io/pricing).
| Plan | Price | Credits a month | What the pricing page adds | Fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10,000 | Text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, music, image, voice design and Productions (not explained on the plan card), 3 Studio projects (Studio is the app’s project editor) | Drafts and practice |
| Starter | $6/mo ($5/mo yearly) | 30,000 | Instant Voice Cloning, 20 Studio projects, Dubbing Studio (dubbing re-voices audio or video in another language) | Publishing for money |
| Creator | $22/mo ($18.33/mo yearly) | 121,000 | Professional Voice Cloning, 192 kbps MP3 in Text to Speech (kbps is the bitrate; a higher number keeps more audio detail) | Your own voice clone |
| Pro | $99/mo ($82.50/mo yearly) | 600,000 | Uncompressed audio (PCM, 44.1 kHz like an audio CD) through the API (calling ElevenLabs from your own code); 192 kbps MP3 exports from Studio | Uncompressed audio through the API |
| Scale | $299/mo ($249.17/mo yearly) | 1,800,000 | 3 workspace seats, 3 Professional Voice Clones | Small teams |
| Business | $990/mo ($825/mo yearly) | 6,000,000 | 10 workspace seats, 10 Professional Voice Clones | Larger teams |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom DPA (data processing agreement) and SLA (service-level agreement), BAAs for HIPAA (contracts the US health-privacy law requires), custom SSO (signing in with your company account) | Companies that need a contract |
Free plan: what you actually get
In our test, one generation of a 718-character script used 718 credits in total and returned two versions; the one we downloaded was a 47.1-second MP3. MP3 128 kbps was the only format we could select. Tested on the Free plan; paid plans may perform differently. Our ElevenLabs Free plan review has the step-by-step test and screenshots.
If you want 192 kbps files, check where you export: the pricing page’s comparison table lists 192 kbps Text to Speech audio from Creator up, while ElevenLabs’ Studio page lists 192 kbps MP3 exports from Pro.
Which plan should you pick?
These picks follow the plan table above.
Individuals trying it out. Stay on Free while you write and test scripts. Paste your own scripts to see how far 10,000 credits go. Move up when you start publishing for money.
Creators publishing videos or podcasts. Starter at $6/mo, or $5/mo billed yearly, is the cheapest plan with the Commercial License. It also lists Instant Voice Cloning, Dubbing Studio and 30,000 credits a month; the plan cards don’t explain how Instant cloning differs from Professional. Creator at $22/mo, or $18.33/mo billed yearly, is the step up if you want a Professional Voice Clone, 192 kbps MP3 from Text to Speech, or 121,000 credits a month. Pro at $99/mo, or $82.50/mo billed yearly, adds 44.1 kHz PCM output through the API and 192 kbps exports from Studio.
Teams. Scale ($299/mo) lists 3 workspace seats (people who can sign in to one workspace) and 1.8 million credits. Business ($990/mo) lists 10 seats and 6 million credits; yearly prices for both are in the table above. The plan comparison table on ElevenLabs’ pricing page lists 1 seat on Free, Starter, Creator and Pro. A price for extra seats is Not listed. If your company needs a DPA, an SLA or HIPAA terms, the pricing page puts those on Enterprise, which has no published price.
ElevenLabs
Our pickPrice: Free; Starter $6/mo; Creator $22/mo; Pro $99/mo; Scale $299/mo; Business $990/mo (yearly prices in the plan table) · Last checked: 2026-11
Pros
- Starter at $6/mo is the lowest paid price of the three tools compared here, per each official pricing page.
- Paid plans roll unused credits over for up to two months.
Cons
- Free credits don't roll over, and Free has no Commercial License.
- Downgrading or canceling forfeits rolled-over credits at the end of the cycle.
- Creator shows a discounted first month, so the regular price is what you pay from month two.
- Best for
- Solo creators who want a low entry price for commercial voiceovers and can track usage in credits.
- Skip it if
- Anyone who wants a fixed number of hours instead of credits, or WAV files (uncompressed audio) on the Free plan.
Compared with alternatives
We compared ElevenLabs with two tools that also turn text into speech. Murf AI is a dedicated voice studio. Descript is an audio and video editor that includes AI speech, so its plans pay for editing as much as for voice.
| Tier | ElevenLabs | Murf AI | Descript |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, 10,000 credits a month | $0, 10 minutes of voice generation, 10 projects, no downloads | Free, 1 media hour, 720p |
| Entry paid | Starter $6/mo ($5/mo yearly), 30,000 credits a month | Creator $29/mo ($19/mo yearly), 2 hours a month on monthly billing | Hobbyist $24/mo ($16/mo yearly), 10 media hours, 400 AI credits |
| Next tier | Creator $22/mo ($18.33/mo yearly), 121,000 credits a month | Business $99/mo ($66/mo yearly), 8 hours a month on monthly billing | Creator $35/mo ($24/mo yearly), 30 media hours, 800 AI credits |
| Commercial use on Free | No, per the pricing page | No (“No Commercial Rights”) | Not listed |
Sources: elevenlabs.io/pricing, murf.ai/pricing (Studio tab) and descript.com/pricing. Last checked: 2026-11. Descript’s comparison table lists “60 minutes (1 hr) / month” of media on Free; its AI credits are Descript’s own and are separate from ElevenLabs credits.
Murf AI sells voice generation by the hour instead of by the credit; our ElevenLabs vs Murf AI test compares both free plans.
Descript makes sense mainly if most of your work is editing recordings by transcript. Its pricing page lists AI Speech with custom voice clones from the Hobbyist plan, so compare the feature table on descript.com before choosing it for voice work. We did not test Descript for this page. Our best AI video generators for short-form content guide covers where Descript fits in a video workflow.
Hidden costs and limits
All of these come from ElevenLabs’ official pricing page and its help docs (Last checked: 2026-11), not from our test.
Running out of credits. New accounts you sign up for yourself, Free included, can buy prepaid Pay As You Go top-up credits (credits you pay for before you use them); per the docs, top-up credits expire 12 months after purchase and are non-refundable. The pricing page’s comparison table lists an approximate price per extra minute of Text to Speech in the app: about $0.36 on Free, $0.20 on Starter, $0.18 on Creator and $0.17 on Pro, Scale and Business. A price per credit is Not listed. If you top up most months, compare that spend with the next plan up.
First-month prices. Creator shows “$11 first month”. From month two you pay the regular $22/mo, so budget with the regular price.
Yearly billing. ElevenLabs says a yearly plan costs ten times the monthly price, which is where the $5/mo and $18.33/mo figures come from. You can cancel at any time, and the plan stays active until the end of the current billing cycle; refunds on a yearly plan are Not listed. Read the checkout terms before you commit for 12 months. Payment by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay is listed.
Rollover, if your usage swings. A paid plan can be more forgiving than its credit count suggests: unused credits carry over for up to two months, and the balance can build to three times the monthly quota, so a quiet month can cover a busy one. Free carries nothing over. If you plan to drop from Creator to Starter, spend the banked credits first, because downgrading or canceling forfeits them at the end of the cycle.
Other products use their own credit rates. The pricing page gives approximate rates: speech to text about 330 credits a minute, sound effects 200 per generation, music 900 a minute, and the voice changer and voice isolator 1,000 a minute. Dubbing starts at 2,000 credits a minute. If you plan to use these, size your plan on total credits, not on script length alone.
Watermarks, if you dub. Check which dubbing option you pick: the pricing page prices dubbing with and without a watermark, for both automatic dubbing and Dubbing Studio. A watermark on Free text to speech is Not listed, and we did not check our MP3 for one.
Bottom line
Start on Free, run your real scripts, and count the credits they use. When a project will earn money, Starter is the plan the short answer points to. Skip Creator and Pro until you need the specific feature each one adds.
Sells voice generation in hours instead of credits.
A transcript-based audio and video editor with AI speech, if editing recordings is your main job.
Our method is on How We Test.
