ElevenLabs pricing: credits, the free plan and what each tier costs

How does ElevenLabs count credits?

Everything runs off a single monthly credit quota shared across the platform. The free plan hands you 10,000 credits a month, Starter 30,000, Creator 121,000, Pro 600,000, Scale 1.8 million and Business 6 million. The detail that changes how you read that ladder sits in the limits on our ElevenLabs profile: credits are shared across products. Speech generation, voice cloning and dubbing all draw on the same pool, so one dubbing session reduces what is left for the month’s voiceovers.

The exact conversion from credits to minutes or characters is not in our verified data, and we will not invent one. In our reading, that is the gap to close before you commit to an annual plan: a quota of 121,000 credits tells you nothing until you have pushed a real script through the tool. The method that limits the risk is to measure your own consumption on the free plan, then pick the tier.

What do you actually get on the free plan?

One line covers it: 10,000 credits a month, with the commercial license sold separately. That is what earns the free tier 3 out of 5 in our assessment, inside an overall score of 3.9 out of 5. The volume is fair for auditioning voices, comparing output and validating a workflow before you pay anything.

What it is not built for is steady professional use. The commercial license, which is precisely what a small business or a freelancer needs, only arrives with the paid plans. On that point ElevenLabs stays more open than some neighbors: Murf, for instance, caps its free tier at 10 minutes, with no downloads and no commercial rights.

Is commercial use allowed on the free plan?

No. Our data is explicit: the commercial license is paid. It is included from the Starter plan, at $6 a month, or $5 a month billed yearly, with 30,000 credits and instant voice cloning.

In our reading, that makes Starter the real entry point for professional work, not the free plan. For a freelancer publishing audio clips, a narrated newsletter or phone greetings, $6 a month to settle the usage rights is the price of legal quiet. Plenty of write-ups present ElevenLabs as free to start without that caveat, and it is the one that counts the day you invoice a client.

What do the paid plans cost?

The yearly figures above are the ones the vendor publishes, not averages we calculated. Two clarifications worth keeping in mind: the $11 first month shown on Creator is an intro offer, separate from the $22 recurring price, and these rates cover the creative side of the platform, not the voice agent contracts, which follow a different grid.

Where does the bill start to climb?

At two specific points. The first is the step from Creator ($22 a month) to Pro ($99 a month). The gap is wide, and what accounts for it is mainly credit volume, 121,000 against 600,000, plus PCM output through the API for anyone embedding a voice inside a product.

The second is seats. No plan below Scale mentions more than one: Scale lists 3 seats at $299 a month, Business 10 seats at $990 a month. A three-person team that wants separate access therefore changes budget bracket, not just credit tier. Add the fact that credits are pooled across speech, cloning and dubbing, and actual consumption becomes hard to forecast in a busy month. The same reasoning applies to generated video, which we work through in our guide to AI video from a script.

Where is the data hosted, and how does GDPR look?

In the United States by default. EU storage does exist, but it is attached to the Enterprise plan, on request. Processing itself may remain international: an EU restriction is possible through the API, and a Zero Retention option is offered subject to conditions. The vendor documents a DPA and SOC 2, which brings us to 3.5 out of 5 on this criterion.

So there is no commitment to systematically European processing on the self-serve plans. If your constraint is contractual (public sector tender, health data, identifiable EU customer records), it gets settled at the Enterprise level, or with a vendor whose European hosting is the rule: Synthesia, for example, stores customer data in Ireland and lists SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001, even though some processing takes place in the US.

Which plan fits your situation?

For testing, without publishing. The free plan and its 10,000 credits a month are enough to compare voices and measure your consumption. Nothing beyond that, since the commercial license is not included.

For a freelancer selling content. Starter, at $6 a month ($5 billed yearly), is the defensible minimum: 30,000 credits, commercial license and instant voice cloning.

For a regular or multilingual creator. Creator, at $22 a month ($18.33 billed yearly), with 121,000 credits and professional voice cloning. That is the tier matching the profile in our data: voiceover, podcast and multilingual content.

For a product integration. Pro, at $99 a month ($82.50 billed yearly), for the 600,000 credits and PCM output through the API.

For a team. Scale ($299 a month, 3 seats) or Business ($990 a month, 10 seats), bearing in mind that credits stay pooled across products.

For a strict European requirement. Enterprise, on quote, with EU residency on request, or a different tool. Our overview of AI voiceover costs compares the options on that ground.

One last point that comparisons often skip: dubbing is unavailable in some isolated regions. If that is your main intended use, check availability from your own account before signing up for a year.