ElevenLabs Pricing: Every Plan and a 9-Cent Ad Voiceover

Starter is $6 a month, with a $1 first month

ElevenLabs sells speech by the character, and its pricing page lists Starter at $6 a month for 30,000 credits. The page showed prices in US dollars when we read it from Spain on November 1, 2026. Starter's card also offers the first month for $1, marked 83% off. ElevenLabs runs it as a promotion, and its help center says each customer gets it once. The card showed no end date when we looked that afternoon, but plan on paying the $6.

A 30-second ad script runs about 450 characters. Voicing it costs 9 cents on Starter in the app, or 3.6 cents on ElevenLabs' API. The bigger plans bring the app price down to about 7 or 8 cents. Novoads sells voices from the same catalog, but buying direct is cheaper per voiceover than buying through us.

The ElevenLabs side of this post comes from its own pricing, API and help pages, which we read that day from Spain, and from its ratings on Trustpilot and the App Store. Our side comes from the Novoads price list and a talking-actor ad we made with a voice from our ElevenLabs catalog. We didn't test ElevenLabs for this post.

ElevenLabs plans and prices

Prices as of November 1, 2026, in US dollars. ElevenLabs' pricing page says they exclude all taxes, levies and duties, so tax comes on top wherever you buy.

Seven plans that share one pool of credits

Plan	Monthly price	Credits a month	A year, billed yearly
Free	$0	10,000	None
Starter	$6	30,000	$60
Creator	$22	121,000	$220
Pro	$99	600,000	$990
Scale	$299	1,800,000	$2,990
Business	$990	6,000,000	$9,900
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Custom

You spend the same monthly credits on every ElevenLabs product, so music, dubbing and sound effects come out of the same pool as your voiceovers.

What each paid plan adds

Each step up adds features, and for ads, the voice features matter most.

• Starter adds the commercial license, Instant Voice Cloning and 20 projects in Studio.
• Creator adds Professional Voice Cloning.
• Pro adds 192kbps audio, plus 44.1kHz PCM audio through the API.
• Scale adds 3 workspace seats, team collaboration and 3 Professional Voice Clones.
• Business adds 10 Professional Voice Clones and 10 workspace seats.

If you want a voice of your own for your ads, cloning starts on Starter. ElevenLabs' v4 page says every voice clone in Eleven v4, instant or professional, requires verified consent from the voice's owner.

First-month offers and the yearly bill

• Starter's first month is $1, shown as 83% off.
• Creator's first month is $11, half its regular $22.
• On yearly billing, you pay for 10 months, and that's where the table's yearly column comes from.

Both first-month prices are promotions. ElevenLabs' help center says that "if you've already received the discount in the past, you won't receive it again," so the second month costs the full price.

Where ElevenLabs' own pages disagree

ElevenLabs' pages don't always match, so we name the page each count comes from.

• The app's compare table gives Starter about 30 minutes of speech. The API page lists 75,000 characters for Starter, or about 75 minutes.
• The compare table counts 74 languages, and the About page says more than 90.

We think the minutes differ because the API charges less per character than the app, and the next section puts that in dollars.

What a credit buys in the app and on the API

Prices as of November 1, 2026.

In the app, a character costs a credit

ElevenLabs' pricing FAQ puts Text to Speech at 1 credit per character. For v2 Multilingual, it says one text character equals one credit, and it reserves the Flash and Turbo discount for API usage. So we're assuming Flash also costs a credit a character in the app. ElevenLabs' v4 page says Eleven v4 uses the same credit pricing as its other Text to Speech models. Our Eleven v4 post covers what the model changes for ad voiceovers.

Every take costs credits, whether or not you keep it.

• ElevenLabs charges credits per generation, not per download, and its docs say you can't preview a voice on your own text without using credits.
• On the website, you get two regenerations at no charge when the text, voice and model stay the same, the first take is under two hours old and you haven't refreshed the page. On the API, you get none.
• Unused credits roll over for up to two months, as long as you keep a paid plan and don't downgrade or cancel.

On the API, you pay per 1,000 characters

ElevenLabs' API page prices usage in US dollars rather than credits, so this section sticks to characters and dollars. Its prices per 1,000 characters come in two tiers.

• Eleven v4, Eleven v3 and v2 Multilingual cost $0.08.
• v4 Turbo, v3 Conversational and Flash / Turbo cost $0.04.

Each plan's API column shows how many characters the plan includes at those rates. Starter's $6 covers 75,000 v4 characters. Creator's $22 covers 275,000. To get this rate, you need an API key and code, or a tool that calls the API for you. If you stay in the app, you pay the app rate. Pay As You Go is the other way in. ElevenLabs' docs call it a prepaid model with no overage charges, and they say API usage has lower rates than UI usage.

Flash's two prices, music minutes and voices that cost more

• ElevenLabs' own pages give Flash two prices. The API page lists $0.04 per 1,000 characters. ElevenLabs' post on its price cut, last updated October 19, 2026, still gives $0.05 per 1,000 tokens for Flash on Creator. We go with the API page's $0.04.
• Music costs 900 credits a minute in the app. Starter's 30,000 credits cover about 33 minutes of it. The API page lists 40 minutes for Starter, at $0.15 a minute. The Music Terms, last updated October 9, 2026, set Starter's monthly generation limit at 17 minutes.
• Some voices in the Voice Library carry a credit multiplier, and a 2x voice costs twice the standard rate in credits. ElevenLabs calls custom rates a legacy feature that's closed to newly shared voices. Every cost in this post uses the standard rate.

What one 30-second ad voiceover costs on each plan

Prices as of November 1, 2026, for both companies.

How long a 30-second script is

We price a 450-character script, the length our own cost estimate assumes for 30 seconds of speech. That's 15 characters a second. ElevenLabs' API page pairs 75,000 characters with about 75 minutes. That works out to about 1,000 characters a minute, or 500 for half a minute, so we show both lengths. We used the same 30-second yardstick for HeyGen's plans.

What the read costs on each plan

In the app, a 450-character read uses 450 credits, so its price is the plan's monthly price from the table above, spread over the plan's credits.

• On Starter, a read costs $0.09, and the month covers 66 of them.
• On Creator, it's about 8 cents, with 268 reads a month.
• On Pro, it's about 7.4 cents, with 1,333 reads a month.
• On Scale, it's about 7.5 cents, with 4,000 reads a month.
• On Business, it's about 7.4 cents, with 13,333 reads a month.

On the API, the same read costs 3.6 cents on every plan, or 1.8 cents on Flash or Turbo. What changes from plan to plan is how many reads the included characters cover.

• Starter's 75,000 characters cover 166 reads.
• Creator's 275,000 cover 611.
• Pro's 1,238,000 cover 2,751.
• Scale's 3,738,000 cover 8,306.
• Business's 12,375,000 cover 27,500.

At 500 characters, Starter's app price rises to 10 cents. The month then covers 60 reads, and on the API, the read costs 4 cents. The Free plan's 10,000 credits would cover 22 reads, but Free has no commercial license, so you can't use it for an ad.

Buying direct is cheaper than buying through us

Through Novoads, the same 450-character voiceover costs 2 credits. That's $0.15 on our Starter plan and about 10 cents on Plus. ElevenLabs charges 9 cents for it in its app on Starter, and 3.6 cents on its API.

• Novoads Starter is $15 a month for 200 credits. That covers 100 of these voiceovers.
• ElevenLabs Starter is $6 a month. That covers 66 in the app, or 166 on the API.

If the audio file is all you need, buy it from ElevenLabs.

The Novoads pricing page on Monthly billing, 2026-11-01, with Starter, Plus and Ultra and the credits each one gives you a month.

Commercial use and rights by plan

ElevenLabs' rights pages, read November 1, 2026, draw the line between Free and the paid plans.

The Free plan can't be used commercially

ElevenLabs' help center says the free plan doesn't include a commercial license and can't be used for any commercial purpose. Anything you share from it non-commercially needs attribution, with "elevenlabs.io" or "11.ai" in the title. An ad is commercial, so an ElevenLabs voiceover for one needs at least the Starter plan.

Paid plans license what you make while you pay

• All paid plans include a commercial license, provided you're not using Beta Services.
• The help center says content generated during a paid subscription can be used commercially, and indefinitely, subject to ElevenLabs' service-specific terms.
• Content created before or after a paid subscription can't be used commercially.
• Pay As You Go is prepaid. The pages we read tie commercial use to a paid subscription, but they don't say outright whether a top-up on a Free account carries a license.

Music, beta features and ads the policy bans

• The Music Terms, last updated October 9, 2026, permit all online and offline commercial use on the paid self-serve plans except film, TV, radio and Studio Games, so a music bed for a TV or radio spot falls outside those plans. They also prohibit streaming distribution on Free and Starter. For music made on Suno, our Suno pricing guide works out what one ad track costs.
• Content generated with Beta Services can't be used for any commercial purpose or in any production environment, so before you use a feature in an ad, check that it isn't marked beta.
• ElevenLabs' use policy, last updated October 9, 2026, bans creating deceptive advertisements and falsely implying endorsement, sponsorship or affiliation. Political campaigning needs ElevenLabs' prior written consent.

What ElevenLabs voices cost inside Novoads

The voices in Novoads come from ElevenLabs' catalog, so what you're really comparing is what our extra charge buys. Prices as of November 1, 2026.

A voiceover on its own through our API

We price a voiceover per 400 characters of spoken text, rounded up, with a 1-credit minimum. We remove stage directions in square brackets before the voice reads the script, and we don't bill for them. A 450-character script comes to 2 credits. That's $0.15 on Starter and about 10 cents on Plus. The API works on every paid plan.

The "Generate a voice-over" section of the Novoads API reference, 2026-11-01. One request returns the finished audio, the voice is required, and bracketed stage directions are removed and not billed.

A talking actor, voice included

Our talking actor speaks in voices from the same catalog, and we bill it per started minute with the voice included.

• At 720p, each started minute costs 200 credits.
• At 480p, each started minute costs 100 credits.

On October 20, 2026, we made a 15-second talking-actor ad at 720p through the Novoads MCP connector. In it, the library actor Emma reads a script about linen sheets for hot sleepers in the voice Alexandra. The clip was ready in 1 minute 40 seconds. It cost 200 credits with the voice included, and the actor said the script word for word.

Made in Novoads with Talking actor · a 15-second ad at 720p, actor Emma, voice Alexandra from our ElevenLabs catalog · 200 credits · rendered 2026-10-20

On Starter, one 720p clip uses the whole month's credits, which is $15 worth. At 480p, the month covers two clips. On Plus, the same 720p clip costs $9.80.

What the extra charge pays for

The voice alone costs less at ElevenLabs. What you get with the talking actor is a library actor saying your script on camera, in one clip and at one price, with the voice in it. Talking-actor tools price that clip very differently, as our Arcads and MakeUGC breakdowns show. Our guide to AI actors covers how brands cast them. If you write the script yourself, our notes on UGC-style ads cover the craft details that make a clip read as organic.

• Starter is $15 a month for 200 credits, billed monthly only.
• Plus is $49 a month for 1,000 credits. Billed yearly, it's $39 a month.
• Ultra starts at $129 a month for 3,000 credits.

You'll find every plan and what its credits buy on our pricing page.

ElevenReader, the ratings and who should buy direct

ElevenReader is a separate reading app

ElevenReader is ElevenLabs' read-aloud app. Its help center calls it a text to speech app that reads books, documents, articles, and other written content aloud as natural-sounding audio. It works on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web. An ElevenReader account is separate from an ElevenLabs account. The help center also says content generated using ElevenReader is intended solely for streaming within the app and for personal use. It can't be exported, distributed or used commercially, so it's no use for ad voiceovers.

What the ratings say

Ratings as of November 1, 2026.

• Trustpilot shows 3.0 from 1,218 reviews, labeled Average. Of those reviews, 47% give five stars and 39% give one.
• On the App Store, the ElevenLabs app has 4.8 from 24K ratings.
• ElevenReader has its own App Store listing, at 4.7 from 11K ratings.

Who should buy from ElevenLabs, and who shouldn't

What's better than ElevenLabs depends on the job, and we don't rank voice tools here. Several of the pages that rank for this search are written for teams running voice agents, where latency and per-minute agent prices decide the pick. For an ad, the voice, the license and the cost of a finished take matter more. If you'd rather run an open-source voice yourself, our open-source ElevenLabs alternatives guide covers the tradeoffs.

We think ElevenLabs is the better buy in three cases.

• The audio file is all you need.
• You can call its API, where a 30-second read costs 3.6 cents.
• You're voicing long content, where per-character pricing goes furthest.

Novoads makes more sense when the voice belongs in a video ad with an actor on screen and you'd rather pay one price for the clip, voice included.