ElevenLabs

  • ElevenLabs: The Realism Benchmark for AI Voice — TTS, Voice Cloning, Dubbing, Music, and Conversational Agents in One Audio PlatformStatus Check:

  • Founded 2022 (London, Mati Staniszewski + Piotr Dąbkowski), Series D 11B Feb 2026, ~400 employees, 41% Fortune 500 usage — active and expanding (ElevenCreative + ElevenAgents).

    Descriptive Title

    • Name: ElevenLabs
    • Official Website: https://elevenlabs.io
    • Short Description: AI audio platform spanning text-to-speech (Eleven v3), instant/professional voice cloning, multilingual dubbing (Dubbing v2), Scribe v2 STT, Eleven Music v2, sound effects, and ElevenAgents conversational voice agents — credit-metered across all products, 70+ languages, 5,000+ voices.

    Core Profile (Table)

    Dimension Details
    Positioning​ Quality-first AI audio OS: best-in-class TTS realism + cloning + dubbing + agents + music in one shared-credit pool. Not Murf (simpler narration), not Resemble (enterprise watermark/detect), not Suno (music-only), not Whisper (STT-only OSS).
    TTS Models​ Eleven v3​ (flagship expressive, 70+ langs, 5k char cap) · Flash v2.5​ (~75 ms, half credits) · Multilingual v2​ (stable long-form) · Turbo v2.5 deprecated
    Voice Cloning​ Instant (1–2 min sample, Starter+) · Professional (30+ min clean audio, Creator+, emotional range, shareable to Voice Library) · Voice Design (text→new voice) · Voice Remix (prompt-adjust owned voice)
    Dubbing​ Dubbing v2 — 90+ langs, preserves original speaker emotion/timing, auto-clone per speaker
    STT​ Scribe v2 (90+ langs, word timestamps, diarization, entity detection) · Scribe v2 Realtime (<150 ms)
    Music / SFX​ Eleven Music v2 (vocal+instrumental, any genre, commercial on paid) · Sound Effects from prompt · Voice Isolator · Voice Changer
    Agents​ ElevenAgents — phone/SIP/Twilio/WhatsApp/web/React SDK, WebSocket, turn-taking model, RAG, guardrails, 0.003/text, burst $0.16/min
    Editor​ Studio 3.0 — multi-track audio/video timeline, Speech Correction, Studio Agent; Productions for managed localization
    Access​ Web app · REST/WS API · Python/JS/Unity/Unreal SDKs · no official desktop binary, no OSS self-host (unlike Chatterbox)
    Trust/Safety​ Watermark on Free tier, content moderation, voice consent verification, no PerTh-style forensic watermark (that’s Resemble)

    Pricing System (Shared Credit Pool, 2026-08)

    Tier Monthly Annual Effective Credits/mo Key Gates
    Free​ $0 $0 10,000 (~10 TTS min) No commercial license, watermark, no cloning, 3 Studio projects
    Starter​ $6 $5/mo 30,000 (~30 min) Commercial license, Instant Clone, 20 Studio projects
    Creator​ 11 1st mo) $18.33/mo 121,000 (~121 min) Professional Clone, higher concurrency
    Pro​ $99 $82.50/mo 600,000 (~600 min) 44.1 kHz PCM + 192 kbps via API
    Scale​ $299 $249.17/mo 1.8M (3 seats) 3 Pro Clones, team workspace
    Business​ $990 $825/mo 6M (10 seats) 10 Pro Clones, low-latency TTS from $0.05/min
    Enterprise​ Custom — Custom SSO/SAML, HIPAA BAA, DPA/SLA, on-prem options, priority

    *Credit math: ~1 credit/char TTS (Flash v2.5 half), STT 330 credits/min, dubbing 0.17–0.36/min by tier. Annual = 2 months free. Startup Grant: 12 mo free / 33M chars for voice-agent startups.

  •  

    Access Type

    access_type: web-app, api, sdk, websocket

    access_display:

    • 🌐 Web App​ — ElevenCreative (app.elevenlabs.io): browser-based TTS, voice cloning, Dubbing v2, Studio 3.0 multi-track editor, Eleven Music v2, SFX, Scribe; no-code entry point for creators/producers. ElevenAgents also ships a visual builder here.
    • 🔌 REST API​ — https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/…: every capability (text-to-speech, speech-to-text, voices, cloning, dubbing, music, sound-effects, agents) exposed as REST resources, authenticated via xi-api-key.
    • 📦 Official SDKs​ — Python (elevenlabs), TypeScript/JS (@elevenlabs/elevenlabs-js, @elevenlabs/client), Swift (elevenlabs-swift-sdk), Kotlin/Android (elevenlabs-android), Flutter (elevenlabs-flutter), C# (.NET ElevenLabs), Unity C#; plus ElevenAgents JS client for WebSocket/WebRTC sessions.
    • 🔁 WebSocket​ — two realtime channels:
      • Conversational AI: wss://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/convai/conversation?agent_id=... (signed-url auth for private agents, 15-min TTL, WebRTC alternative available)
      • TTS streaming: wss://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-speech/{voice_id}/stream-input?model_id=... with chunk_length_schedule + flush control, ~75 ms TTFS on Flash v2.5

    Not provided​ (explicitly excluded, to avoid confusion with Resemble/Chatterbox/whisper.cpp):

    • ❌ No official desktop binary​ (no macOS/Windows standalone app; Studio 3.0 is web-only)
    • ❌ No OSS self-hosted weights​ (unlike Chatterbox MIT / whisper.cpp; ElevenLabs inference is cloud-only, Enterprise offers VPC proxy mode but not weight download)
    • ❌ No consumer iOS/Android app​ (mobile integrations go through your own app calling the SDK/API)
    • ❌ No separate “build-your-app” protocol beyond REST+WS+SDK​ (Reception AI is a hosted sub-product, not a new access surface)

    Cross-card calibration: Codeium = ide-extension, standalone-app, api; Replit = web-ide-plus-agent-plus-deploy; Bolt = web-app, mobile; Whisper = open-source-model-plus-api; Resemble = web-app, api, desktop (self-host Docker). ElevenLabs sits at web-app, api, sdk, websocket — richer SDK coverage + Conversational WS than Resemble, no OSS escape hatch like Whisper/Chatterbox, no mobile-native consumer shell like Suno/Udio.

    Reviews (2026)

    Source Read
    G2 / SoftwareGlimpse 8.2–9/10 as voice model; “realism wins blind tests, but credit TCO spikes if you also dub/music/STT”
    AIBestNav / Stackaible “All-in-one audio OS; shared pool is double-edged — great until you run music+dub+agent traffic”
    Reddit / HN Lovers: audiobook/podcast creators, game NPCs, indie devs. Haters: 11 only mo 1), free tier non-commercial, no true realtime TTS under 75 ms except Flash, PerTh-style detect absent
    Praise Highest vocal naturalness in class, 70+ langs, cloning consent gate clean, Agents turn-taking better than raw GPT-Voice, Studio 3.0 replaces Descript for light work
    Gripes Shared credit pool makes budgeting hard, no forensic watermark (Resemble wins compliance), Business $990 steep for small teams, Turbo deprecated forces Flash migration, no OSS escape hatch

    Best For / Not For

    ✅ Best For ❌ Not For
    Audiobook / podcast / YouTube narration needing human-like voice Solo creators wanting flat $19 simple narrator (Murf/PlayHT cheaper, less setup)
    Studios localizing video into 90+ langs with emotion kept Teams needing PerTh forensic watermark + deepfake detect (Resemble)
    Game/devs doing NPC lines + Voice Design from prompt Pure STT users (Whisper/Scribe-only cheaper elsewhere)
    SaaS embedding voice via API (Flash v2.5 low-latency) Music-first producers (Suno/Udio more song-coherent)
    Enterprises building phone/chat voice agents (ElevenAgents) Privacy-bound orgs refusing any cloud audio (whisper.cpp + Chatterbox only)
    Brands wanting one reusable Professional Clone across ads/dub/agent Non-tech users shocked by credit burn across TTS+music+dub+agent

    Competitors

    Murf AI (narration-first, flat $19, simpler), PlayHT (TTS + cloning, cheaper entry), Resemble AI (enterprise watermark/detect/on-prem), WellSaid Labs (studio-voice SaaS), Amazon Polly / Azure Speech / Google Chirp 3 (cloud STT/TTS suites), Deepgram (realtime STT, not TTS), Suno / Udio (music-only), Descript (text-edit audio, overlapping Studio), Speechify (consumer listener TTS), Cartesia / Play.ht Stream (low-latency API TTS), F5-TTS / Kokoro (OSS undercut cost)

     

 

 

 

Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information Cookie Settings