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What is ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs is an AI audio company best known for text-to-speech that sounds startlingly human. Since launching in 2022 it has grown into a full audio studio: voices, voice cloning, dubbing, transcription, music, sound effects and conversational voice agents, all under one account and one credit system.
It's also one of AI's big success stories. In February 2026 it raised $500 million at an $11 billion valuation, and it passed $500 million in annual revenue in the first months of 2026. Around 41% of Fortune 500 companies use it, Klarna and Revolut run customer-support voice agents on it, and Spotify partnered with it in May 2026 to help authors produce AI audiobooks.
In one sentence: if your project needs a voice (narration, a podcast, a dubbed video, a talking app), ElevenLabs is the benchmark everyone else is measured against.
Who it's for
- YouTubers and faceless-channel creators who need natural narration.
- Authors and publishers producing audiobooks without a studio.
- Educators and course creators turning lessons into audio or video.
- Marketers and businesses localising videos into other languages.
- Developers adding voice to apps, games and AI agents via the API.
Key features
Text to speech
Thousands of voices across dozens of languages, with emotional control through audio tags.
Voice cloning
Instant cloning from a short sample, or Professional cloning (Creator plan and up) for a near-perfect digital twin of your own voice.
AI dubbing
Translate a video into other languages while keeping the original speaker's voice. Dubbing v2 arrived in May 2026.
Voice Library
A marketplace of community voices. Creators set the terms and get paid: over $22M earned by 10,400+ voice creators so far.
Speech to text
Accurate transcription for interviews, podcasts and subtitles.
Music & sound effects
Generate background music and sound effects from a text description, from "rain on a tin roof" to "triumphant space fanfare".
Voice agents
Build AI agents that talk on the phone, on the web or in apps. Klarna and Revolut use them for customer support.
API for developers
A fast, well-documented API (plus MCP support) to add voice to any product.
Audio Native: give any webpage a voice
Audio Native is an embeddable player that reads your articles aloud. You pick a voice, match the player's colours to your site and paste one snippet of code. After that, every post gets narration automatically. It works with WordPress, Webflow, Squarespace, Ghost, Framer and React. A built-in dashboard shows listens and playback time.
Official Audio Native demo: choose a voice, customise the player, copy the code, watch the stats. Courtesy of ElevenLabs, shortened and compressed for the web.
Why bloggers like it: lots of people would rather listen than read, on a commute or while cooking. Audio Native also helps readers with low vision or dyslexia. Plan availability has changed since launch, so check the pricing page for which tiers include it.
What you can make with ElevenLabs
Narrate your story videos
Give your MagicLight animations a narrator with real emotion. Whisper the spooky bits, laugh at the jokes.
Your own audiobook
Turn a manuscript into an audiobook in your cloned voice, or cast different voices for each character.
Go global in one afternoon
Dub your best YouTube video into Spanish, Hindi or Japanese and open whole new audiences.
Podcast polish
Fix a fluffed line without re-recording, generate intros and outros, and transcribe episodes for show notes.
Listen instead of read
Have long articles, PDFs and study notes read aloud on your commute. Great for accessibility too.
Game and app voices
Prototype characters, NPCs and app narration without booking a studio.
A 24/7 phone assistant
Businesses can put a friendly voice agent on the phone line. Pair it with a knowledge base like CustomGPT.ai for text chat.
Give a voice back
People losing their ability to speak, for example through illness, can bank and clone their voice to keep communicating in it.
Your first voiceover in 10 minutes
- Create a free accountSign up at ElevenLabs. The free plan includes 10,000 credits a month, roughly 10 minutes of speech with the main models.
- Open Text to SpeechPaste a short script: a video intro, a paragraph of your blog, anything you'd normally record yourself.
- Pick a voiceBrowse the Voice Library by accent, age and style. Preview a few, because the same script sounds very different in each.
- Direct the performanceAdd audio tags like [whispers] or [excited], and use punctuation for pacing: commas for small pauses, full stops for longer ones.
- Generate, listen, tweakRegenerate lines you don't love. Small wording changes often fix odd emphasis.
- Download and useExport the audio and drop it into your video editor, podcast or MagicLight project. Commercial use starts on the paid Starter plan.
Scripts to try (with audio tags)
[excited] What if I told you a cat could fly a spaceship? [pause] Stay with me. [whispers] Because by the end of this video, you'll believe it too.
[softly] Once upon a time, on a small blue planet, there lived a little star who was afraid of the dark. [sighs] Every night she hid behind the moon... [whispers] until one night, she didn't.
Today we're learning about photosynthesis. [curious] Have you ever wondered how a plant eats? [laughs] It doesn't use a fork. It uses sunlight, water and air, and turns them into food.
Power combo: write the script with Claude (ask it to "add ElevenLabs audio tags for emotion"), voice it with ElevenLabs, then animate it in MagicLight. That's a complete one-person studio.
Voice cloning and safety
A tool that can copy a voice can also be misused, and voice-clone scams are one of the concerns in our AI Forecast. Here's what ElevenLabs does about it:
- Consent first: you must confirm you have the right to clone a voice. Professional Voice Cloning requires the speaker to verify it's really them by reading a randomised text aloud.
- Blocked voices: cloning celebrities and other high-risk voices is blocked.
- Enforcement: impersonation, fraud and election misuse are banned, and ElevenLabs monitors for them with AI classifiers and human reviewers.
- Fair pay: voice creators in the Voice Library choose how their voice may be used and earn money when it is.
Narrating videos for YouTube? See The one-person AI studio: a full creator workflow with Claude and MagicLight, plus licences and YouTube's AI rules.
Plans & pricing
ElevenLabs uses credits. For speech, one credit is roughly one character of text. Unused credits on paid plans roll over for up to two months, and annual billing gives you two months free.
Free
10,000 credits/month to try everything. Attribution required, no commercial use.
Starter
30,000 credits. Commercial use and instant voice cloning.
Creator
121,000 credits, Professional Voice Cloning, higher-quality audio. First month often discounted.
Pro
600,000 credits for heavy producers and small teams.
Scale & up
Scale (1.8M credits, 3 seats), Business ($990) and custom Enterprise plans.
Prices as reported in 2026; plan details and credit rates change. Check ElevenLabs for current offers.
Pros & cons
👍 What we love
- The most natural AI voices we've heard, now ranked #1 with Eleven v4
- Audio tags make directing emotion easy
- Huge range: speech, dubbing, music, SFX, agents
- Dozens of languages from one voice
- Generous free plan and cheap Starter tier
- Serious consent checks for voice cloning
👎 What could be better
- Credits go fast on long projects like audiobooks
- Best cloning and quality need Creator ($22) or above
- Occasional odd emphasis that needs a regenerate
- So many features that the dashboard can feel busy
Frequently asked questions
Is ElevenLabs free?
Yes. The free plan gives you 10,000 credits a month (roughly 10 minutes of speech) to try the voices and tools. For commercial use you'll need a paid plan, which starts at $6/month.
Can I use ElevenLabs voices on YouTube and monetise them?
Yes, on paid plans, which include a commercial licence. Always check the current terms, and follow YouTube's rules on disclosing realistic synthetic content.
Can I clone my own voice?
Yes. Instant cloning works from a short recording (as little as 10 seconds with Eleven v4), and Professional Voice Cloning (Creator plan and up) produces a much closer match after you verify it's your voice.
Can I clone a celebrity or someone else's voice?
No. Cloning voices without permission is against the rules, and high-risk voices such as celebrities are blocked. Only clone voices you own or have explicit consent to use.
Does it work with MagicLight?
Yes. Generate your narration in ElevenLabs, download it, and use it as the voiceover in your video workflow. MagicLight also has its own built-in voices if you want to stay in one tool.
Should you use ElevenLabs?
If your content needs a voice, yes. ElevenLabs is the gold standard for AI speech. The voices are realistic, the emotional control is genuinely fun to use, and it has grown into a complete audio toolkit. The free plan is enough to fall in love; Starter or Creator is where most creators land.
Watch your credits on long projects, and use cloning responsibly. For narrators, educators and video creators, it's one of the best-value AI subscriptions you can buy.
I cloned my own meow, then realised the universe only needs one of me. The voices are scarily good, and I'm glad the cloning checks are strict. Fur real: best narrator I've ever hired.
Hear it for yourself, free
Paste any sentence, pick a voice and press play. Ten seconds is all it takes to be impressed.
Try ElevenLabs freeAlso read: MagicLight AI review · Claude AI review · CustomGPT.ai review · Find your AI tool
Sources: Eleven v4 announcement · TechCrunch · ElevenLabs blog · Voice Library payouts · ElevenLabs safety · ElevenLabs pricing · Audio Native docs · VentureBeat on Audio Native