ElevenLabs' pricing page looks simple: seven plans, a price and a credit number for each. The confusing part is turning "121k credits" into "how many videos can I actually publish?", and knowing which features are locked behind which tier. This guide does that math for you.
All figures were checked on the official ElevenLabs pricing page on October 20, 2026. Prices are in USD and exclude taxes. ElevenLabs changes plans fairly often, so double-check the page before you buy.
ElevenLabs plans at a glance (October 2026)
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly (per month) | Credits/month | ≈ TTS minutes* | Key unlock |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | – | 10,000 | ~10 | Test every tool, non-commercial only |
| Starter | $6 | $5 | 30,000 | ~30 | Commercial license, Instant Voice Cloning, Dubbing Studio |
| Creator | $22 (first month $11) | $18.33 | 121,000 | ~121 | Professional Voice Cloning, buy extra credits |
| Pro | $99 | $82.50 | 600,000 | ~600 | 44.1 kHz PCM via API, 192 kbps |
| Scale | $299 | $249.17 | 1,800,000 | ~1,800 | 3 seats, 3 Professional Voice Clones |
| Business | $990 | $825 | 6,000,000 | ~6,000 | 10 seats, 10 PVCs, low-latency TTS |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | SSO, DPA/SLA, HIPAA BAAs |
*ElevenLabs' own estimates from its plan comparison table.
The short version: Free to test, Starter for your first monetized videos, Creator for weekly long-form or your own cloned voice, Pro only when you're publishing daily or building on the API. The rest of this article explains why.
How ElevenLabs credits work
Credits are the currency for everything in your account. Understanding three rules saves you money.
1. Text-to-speech is roughly 1 credit per character
Per ElevenLabs' FAQ, multilingual models cost 1 credit per text character. Some faster Flash/Turbo models are discounted to 0.5–1 credit per character, but that discount applies to API usage. In the web app, plan as if 1 character = 1 credit.
A useful rule of thumb: an English narration script averages around 5.5–6 characters per word including spaces and punctuation. So:
- 1,000 words ≈ 6,000 credits
- A 10-minute YouTube voiceover (about 1,400–1,600 words) ≈ 8,000–9,500 credits
- A 60-second Short (about 150 words) ≈ 900 credits
2. Every tool shares one pool
Narration, dubbing, music and sound effects all draw from the same balance. The official approximate costs:
| Product | Approximate credit cost |
|---|---|
| Text to Speech | ~1 credit per character |
| Speech to Text | 330 credits per minute |
| Eleven Music | 900 credits per minute |
| Sound Effects | 200 credits per generation |
| Voice Changer / Voice Isolator | 1,000 credits per minute |
| Automatic dubbing | 2,000 (watermark) / 3,000 (no watermark) per minute |
| Dubbing Studio | 5,000 (watermark) / 10,000 (no watermark) per minute |
The dubbing numbers are the trap. One minute of watermark-free Dubbing Studio output uses 10,000 credits, the same as the entire Free plan and a third of Starter. If you plan to dub a 10-minute video into Spanish, that's 100,000 credits, most of a Creator month.
3. Unused credits roll over (on paid plans)
Unused credits roll over for up to two months while you keep an active paid subscription, so your balance can reach at most 3x your monthly quota. Two important exceptions:
- Free plan credits don't roll over.
- Downgrading or cancelling forfeits unused paid credits at the end of the billing cycle. Upgrading carries them forward.
That rollover makes the Creator plan more forgiving than it looks: a quiet month subsidises a busy one.
Retakes: the hidden 20–40%
Credits are charged per generation, not per download. ElevenLabs offers a limited number of free regenerations when the text and certain settings are unchanged, and the interface tells you before you click whether a regeneration is free. Edit even one word and you pay again.
In practice, most creators regenerate a few sentences per script (mispronounced names, wrong emphasis, numbers read oddly). Budget 1.2x–1.4x your final script length. Our worksheets below use 1.3x.
Plan-by-plan: what you actually get
Free ($0): for testing only
10,000 credits a month gives you about 10 minutes of speech plus access to text-to-speech, speech-to-text, sound effects, voice design, music and 3 Studio projects. It's genuinely useful for auditioning voices with your own script.
What it isn't: a plan for publishing on a monetized channel. Free has no commercial license, and ElevenLabs requires attribution when you publish free-plan output. We cover the details in ElevenLabs Free vs Paid: Can You Use the Free Plan on YouTube?
Starter ($6/month): the minimum for monetized content
Starter adds the three things most new creators need:
- Commercial license (including commercial use of generated music)
- Instant Voice Cloning from a short sample
- Dubbing Studio and 20 Studio projects
30,000 credits ≈ 30 minutes. With 1.3x retakes, that's roughly three 10-minute videos or about 25 Shorts per month. If you upload one long video a week, Starter will run out.
Creator ($22/month, first month $11): the sweet spot for YouTubers
Creator is the plan ElevenLabs labels "Popular", and for channel owners it's usually the right answer:
- 121,000 credits ≈ 121 minutes, so roughly nine to ten 10-minute videos a month with retakes
- Professional Voice Cloning: a high-fidelity clone of your own voice trained on a longer recording set
- 192 kbps audio output
- The option to buy additional credits instead of being forced into Pro
Per-minute cost falls from ~$0.20 on Starter to ~$0.18, and the 50% first-month discount makes it cheap to trial.
Pro ($99/month): daily uploads or API work
600,000 credits ≈ 600 minutes. Pro makes sense for daily long-form channels, agencies producing voiceovers for clients, audiobook narration, or developers who need 44.1 kHz PCM output via the API. Most solo YouTubers don't need it; rollover on Creator absorbs occasional heavy months.
Scale and Business: teams
Scale ($299) adds 3 workspace seats and 3 Professional Voice Clones; Business ($990) has 10 seats, 10 PVCs and low-latency TTS that ElevenLabs advertises from about 5 cents per minute. These are for studios and companies, not individual creators.
Which plan do you need? Four creator scenarios
Using 9,000 credits per 10-minute script and a 1.3x retake factor (12,000 credits per video):
| You publish… | Credits needed/month | Recommended plan |
|---|---|---|
| 4–8 Shorts a week (~25 Shorts) | ~29,000 | Starter ($6) |
| 1 long video a week | ~48,000 | Creator ($22) |
| 2 long videos a week + Shorts | ~110,000 | Creator ($22), watch your balance |
| Daily long-form | ~360,000 | Pro ($99) |
| 1 video/week + Spanish dub of each | ~48,000 + 120,000+ | Pro, or dub selectively on Creator |
If you're between plans, start lower. Upgrading mid-cycle carries your credits over, while downgrading loses them.
Monthly vs annual billing
Annual billing costs 10x the monthly price, so you get 12 months for the price of 10:
- Starter: $60/year ($5/month)
- Creator: about $220/year ($18.33/month)
- Pro: $990/year ($82.50/month)
Our advice: pay monthly for the first one or two months while you figure out your real usage. Once you know you'll stick with the tool and the tier, switch to annual.
Ways to spend less on ElevenLabs
- Finish the script before generating. Every post-generation edit costs credits again.
- Generate in Studio, paragraph by paragraph, so a bad sentence doesn't force a full re-render.
- Test voices on Free before subscribing; don't burn paid credits auditioning.
- Use the first-month Creator discount ($11) to see if Professional Voice Cloning is worth it for you.
- Dub only your best performers. Dubbing costs 2,000–10,000 credits per minute; reserve it for videos with proven demand.
- Don't cancel after a heavy month if you have rolled-over credits; you'll lose them at cycle end.
Is ElevenLabs good value compared to alternatives?
At ~$0.18–0.20 per minute of narration, ElevenLabs is competitive with Murf AI's Creator plan (check Murf's current pricing for per-minute cost), and it's generally regarded as more natural for storytelling. If you mainly need a slide/timeline editor, Murf may still be the better fit. See our ElevenLabs vs Murf AI comparison, our list of ElevenLabs alternatives, and the broader best text to speech for YouTube roundup.
Bottom line
- Just exploring? Free.
- First monetized videos or Shorts? Starter, $6.
- Weekly long-form, or want your own cloned voice? Creator, $22 (first month $11).
- Daily uploads, client work or API? Pro, $99.
Our pick
Try ElevenLabs free and compare plansOpens the official site. Check current pricing before you buy.
Source: elevenlabs.io/pricing (plans, FAQ and comparison table), checked October 20, 2026. Character-per-word estimates are our own rule of thumb, not an ElevenLabs figure.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does ElevenLabs cost per month in 2026?
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ElevenLabs has a Free plan ($0, 10,000 credits), Starter ($6, 30,000 credits), Creator ($22, 121,000 credits, first month $11), Pro ($99, 600,000 credits), Scale ($299, 1.8M credits), Business ($990, 6M credits) and custom Enterprise pricing, per the official pricing page checked October 20, 2026. Prices exclude taxes.
What is the cheapest ElevenLabs plan with a commercial license?
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Starter at $6/month ($5/month billed yearly). The Free plan is non-commercial only.
How many minutes of audio is 30,000 ElevenLabs credits?
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ElevenLabs estimates about 30 minutes of text-to-speech for Starter's 30,000 credits, based on roughly 1 credit per character with standard models. Retakes and other tools like dubbing use the same credits.
Is the ElevenLabs annual plan worth it?
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If you'll use the tool for at least 10 months, yes: annual billing costs 10x the monthly price, so you get two months free (Creator works out to $18.33/month).