ElevenLabs Creator is $22/month for 121,000 credits, which is about 121 minutes of speech, or roughly $11 per hour of audio.
ElevenLabs sells Starter at $6/month (30,000 credits), Creator at $22/month (121,000 credits), Pro at $99/month (600,000 credits), Scale at $299/month and Business at $990/month, checked 11 November 2026. One credit is one character on its standard models and its pricing page treats about 1,000 characters as one minute, so Creator buys about 121 minutes a month, which works out to roughly $10.91 per hour of finished audio (about $9.09 on yearly billing). Unused credits roll over for up to two months, but cancelling forfeits them. Zemith Plus is $15.99/month with 1.5M credits, enough for about 500 minutes of speech on GPT TTS (about $1.92 per hour), but it has no voice cloning and ElevenLabs' voices are still the benchmark.
If you narrate videos and scripts rather than clone a voice, Zemith Plus is about a fifth of the cost per hour of audio.
- Text to speech on Plus: 76 stock voices across GPT TTS, Gemini 3.1 Flash TTS Preview and Kokoro, with speed control, a delivery instructions box on GPT and Gemini, and MP3 or WAV downloads. There is no voice cloning in text to speech, and the Speech page takes pasted text up to 4,096 or 5,000 characters per generation.
- Language Swap dubs a clip of 2 to 60 seconds into 21 languages with lip-sync. It can keep the speaker's own voice in nine languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Korean) and uses a stock voice in the rest. Voice Change re-voices a clip in a stock voice, and the lips do not follow it.
- The same 1.5M credits write the script in chat (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok), make thumbnails and B-roll in Creative Studio, and render video with Veo 3.1, Kling V3.0 and Seedance 2.5.
- Top-ups from $10 for 800k credits never expire, while ElevenLabs pay-as-you-go credits expire 12 months after purchase.
121,000 credits, about 121 minutes of speech, about $10.91 per hour; instant and professional voice cloning
1.5M credits · about 500 min on GPT TTS or 750 on Kokoro · chat, image, video and dubbing on one balance · no voice cloning
Free plan · $0 today · Cancel anytime
Pick a model and voice, add delivery instructions, paste your script and download the MP3 or WAV, with the credit cost shown before you generate.
Three pricing traps ElevenLabs subscribers run into.
Credits are characters, so a plan's "minutes" depend on the model and on how you generate.
“Each text character you generate consumes credits, with the exact cost depending on the model used.”ElevenLabs Pricing, Official credit rules, Checked 11 Nov 2026
Pay-as-you-go top-up credits expire after 12 months and are not refundable.
“PAYG credits expire 12 months after purchase.”ElevenLabs docs, Official pay-as-you-go rules, Checked 11 Nov 2026
Cancel or downgrade and the unused rollover is gone.
“Downgrading or cancelling forfeits unused credits at the end of the cycle.”ElevenLabs Pricing, Official rollover rules, Checked 11 Nov 2026
What ElevenLabs' plans do well, and where Zemith can and cannot match them.
Voice quality and a deep voice and cloning toolkit.
“The voice quality is outstanding, and I appreciate the help their team has given me along the way.”Trustpilot, 5-star review, 9 Nov 2026
Generous rollover and a commercial license from the $6 plan.
“Unused credits roll over for up to two months”ElevenLabs Pricing, Official rollover rules, Checked 11 Nov 2026
At every tier, here is what ElevenLabs costs versus Zemith.
ElevenLabs prices and credits from elevenlabs.io/pricing and its API pricing page, minutes at ElevenLabs' own rate of about 1,000 characters per minute. Zemith from zemith.com/pricing and its Speech page rates. Checked 11 November 2026.
| Tier | ElevenLabs Plan | Zemith Plan | What Changes on Zemith |
|---|---|---|---|
Free tier Testing | $0 · 10,000 credits, about 10 minutes · 3 custom voice slots · no commercial license listed | $0 · 2,000 daily chat credits · no card required | Free is for chat and web tools; text to speech needs paid credits |
Entry paid A few minutes a month | Starter · $6/mo ($60/yr) · 30,000 credits, about 30 min (about $12.00 per hour) · commercial license · instant cloning | Plus · $15.99/mo ($179.88/yr · $14.99/mo) · 1.5M credits/mo | Starter is the cheaper bill if you voice under 30 minutes a month and want cloning; Plus gives far more minutes the moment you need them |
Regular narration Creator vs Plus | Creator · $22/mo ($220/yr · $18.33/mo) · 121,000 credits, about 121 min (about $10.91 per hour) · instant and professional cloning · 30 voice slots | Plus · $15.99/mo · about 500 min on GPT TTS (about $1.92 per hour) or 750 on Kokoro (about $1.28 per hour) · 76 stock voices · no cloning | About 4x the minutes for $6 less, and the same credits write the script and make the visuals |
High volume Daily publishing | Pro · $99/mo ($990/yr) · 600,000 credits, about 600 min (about $9.90 per hour) · 10 concurrent requests | Professional · $29.99/mo ($299.88/yr · $24.99/mo) · 3M credits/mo · about 1,000 min on GPT TTS or 1,500 on Kokoro | About $69 less a month for more minutes, if stock voices are fine |
Teams and scale Seats and concurrency | Scale · $299/mo · 1.8M credits · 3 seats · 15 concurrent. Business · $990/mo · 6M credits · 10 seats · 25 concurrent | Professional seats or mixed Plus and Professional team seats | Pay per seat at plan price; no per-seat concurrency tiers, and top-ups never expire |
Running out of credits Overage and top-ups | Rollover up to 2x your monthly quota, kept only while subscribed · pay-as-you-go top-ups from $5 that expire after 12 months · the pricing page lists an extra minute at about $0.17 to $0.20 on paid plans | Top-ups from $10 for 800,000 credits up to $100 for 10.4M, on every paid plan | Zemith top-ups never expire, but monthly plan credits do not roll over |
Our verdict: ElevenLabs is the voice specialist, while Zemith Plus ($15.99/mo) is the cheaper way to narrate videos, scripts and research on one plan.
- ElevenLabs Creator is $22/month for 121,000 credits, about 121 minutes or $10.91 per hour of audio, and Pro ($99) still works out to about $9.90 per hour, so there is no volume discount worth the name until Scale and Business.
- ElevenLabs earns its price if you need voice cloning or the most expressive delivery.
- Zemith Plus ($15.99/month, 1.5M credits) is about 500 minutes of GPT TTS or 750 of Kokoro, roughly $1.92 or $1.28 per hour, with chat, image, video and Language Swap dubbing on the same balance, but no voice cloning in text to speech.
- Want the long-narration math and our listening caveats? Read our cheaper ElevenLabs alternative breakdown.
Questions people ask about ElevenLabs pricing.
How much does ElevenLabs cost per month in 2026?
Free is $0 with 10,000 credits. Starter is $6/month (30,000 credits), Creator $22/month (121,000), Pro $99/month (600,000), Scale $299/month (1.8M) and Business $990/month (6M). Yearly billing is ten months at the monthly rate, for example $220 a year for Creator. Prices are in US dollars and exclude taxes. Starter and Creator were also listed with a $1 and $11 first month when we checked.
How many minutes of audio do ElevenLabs credits buy?
On the standard models one character is one credit, and ElevenLabs treats about 1,000 characters as one minute. That gives about 30 minutes on Starter, 121 on Creator and 600 on Pro. Flash and Turbo models cost between 0.5 and 1 credit per character on the API, so they stretch further. Dubbing costs far more: 2,000 to 3,000 credits a minute for automatic dubbing and 5,000 to 10,000 for Dubbing Studio.
What is ElevenLabs' cost per hour of audio?
At list prices, about $12.00 on Starter, $10.91 on Creator, $9.90 on Pro and roughly $10 on Scale and Business. Yearly billing brings Creator to about $9.09. The API is billed in dollars, at $0.08 per 1,000 characters on its main models and $0.04 on Flash and Turbo.
Do ElevenLabs credits roll over?
On paid self-serve plans, unused credits roll over for up to two months, up to 2x your monthly quota, so a balance can reach 3x. You must stay subscribed: cancelling or downgrading forfeits them, and the Free plan has no rollover. Pay-as-you-go top-ups are separate and expire 12 months after purchase.
Which ElevenLabs plan includes a commercial license?
ElevenLabs lists a commercial license from the Starter plan up, and does not list one for Free. Instant voice cloning starts on Starter and professional voice cloning on Creator.
Is there a cheaper alternative to ElevenLabs for narration?
If you do not need voice cloning, Zemith Plus is $15.99/month with 1.5M credits, about 500 minutes of GPT TTS or 750 of Kokoro, with chat, images, video and dubbing in the same plan. Our full comparison is in the cheaper ElevenLabs alternative post.
Can Zemith clone my voice like ElevenLabs?
No. Zemith's text to speech uses stock voices only. The one exception is Language Swap dubbing, which can keep the speaker's own voice from the clip you upload in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Korean.
Write the script, voice it, dub it and add the visuals in one $15.99/mo workspace.
Open text to speechRead these next to compare voice, dubbing and video tools.
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Founder of Zemith, the all-in-one AI workspace built for people who use GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Creative Studio every day.
I spend my weeks testing model releases, pricing structures and real document, research and creative workflows across Web, iOS and Android.