ElevenLabs Review 2026: AI Voices, Voice Cloning and Dubbing in 70+ Languages, Prices and Credit Costs

ElevenLabs review 2026: text to speech, voice cloning and dubbing in 70+ languages, with prices and drawbacks — ElevenLabs review 2026: generated voices in over 70 languages on a credit that is spent per character

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📅 Updated October 2026 Prices, plans and the plan comparison come from ElevenLabs' official pricing page, read on October 13, 2026, in US dollars. The credit costs per tool, the refund and license wording and the product notes come from the company's help center and terms as read in an , or from the help-center articles named in the text, and are marked as carried where they were not re-read. First-month offers are time-limited, so confirm them on the pricing page.

You need a voice-over for a video, an audiobook or a dubbed version of your content, and you do not want a studio or a voice actor for every project. That is the idea ElevenLabs sells: an audio platform that turns text into speech in realistic voices in over 70 languages, clones your voice, transcribes recordings, dubs clips, and draws all of it from one monthly credit.

In short: it is worth a trial for a creator who needs high-quality voices in one or several languages, and it does not suit people who want the cheapest cost per character or heavy volume on a small budget. The number to calculate is not $6: the first paid plan gives you only about 30 minutes of speech a month.

📋 Quick summary: ElevenLabs at a glance

Item	Details
What it does	Text to speech, voice cloning, speech to text, dubbing, sound effects and music
Monthly prices	Free, Starter $6, Creator $22, Pro $99, Scale $299 and Business $990
Credits	10,000 free, 30,000 on Starter and 121,000 on Creator (about 10, 30 and 121 minutes of speech)
Languages	74 languages on every plan, according to the pricing page; speech to text and dubbing cover more than 90 in an earlier check (carried)
Commercial use	From Starter up; the free plan is not commercial
Refund	Help center: 14 days if no credits were used; terms of service: "all sales are final" (carried)
Verification date	October 13, 2026

🚀 Want realistic AI voices for your content?
Start with the free plan and listen to the voices before you pay
☑️ Try ElevenLabs

What is ElevenLabs and who is behind it?

ElevenLabs is a voice AI company whose page lists investors including Andreessen Horowitz, ICONIQ, Sequoia and NEA (carried from an earlier reading). The company's own pages claim more than 17,000 voices, more than a million users and a 4.7 out of 5 rating from over 50,000 reviews (carried). These are the company's own figures, not independent measurements.

ElevenLabs features: what do you actually get?

1. Text to speech in dozens of languages

It turns text into speech in voices whose speed, stability and style you control. The pricing page says 74 languages are covered on every plan; the company's language pages (as cited in an earlier check) name audiobooks, podcasts, voice-over and customer-service agents among the uses, and talk of more than 90 languages for its newest model. The company does not publish a list of regional dialects for speech output, so test a voice with your own accent or dialect before you rely on it.

2. Voice cloning: instant and professional

Instant cloning is available from Starter with a short recording (the help center recommends one to two minutes, carried); the result starts immediately but is an approximation of the voice and may struggle with unusual voices. Professional cloning is from Creator, needs 30 minutes to 3 hours of good recording, usually takes 3 to 6 hours to train, and requires verification that the voice is yours: you may not clone someone else's voice even with their permission, and the clone cannot be exported as a file (all carried from an earlier check's help-center reading).

3. Speech to text (Scribe) in 90+ languages

The Scribe v2 model transcribes recordings in more than 90 languages and is rated in the "good" accuracy tier (a word error rate between 10% and 20%), per an earlier help-center reading. It identifies up to 32 speakers, accepts files up to 3 GB and costs 330 credits a minute (carried).

4. Dubbing from one language to another

The platform dubs clips in more than 90 languages (carried). Automatic dubbing costs 2,000 to 3,000 credits a minute (depending on whether there is a watermark) and Dubbing Studio costs 5,000 to 10,000. According to the company's documentation as cited in an earlier check, automatic dubbing is still labelled "Alpha," and Dubbing Studio is in maintenance mode and receives only critical bug fixes.

5. Sound effects, music and voice changing

It generates sound effects (200 credits a generation) and music (900 credits a minute; commercial use of music starts at Starter), and changes a recorded voice into another voice or isolates it from noise at about 1,000 credits a minute (all carried).

6. One credit for every product

Every product draws from one monthly credit, so what you spend on dubbing reduces what is left for speech. Credits are counted per generation request, not per download, and the company mentions a limited number of free regenerations shown before you generate (carried).

🎯 Hear the voices before you decide
The free plan gives you 10,000 credits, about 10 minutes, for non-commercial testing
🎁 Start with ElevenLabs

📊 ElevenLabs pros and cons at a glance

✅ Pros

Covers speech, transcription and dubbing across many languages
74 languages for speech on the pricing page, and 90+ for transcription and dubbing (carried)
Instant voice cloning from $6 and professional cloning from $22
One credit for every tool, and unused credits roll over up to two months
A commercial license on all paid plans

❌ Cons

Credits are spent per character, so the $6 plan covers only about 30 minutes
The free plan is non-commercial and requires attribution on published content
The refund conflicts between the help center (14 days) and the terms (final)
No published list of regional dialects for speech output, and automatic dubbing is "Alpha" (carried)
Whatever is left of your credits is lost when you cancel or downgrade

💰 ElevenLabs prices in 2026: plans and credits

According to the official pricing page, the company accepts credit cards, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and paying yearly equals paying for 10 months instead of 12:

Plan	Monthly	Yearly (monthly equivalent)	Monthly credits	Approximate minutes
Free	$0	$0	10,000	about 10
Starter	$6	$60 ($5)	30,000	about 30
Creator ⭐	$22	$220 ($18.33)	121,000	about 121
Pro	$99	$990 ($82.50)	600,000	about 600
Scale	$299	$2,990 ($249.17)	1,800,000	about 1,800
Business	$990	$9,900 ($825)	6,000,000	about 6,000

🏷️ First-month offers: the page showed Starter at $1 for the first month (83% off, “Until Oct 18”) and Creator at $11 for the first month (50% off, no end date shown), after which the subscription renews at the full price. These are time-limited offers, so confirm them before paying. The page also offers the newest model, Eleven v4, at double the credit use for two weeks to Creator subscribers and above, in the web and mobile apps only (carried).

What does each tier include?

Plan	What it adds over the previous one
Free	3 Studio projects, no commercial license
Starter	Commercial license, instant voice cloning, 20 projects, commercial use of music, Dubbing Studio, image and video
Creator	Professional voice cloning, and extra credits you can buy
Pro	44.1kHz PCM output through the API and 192kbps audio quality
Scale	3 workspace seats, team collaboration and 3 professional voices
Business	10 seats and 10 professional voices, and low-latency text to speech at about 5 cents a minute

How much does one character cost?

The multilingual V2 speech model counts one credit per character, and the Flash and Turbo models reduce the API cost to between half a credit and one credit per character. So 1,000 characters (about a minute of speech by the company's estimate) cost about $0.20 on Starter ($6 divided by 30), about $0.18 on Creator and about $0.17 on Pro. Other tools deduct much more: dubbing, transcription and music, as the consumption table below shows.

Credit consumption table

Tool	Approximate use
Text to speech	One credit per character
Speech to text	330 credits a minute
Music	900 credits a minute
Sound effects	200 credits a generation
Voice changing and isolation	1,000 credits a minute
Dubbing	2,000 (automatic with a watermark), 3,000 (automatic without), 5,000 (Studio with a watermark) and 10,000 (Studio without) a minute

⚠️ Count your minutes before you pick a plan: four videos a month with a 10-minute voice-over each need about 40,000 credits, which is more than the 30,000 on Starter, so Creator ($22) is the lowest plan that covers you. And if you dub one minute in Dubbing Studio without a watermark you have spent 10,000 credits, about 10 minutes of speech.

💳 Creator at $22 is the plan the page presents as the most popular
121,000 credits and professional cloning, with a first-month offer of $11 at the time of checking
☑️ Choose your plan at ElevenLabs

The commercial license, credits and refunds: what the terms say

License: the help center says the free plan does not include a commercial license and may not be used for any commercial purpose, and that anyone publishing content generated on it, or without logging in, must attribute it to ElevenLabs by putting “elevenlabs.io” or “11.ai” in the title. All paid plans include a commercial license as long as you do not use Beta services; content generated during a paid subscription can be used commercially with no end date, while content created outside a paid subscription (before or after) cannot.

Credits: they reset at the start of the billing cycle, and what is left rolls over for up to two months (capped at three times your monthly allowance, carried) as long as you are a paid subscriber. There is no rollover on the free plan, and whatever is left is lost if you downgrade or cancel. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the current cycle, and your account returns to the free plan.

⚠️ Refunds sit between two documents: the help center says you are eligible for a refund if you ask within 14 days of payment and used no credits in the period you want refunded. The terms of service (the non-EU version, carried) say "all sales are final," that the company may offer a refund at its sole discretion, and that prepaid credits are not refundable. Treat the 14 days as a conditional chance, not a guarantee.

⚖️ ElevenLabs vs the alternatives: where it wins and where it falls behind

Tool	Published price	Languages	Note
ElevenLabs ⭐	From $6 a month, and about $0.18 per 1,000 characters on Creator	Speech, transcription and dubbing	A shared credit and voice cloning
Murf	Studio Creator from $19 a month and Business from $66; API at $0.01 to $0.03 per 1,000 characters	Text to speech in 30+ languages in Studio and 35+ on the API trial	A voice-over studio with commercial rights from Creator
Google Cloud Text-to-Speech	Chirp 3 HD at $30 per million characters (1 million free each month), WaveNet and Standard at $4 (4 million free), Neural2 at $16	Many languages and voice types; check the list for yours	A developer API with per-character pricing
Descript	From $16 a month (yearly) or $24 (monthly)	Transcription in 25 languages; check yours	A video and audio editor that works through text

The key difference: ElevenLabs sells a complete voice platform (speech, cloning, transcription and dubbing) on one shared credit, at a higher price per character: $0.18 per 1,000 characters on Creator against $0.03 for Google's Chirp 3 HD ($30 per million characters) and $0.01 to $0.03 on Murf's API. That is a price comparison, not a quality one. If you only need the cheapest speech through an API, try Google or Murf's API; if you are a creator who needs voice cloning, dubbing and an easy interface, ElevenLabs is closer. For voice generation against media editing read ElevenLabs vs Descript, and for the video editor and transcription details read the Descript review.

🎯 Who is ElevenLabs for, and who is it not for?

✅ It suits you if you are:

A creator or trainer who needs good-quality voice-over in one or more languages
Producing audiobooks, podcasts or courses and do not want to record your own voice each time
Looking to dub your content into other languages
In need of cloning your own voice, or the voice of a speaker who agreed and verifies it
Willing to follow a monthly credit and plan for it

❌ It does not suit you if you are:

Looking for the lowest cost per character or a huge volume on a small budget
Planning to use the free plan in a commercial project
In need of an unconditional refund guarantee
Relying on a specific regional dialect without testing it
Unwilling to lose your credits when you cancel

✅ Is your project voice-based?
Start with the free plan to test the voices, then choose a plan by your minutes
🎁 Start with ElevenLabs

🛒 How to start with ElevenLabs, step by step

Open a free account. You get 10,000 credits a month to try it, and you can sign up with a Google account. Remember that content generated on the free plan is non-commercial and needs attribution when published.

Write your text and choose a voice. Choose the language, then a voice from the voice list, adjust the speed, stability and style, and press generate. Try more than one voice on a short paragraph before you decide.

Download the file or finish in Studio. Download the clip as MP3, or use Studio for voice-over and audiobook projects.

Estimate your minutes and choose a plan. Divide the number of characters by 1,000 to get the approximate minutes, and check the first-month offer on the pricing page before you upgrade.

Track your credits and stop renewal when needed. You will find your remaining credits on the subscription page in your profile menu, and you can cancel at any time, which takes effect at the end of the cycle and loses whatever credits are left.

The ElevenLabs text-to-speech screen with voice selection and settings

📲 Ready to generate your first clip?
A free account is enough to hear the voices and decide
☑️ Open ElevenLabs

🏆 The verdict: is ElevenLabs worth it in 2026?

It is worth it for a creator who needs high-quality or multilingual voices with cloning and dubbing in one place, and not for people who want the cheapest speech per character or an unconditional guarantee. Its real value is that it covers speech, cloning, transcription and dubbing in one tool on one shared credit, with a commercial license from $6 a month.

But the drawbacks are plain: credits are spent per character, so Starter covers about 30 minutes, the other tools use many times more, the free plan is non-commercial, the refund is conditional and conflicting between two documents, and automatic dubbing is still Alpha. Start with the free plan, test the voices on your own real texts, and count your minutes before you upgrade.

🎬 Test the sound before you pay
Listen to your own text, then decide whether Starter or Creator is enough
Start with ElevenLabs now 🚀

To clean up the sound of your live calls before you record them, read the Krisp AI review. For generated video clips that need a voice-over, read the Kling AI review.

For voice-over inside a tool that generates short video and publishes it, read the Revid.ai review, and for narration on a video assembled from an article, read the Pictory AI review.

✅ Frequently asked questions about ElevenLabs

❓ What is ElevenLabs?

An AI voice platform that turns text into speech in over 70 languages, clones voices, transcribes recordings, dubs clips and generates effects and music, on one shared monthly credit.

❓ How much does ElevenLabs cost?

A free plan with 10,000 credits, Starter at $6 a month (30,000 credits), Creator at $22 (121,000), Pro at $99 (600,000), Scale at $299 (1.8 million) and Business at $990 (6 million). Paying yearly equals 10 months instead of 12.

❓ How many languages does ElevenLabs support?

The pricing page says 74 languages on every plan. Transcription and dubbing are reported at more than 90 languages (carried). The company does not publish a list of regional dialects for speech output, so test your own.

❓ Is there a free plan?

Yes: 10,000 credits a month (about 10 minutes of speech) and 3 Studio projects. But it is non-commercial, and published content must be attributed to ElevenLabs with “elevenlabs.io” or “11.ai” in the title.

❓ Can I use the output commercially?

Yes with any paid plan, as long as you do not use Beta services. Content generated during a paid subscription can be used commercially with no end date, while content generated outside a paid subscription cannot.

❓ How are credits counted?

One credit per character in the multilingual V2 speech model, 330 credits a minute for transcription, 900 for music, 200 for a sound effect, 1,000 for voice changing and 2,000 to 10,000 for dubbing (carried).

❓ Do unused credits roll over?

Yes for paid subscribers, up to two months and capped at three times your monthly allowance. There is no rollover on the free plan, and whatever is left is lost if you downgrade or cancel.

❓ Can I get a refund?

The help center says a refund is possible within 14 days of payment if no credits were used. The terms of service say sales are final and any refund is at the company's discretion.

❓ How do I clone my voice?

Instant cloning is from Starter with a short recording (one to two minutes is recommended), and professional cloning from Creator with 30 minutes to 3 hours of recording and verification that the voice is yours. You may not clone someone else's voice, even with their permission (carried).

❓ Can I export a cloned voice?

No. The company's documentation says clones are not exported as files and their accent or tone cannot be changed after creation (carried).

❓ How do I stop the subscription?

You can cancel at any time from the subscription page. It stays active until the end of the current cycle, then your account returns to the free plan and the remaining paid credits expire.

❓ What is the difference between ElevenLabs and Descript?

ElevenLabs is a voice-generation platform (speech, transcription and dubbing), and Descript is a video and audio editor that works through text; Descript's transcription covers 25 languages. If you want to edit recordings in a supported language, Descript fits better, and if you want to generate voices, ElevenLabs does.

🎯 Start with the free plan and count your minutes before you pay
First-month offers are time-limited, so confirm them on the pricing page
Start with ElevenLabs now 🚀

Have you tried ElevenLabs in your language? Share your view of the voices and the accents in the comments so other readers benefit.