ElevenLabs Pricing 2026: Every Plan, the API, and the Startup Grant
Every ElevenLabs plan in 2026, what a credit buys across text-to-speech, conversational agents and dubbing, what the API costs at scale, and the startup grant that gives eligible teams 33 million characters free for a year.
ElevenLabs plans and prices (September 2026)
From elevenlabs.io/pricing, US pricing before tax. Annual plans cost ten months of the monthly price, so two months free.
| Plan | Monthly | Annual (per month) | Credits / month | Seats | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 10,000 | 1 | Text-to-speech, speech-to-text, agents and the API with attribution required. Enough for testing and short clips. |
| Starter | $6 | $5 | 30,000 | 1 | Commercial licence, instant voice cloning, dubbing, higher quality audio. |
| Creator | $22 (first month $11) | $18.33 | 121,000 | 1 | Professional voice cloning, 192 kbps audio, usage-based billing for extra credits. |
| Pro | $99 | $82.50 | 600,000 | 1 | Higher throughput, 44.1 kHz PCM output via API, and everything in Creator. |
| Scale | $299 | $249.17 | 1,800,000 | 3 | Team workspace with three seats, higher concurrency, and priority support. |
| Business | $990 | $825 | 6,000,000 | 10 | Ten seats, low-latency text-to-speech, higher concurrency limits, and the lowest per-credit price on a self-serve plan. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom credit allowances and seats, SSO, HIPAA and data residency options, dedicated support. Contact sales. |
Credits do not roll over. Paid plans above Starter can turn on usage-based billing so that running out mid-month does not stop production; the overage rate is close to the plan's effective per-credit price.
What a credit actually buys
Every ElevenLabs product draws from the same monthly credit pool, and the exchange rate depends on which model you use.
- Text-to-speech, Multilingual v2: 1 credit per character. A 10,000-credit Free plan is about 10 minutes of finished audio.
- Text-to-speech, Flash and Turbo: 0.5 to 1 credit per character. Cheaper and faster, slightly lower quality. Use these for real-time products.
- Conversational agents: billed per minute of conversation, with the rate varying by plan. The Business plan and the startup grant are priced for this workload.
- Speech-to-text, dubbing, sound effects and music each have their own credit rates. Dubbing in particular is expensive per minute because it runs transcription, translation and synthesis.
Rough conversions that help when you are sizing a plan: 1,000 characters is about one minute of speech; a 300-word blog post is about 1,800 characters; an hour-long audiobook chapter is about 60,000. The Creator plan's 121,000 credits is a couple of hours of narration a month, and Business's 6 million is a hundred.
Which ElevenLabs plan should you pick?
Free if…
You are evaluating voice quality or building a demo. You must credit ElevenLabs and you cannot use the audio commercially.
Starter or Creator if…
You are a creator or a solo founder producing content. Starter is the cheapest commercial licence. Creator adds professional voice cloning and enough credits for weekly video or podcast output.
Pro if…
You are shipping a product that generates speech on demand and need higher throughput. Pro's 600,000 credits covers a modest user base; usage-based billing handles spikes.
Scale or Business if…
You have a team and real volume. Business's 6 million credits at $990 is the best per-credit price outside Enterprise, and its concurrency limits are what a live agent product needs. Compare Business against the startup grant first if you are early-stage.
Enterprise if…
You need SSO, HIPAA, data residency or negotiated per-character pricing above the Business tier.
For founders
How startups get ElevenLabs free
ElevenLabs runs a Startup Grants program that gives eligible early-stage companies 12 months of free access with a 33 million character allowance. That is more than the Scale plan's annual allowance of 21.6 million credits, and it comes with Pro-tier features and API access, so a funded voice startup can run its first year of production on the grant.
The fine print
The program is aimed at startups building conversational AI agents and voice products, with a team-size cap of around 25 people according to our listing. Applications go through a short form on the ElevenLabs site and are reviewed rather than auto-approved, so a clear description of what you are building with voice matters.
What the grant does not cover: it is a credit allowance, not a discount, so usage above 33 million characters is billed at normal rates, and it expires after 12 months. Plan to be on a paid plan or an Enterprise agreement by month ten. Cloud credits from AWS Activate can cover the rest of a voice stack (transcription, hosting, the model that decides what the agent says), and Claude for Startups covers the LLM behind a conversational agent.
ElevenLabs Startup Grants
Up to $4,000+
- 33 million characters of audio generation
- 680+ hours of conversational AI audio
- 12-month grant period
Step by step: applying for the ElevenLabs startup grant
The application is short. The review is where most startups fall down, usually by describing a general product rather than the voice use case.
-
1
Confirm you fit the profile
Early-stage, small team, and building something where voice is core: a conversational agent, a voice interface, an audio product. Our ElevenLabs program page lists the current eligibility and common rejection reasons. -
2
Create an ElevenLabs account on your company domain
The grant is applied to a workspace. Sign up with a work email and set up the workspace before you apply so the credits have somewhere to land. -
3
Apply at elevenlabs.io/startup-grants
Describe the product, the voice use case, current traction, and projected monthly characters or agent minutes. Specific numbers help the reviewer size the grant. -
4
Pick the right model per feature once approved
Use Flash or Turbo for anything real-time (half the credits per character) and Multilingual v2 only where quality matters more than latency. This stretches 33 million characters a long way. -
5
Put the LLM and infrastructure on their own credits
A voice agent is three bills: speech, the LLM, and hosting. Fund the LLM with Claude or OpenAI startup credits and hosting with AWS Activate so the ElevenLabs grant only pays for speech.
Free vs paid vs the startup grant: the math
For a seed-stage voice-agent startup generating about 2 million characters of speech a month in year one.
| Route | Year-one cost | What it covers | Where it breaks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10,000 credits a month | Covers about 0.5% of the workload. Attribution required, no commercial use. |
| Pro with overage | About $3,500 | 600,000 credits a month plus usage billing for the rest | Most of the bill is overage; concurrency limits bite on a live agent. |
| Scale (annual) | $2,990 | 1.8 million credits a month, 3 seats | Slightly short of 2 million a month; overage on busy months. |
| Business (annual) | $9,900 | 6 million credits a month, 10 seats | Three times the needed volume in year one. |
| ElevenLabs Startup Grant | $0 | 33 million characters over 12 months, Pro-tier features and API | Expires after a year. Usage above 33 million is billed at list. |
The grant covers this workload with room to spare. Use year one to establish real usage numbers, then negotiate an Enterprise rate or move to Business before it expires.
Questions founders ask
How much does ElevenLabs cost?
Is ElevenLabs free?
What is an ElevenLabs credit?
How much does the ElevenLabs API cost?
Does ElevenLabs offer startup grants?
How many characters is a minute of speech?
Does the ElevenLabs Free plan allow commercial use?
Related guides
ElevenLabs startup grant
Eligibility, what the grant includes, and how to apply.
Claude pricing
The LLM behind most voice agents, and its startup program.
OpenAI API pricing
GPT and realtime model rates for voice products.
Gemini API pricing
Google's per-token rates including speech models.
AWS Activate credits
Hosting and transcription for the rest of a voice stack.
All AI startup credits
Every AI credit program in the directory.
