ElevenLabs
The gold standard in AI audio — hyper-real voice, scary-good cloning, now music and agents too.
The Spinoza Score
Reviewed by Kamran Arshad. See how we evaluate · Updated 2026-06-25.
- Category
- voice audio
- Starts at
- Free
- Platforms
- Launched
- Jan 2022
- Last reviewed
- 2026-06-25
The undisputed leader in AI voice and fast becoming the audio layer for everything else.
ElevenLabs sets the bar for AI audio. Its text-to-speech is the most natural and expressive there is — the v3 model takes stage direction through audio tags ([whisper], [laugh], [sigh]) and holds multi-speaker dialogue across 70+ languages — and its voice cloning is convincing from seconds of reference. It's outgrown the "voice tool" label: it now does studio-grade music, dubbing, sound effects, state-of-the-art speech-to-text (Scribe), and real-time voice agents.
What ElevenLabs actually looks like
Scroll inside the panel to see the full homepage. Live screenshot — updates as the product evolves.
Best for
- Podcasters, video creators, audiobook narrators
- Voice agent builders
- Faceless YouTube channels
- Gaming studios and developers
Not for
- People with very tight budgets
- Real-time call applications (latency)
What's new from ElevenLabs
- Feb 2026
ElevenAgents — Expressive Mode
Emotionally-intelligent, low-latency voice agents with natural turn-taking, built on v3.
- Aug 2025
Eleven Music (v2)
Studio-grade, commercially-cleared AI music from a prompt, with chunk-level control over structure.
- Jun 2025
Eleven v3
Most expressive TTS yet — audio tags for emotional delivery, multi-speaker dialogue, 70+ languages.
- Feb 2025
Scribe v2
State-of-the-art speech-to-text — 90+ languages, word-level timestamps, speaker diarization.
ElevenLabs Primary Use Cases
Text-to-Speech
Best-in-class, most natural TTS — the v3 model takes direction through audio tags ([whisper], [laugh], [sigh]) and handles multi-speaker dialogue across 70+ languages.
Voice Cloning
Scary-good voice clones from seconds of reference audio — the feature that made ElevenLabs famous.
Music Generation
Studio-grade, commercially-cleared music from a prompt. Beats Suno on instrumental and production audio; Suno still edges full lyric songs.
Dubbing
Translate and dub video into 30+ languages while preserving the original voice and timing.
Sound Effects
Generate custom sound effects and ambiences from a text prompt.
Voice Design
Create a brand-new, original voice from a written description — no reference audio needed.
How ElevenLabs scores on our voice & audio metrics. How we score →
- Overall
- 4.6/5
- Voice Quality
- 4.9/5
- Voice Cloning
- 4.8/5
- Versatility
- 4.6/5
- Ease of Use & Control
- 4.8/5
- Value for Money
- 4.1/5
ElevenLabs compared to other audio and voice tools.
ElevenLabs Pricing
Free tier (2,500 chars, no commercial license); Starter $5/mo (30k chars); Pro $99/mo. Enterprise plans starting from $299.
- 10,000 credits
- 3 studio projects
- No commercial liscense
- 30k credits per month
- 20 studio projects
- Instant voice cloning
- Commercial license for speech and music
Most popular
- 121k credits per month
- 1,000 studio projects
- 192bbps audio quality
- Credits top-up
everything in Creator, plus:
- 600k credits per month
- 3,000 studio projects
- 44.1kHz PCM audio output via API
Common questions about ElevenLabs
1. Is ElevenLabs free?
There's a free tier for testing — a small monthly character allowance, no watermark — but with the catch that trips people up: the free plan carries no commercial license, so anything you make on it can't be used in monetized videos, client work, or products. Paid plans start at $5/mo (Starter) and scale to $99/mo (Pro), unlocking commercial rights, more characters, full voice library, and a ton of other useful features.
2. Can I use the ElevemLabs audio commercially?
On any paid plan, yes: you get a commercial license and own the output, free to use it in monetized YouTube videos, audiobooks, ads, games, and client work. The free plan is personal/non-commercial only (with attribution). The rule of thumb: if money's involved, you need a paid plan.
3. How good is the voice cloning in ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs has the best available voice cloning capabilities. Their Instant Voice Clone needs about 30 seconds of clean audio and covers most content; while the Professional Voice Clone trains on 30+ minutes and is near-indistinguishable from the real speaker. Quality tracks your sample: clean, consistent input in, clean voice out.
4. Can someone clone my voice without permission?
Cloning a real person requires consent, and Professional Voice Cloning includes a verification step (you record a confirmation phrase) specifically to block impersonation. ElevenLabs also embeds AI-provenance signals in its audio. Cloning someone without consent violates its terms — and likely the law.
5. How do credits work in ElevenLabs? Is it expensive?
Speech is billed by characters, with a monthly allowance per plan. Two things to budget for: credits don't roll over (unused characters reset monthly), and long-form work — audiobooks, dubbing — burns through them fast. If your volume is high and steady, price it against your real monthly word count before committing; that's where the bill surprises people.
Can you use ElevenLabs for music?
Yes. Beyond text-to-speech and cloning, it now generates studio-grade music, dubs video into 70+ languages, creates sound effects, runs a state-of-the-art speech-to-text model (Scribe), and powers real-time voice agents through its API. For creators it's a voice tool; for studios and developers, it's becoming a full audio stack.
Try ElevenLabs for Free
ElevenLabs has a free tier enough to test the verdict yourself.
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