What it is
ElevenLabs makes AI voices. You type text and get natural speech in one of thousands of voices, or clone your own voice from a short sample. The same account covers speech to text, sound effects, dubbing into other languages, music generation and Studio, a long-form editor for audiobooks and podcasts.
On September 28, 2026 the company released Eleven v4 and v4 Turbo. According to TechCrunch, v4 supports more than 90 languages, lets you stack several expression tags (such as whispering or laughing) in one line, and can clone a voice from about 10 seconds of audio. Turbo is the low-delay version for live conversations, with a median response time of about 100 ms.
A growing share of the business is ElevenAgents, a platform for building voice and chat agents that answer phones and handle tasks like bookings and refunds. A $300 million employee share sale in late September 2026 valued the company at $22 billion.
Our review
ElevenLabs is the leader in AI speech on quality, and the price reflects it. Eleven v4 took first place on the Artificial Analysis Speech Arena leaderboard at launch in September 2026, ahead of Cartesia and Google's Gemini TTS, according to TechCrunch. Users on Reddit rate its narration voices the most natural, and no rival offers TTS, cloning, transcription, dubbing, music and phone agents from one account.
Two meters run side by side, and buyers should know which one they are on. In the web app, plans are sold in credits: Creator at $22 a month gives 121,000, roughly 121 minutes of v4 speech, and unused credits roll over for up to two months. The API is billed in dollars: $0.08 per 1,000 characters on v4 and Multilingual, half that on v4 Turbo and Flash. For comparison, OpenAI lists tts-1 at $15 per million characters, about a fifth of ElevenLabs' v4 rate. Teams generating bulk system prompts or notifications rarely need v4, and the cheaper models close much of the gap.
For developers, the agent platform is now the main story. ElevenAgents costs $0.08 a minute with LLM tokens billed on top, and each plan caps simultaneous calls, from 6 on Starter to 40 on Business. Calls above the cap can burst to three times the limit at $0.16 a minute. That makes concurrency, not minutes, the number a contact centre should size against.
The data terms split sharply by plan. On self-serve plans the privacy policy allows ElevenLabs to train its models on inputs and outputs unless you opt out in settings, and the opt-out only applies from then on. Enterprise customers get contractual terms, HIPAA BAAs, Zero Retention Mode on eligible API endpoints and storage in the EU, India or Singapore. Zero Retention Mode does not cover voice cloning, dubbing or Studio, which is exactly where a publisher's most sensitive audio tends to go.
Where it earns its place
An independent audiobook publisher releasing two titles a month
Narrate backlist titles without booking studio time
At roughly 1,000 characters per minute, a 10-hour book is about 600,000 characters, which matches the Pro plan allowance at $99 a month. Studio handles chapter editing; cloning a narrator needs their consent under the terms.
A platform engineer at a 30-seat dental-clinic booking service
Answer after-hours calls and book appointments
ElevenAgents at $0.08 a minute plus LLM tokens; Business at $990 includes 12,375 minutes and 40 concurrent calls, with bursts above that at $0.16 a minute. Telephony through Twilio or SIP is billed by the carrier.
A compliance lead at a European bank
Transcribe and voice customer calls without data leaving the EU
Enterprise only: an EU-resident workspace plus Zero Retention Mode keeps processing in the region, though custom LLMs and post-call webhooks can send data out. Scribe v2 transcription is $0.22 an hour on the API.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Self-serve sign-up and first audio in minutes; regional data residency needs a separate Enterprise workspace with its own API key.
- Integrations
- REST and WebSocket APIs with Python and React SDKs; agents connect to phone lines via Twilio or SIP trunks and to custom or self-hosted LLMs.
- Data and privacy
- Default storage is in the US and history is kept; deleted items stay in backups for up to 30 days. Training on self-serve inputs is opt-out; Zero Retention Mode is Enterprise-only.
- Cost at scale
- An agent handling 10,000 minutes a month costs about $800 in minutes before LLM tokens; Business at $990 covers 12,375 minutes and adds 10 seats.
- Limits
- Concurrency caps run from 4 calls on Free to 40 on Business; Zero Retention Mode excludes voice cloning, dubbing, Studio and music fine-tunes.
What's good
- Top of the Artificial Analysis Speech Arena at the v4 launch
- Voice cloning from about 10 seconds of audio on v4
- TTS, transcription, dubbing, music and voice agents under one account
- SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS Level 1; HIPAA BAAs on Enterprise
- Usable free tier with 10,000 credits a month
What's not
- v4 API speech is about five times OpenAI tts-1 per character
- Self-serve plans allow training on your inputs unless you opt out
- Zero Retention Mode and EU, India or Singapore hosting are Enterprise-only
- Credits in the app and dollars in the API make costs hard to forecast
Best for
Creators, publishers and developers who need the highest-quality AI voices or real-time voice agents.
Alternatives
ElevenLabs: common questions
- Is ElevenLabs worth it?
- Nobody else in AI speech sells this much quality across this many products, and nobody charges as much per character for it. We rate it 4.8 out of 5.
- How much does ElevenLabs cost?
- Free 10k credits/month; Starter $6/month; Creator $22/month; Pro $99/month; Scale $299/month; Business $990/month; Enterprise custom. Annual billing gives 2 months free.
- What are the downsides of ElevenLabs?
- v4 API speech is about five times OpenAI tts-1 per character; self-serve plans allow training on your inputs unless you opt out; zero Retention Mode and EU, India or Singapore hosting are Enterprise-only; credits in the app and dollars in the API make costs hard to forecast.
- Who is ElevenLabs best for?
- Creators, publishers and developers who need the highest-quality AI voices or real-time voice agents.
- How much does ElevenLabs cost for a team or in production?
- An agent handling 10,000 minutes a month costs about $800 in minutes before LLM tokens; Business at $990 covers 12,375 minutes and adds 10 seats.
- Is ElevenLabs safe for company data?
- Default storage is in the US and history is kept; deleted items stay in backups for up to 30 days. Training on self-serve inputs is opt-out; Zero Retention Mode is Enterprise-only.
- What are the best ElevenLabs alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are Speechify, Descript and Adobe Podcast.
Answers checked Oct 22, 2026.
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