ElevenLabs overview: products, pricing, and alternatives

ElevenLabs is an AI audio company that turns text into realistic speech and builds voice agents, dubbing, music and voice-cloning tools. Its text-to-speech now runs on Eleven v4, launched in September 2026. Creators, developers and enterprises such as Twilio, Cisco and Epic Games use it.

ElevenLabs at a glance

What is ElevenLabs?

ElevenLabs is an AI research and product company that set out to make machine-generated speech sound human, starting with what it calls the first human-like voice model. Its main product converts written text into lifelike voiceovers and lets users clone or design voices. Polish co-founders Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski started it in 2022 and named it after November 11, Poland’s Independence Day. Enterprise customers now bring in 55% of revenue.

ElevenLabs products

• ElevenCreative: text-to-speech, cloning, dubbing, music, sound effects, Studio, image, video and Avatars.
• ElevenAgents: voice and chat agents for support, sales and lead qualification; its fastest-growing product.
• ElevenAPI: developer access to text-to-speech, Scribe speech-to-text, dubbing, music and realtime translation.
• ElevenReader: listening app for articles, PDFs and ebooks, with 200,000 curated audiobooks.
• ElevenMusic: standalone iOS app for creating and discovering AI music, launched April 2026.
• ElevenProductions: managed, human-edited dubs, captions, transcripts and audiobooks from $2.00 per minute.
• Reception: $29/month AI phone receptionist that answers calls and books appointments.
• ElevenLabs for Government: public-sector agent offering, launched February 2026.
• Iconic Marketplace: licensed iconic and celebrity voices.
• AI Speech Classifier: checks whether an audio clip was made with ElevenLabs.
• ElevenLabs MCP: listed in the official Products menu; function Not publicly specified.

ElevenLabs pricing

ElevenLabs starts at $6 a month on the Starter plan, with a free tier of 10,000 monthly credits below it. Plans are monthly credit allowances, rising through Creator ($22), Pro ($99), Scale ($299) and Business ($990) to custom Enterprise. The free tier’s biggest cap is no commercial license. Paid users most often run out of credits, and monthly plans lose unused credits on cancellation or downgrade. Verify current prices at elevenlabs.io/pricing.

Data, privacy, and safety

Yes, ElevenLabs trains on self-serve users’ data by default, with a settings opt-out that only covers new data, while Enterprise data is excluded by default.

Certifications: SOC 2 Type II; ISO 27001, 27701, 42001, 27017, 27018; PCI DSS Level 1; Cyber Essentials Plus; FedRAMP 20x Class A; HIPAA BAA on Enterprise only.

Standard retention periods are Not publicly specified. No breach of ElevenLabs’ own systems was found, though its tools were misused for 2023 celebrity deepfakes and linked by audio experts to the January 2024 fake Biden robocall.

Who’s behind ElevenLabs and how stable it is

ElevenLabs is heavily funded and shipping fast, most recently Eleven v4 and v4 Turbo on September 28, 2026. Co-founders Mati Staniszewski (CEO) and Piotr Dąbkowski (CTO) lead the private, VC-backed company, which has no parent. It has raised over $780M, most recently a $500M Sequoia-led Series D in February 2026 at an $11B valuation. A $300M employee share sale in September 2026 valued it at $22B but raised no new money. The CEO puts ARR near $600M.

ElevenLabs strengths and limitations

Strengths

• Eleven v4 is ranked #1 by Artificial Analysis, according to ElevenLabs.
• Voice, cloning, dubbing, music, agents and APIs share one credit balance across 90+ languages.
• The $6 Starter plan already includes a commercial license and instant voice cloning.
• FedRAMP 20x Class A and ISO 42001 sit alongside regional data residency in the US, EU, India and Singapore.
• G2 reviewers cite natural voices and accurate cloning, giving it 4.5/5 across 1,295 reviews.

Limitations

• Self-serve data trains models by default, so privacy-first teams should consider WellSaid, which never trains on customer data.
• About 100 G2 reviews call credit limits restrictive, and Trustpilot rates it just 3.0/5 across about 1,204 reviews.
• Image and video tools run on third-party models such as Veo, Kling and Seedance, not ElevenLabs’ own.
• A pending May 2026 Illinois lawsuit alleges journalists’ and voice actors’ voices were used without consent.
• Reception does not support HIPAA, so medical offices should not use it for patient calls.

ElevenLabs alternatives

WellSaid, Speechify Studio, Murf AI, and Cartesia are ElevenLabs’ closest alternatives. ElevenLabs packs instant voice cloning and a commercial license into its $6 Starter plan, while WellSaid keeps paid self-serve plans English-only but never trains on customer data.