Tool Choices
ElevenLabs pricing explained for creators
What ElevenLabs' credits buy, why the free plan isn't for monetised videos, how annual billing and rollover work, and when you shouldn't pay for an AI voice at all.
The flow
- Estimate script length
- Convert it to credits
- Check the licence you need
- Choose monthly or annual
- Review usage after a month
ElevenLabs turns a script into spoken audio. It also does transcription, dubbing, voice changing, sound effects and music. Every plan is a monthly pool of credits shared across all of those, so the price that matters is what your actual use costs in credits.
Prices checked 9 Oct 2026, in US dollars. ElevenLabs lists them excluding tax.
Some links to tools are affiliate links: if you sign up or buy through one, Slizzy OS may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. ElevenLabs has an affiliate link on its tool page; Descript and Rask AI don't. That doesn't change the advice here. Read the affiliate disclosure for details.
How credits work
On the standard models, text to speech uses about 1 credit per character of script. So Starter's 30,000 credits cover roughly 30,000 characters. Most writing apps show a character count, so you can check your script before choosing a plan.
Other jobs cost far more:
- Text to speech: about 1 credit per character
- Speech to text: about 330 credits a minute
- Dubbing: 2,000 to 10,000 credits a minute
Plans and prices
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | Credits a month | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | US$0 | US$0 | 10,000 | Testing only. No commercial licence listed. |
| Starter | US$6 | about US$5 | 30,000 | Commercial licence, Instant Voice Cloning, Dubbing Studio |
| Creator | US$22 | about US$18.33 | 121,000 | Professional Voice Cloning |
| Pro | US$99 | about US$82.50 | 600,000 | 192 kbps audio and 44.1 kHz PCM output through the API |
| Scale | US$299 | see pricing page | 1.8 million | 3 seats |
| Business | US$990 | see pricing page | 6 million | 10 seats |
First-month discounts were showing on Starter and Creator when we checked. Those are promotions, so budget on the normal price.
Annual billing, rollover and cancelling
- Annual billing means paying for 10 months and getting 12.
- On an active paid plan, unused credits roll over for up to two months, up to twice your monthly quota.
- There's no rollover on Free.
- If you downgrade or cancel, unused paid credits expire at the end of the billing cycle.
The licence matters more than the credits
The commercial licence is listed from Starter, not on Free. If a video will earn money, through ads, sponsors or a client fee, budget at least the Starter plan. That's the main reason a "free" AI voice isn't free for a monetised channel.
Which plan to pick
- Free: you're testing voices or writing a few demo scripts.
- Starter: you're narrating a monetised channel at a modest pace, and your scripts fit in about 30,000 characters a month.
- Creator: you need more than that, or want a professional clone of your own voice.
- Pro and above: you're voicing at volume or running a dubbing service. Check the dubbing credit cost per minute against what the client pays.
When you don't need ElevenLabs
Recording your own narration costs nothing, often sounds more trustworthy, and avoids questions about synthetic voices. A tool like Descript can tidy up your own recordings.
If the work is translating client videos, compare a dedicated dubbing tool such as Rask AI on price per finished minute.
Rules that apply to any voice
- YouTube asks creators to disclose realistic altered or synthetic content.
- YouTube's monetisation policies target repetitive, mass-produced videos, so a polished voice won't save a thin script.
- Only clone a voice you have permission to use.
The Faceless YouTube Channel and AI Video Localization Service blueprints show where a voice step fits and what it costs per video.