ElevenLabs alternatives

What to consider when choosing an ElevenLabs alternative (a text-to-speech API platform), built from ElevenLabs' public pages as of October 10, 2026. ReadAloud, which we make, is one disclosed option among several.

Last verified October 10, 2026.

We make ReadAloud, so it appears below as one of the options, and we say so. Options are listed alphabetically, not ranked.

Who ElevenLabs suits

We file ElevenLabs under text-to-speech API platforms: companies whose main product is a speech API that developers call from their own code. It lists a price per character. The audience its pages name: teams that want expressive, multi-language text to speech with a large voice library and voice cloning, and that pay per character or through ElevenLabs credit plans.

How ElevenLabs prices

In ElevenLabs' words: Per-character API list prices quoted per 1K characters on the ElevenAPI pricing page, also available through monthly subscription plans that include a shared credit pool (1 credit per character on most models; Flash/Turbo models cost 0.5 to 1 credit per character).

  • Eleven v4: $80 per 1M characters. Up to 10,000 characters per request; 90+ languages. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Eleven v4 Turbo: $40 per 1M characters. Vendor-stated median inference latency ~100ms. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Eleven v3: $80 per 1M characters. 5,000 character limit per request; 70+ languages. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Eleven v3 Conversational: $40 per 1M characters. Low-latency v3 tuned for realtime conversation; vendor-stated ~280ms. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Eleven Multilingual v2: $80 per 1M characters. 10,000 character limit per request; 29 languages. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Flash / Turbo (Flash v2.5): $40 per 1M characters. 40,000 character limit per request; 32 languages; the models page describes it as 50% lower price per character for API generations. Shown at API list price; time-limited promotions are not included. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Subscription plans (credits): Vendor's own unit: USD per month; credits; not converted. Free $0 (10,000 credits), Starter $6 (30,000), Creator $22 (121,000), Pro $99 (600,000), Scale $299 (1,800,000), Business $990 (6,000,000), Enterprise custom. Credits are shared across all products. (source: elevenlabs.io)

Check whether the listed rate is for the model and latency class you would actually call, and whether concurrency or support tiers cost extra.

Every per-character list price we found for ElevenLabs, Eleven v4 at $80, Eleven v4 Turbo at $40, Eleven v3 at $80, Eleven v3 Conversational at $40, Eleven Multilingual v2 at $80 and Flash / Turbo (Flash v2.5) at $40, is higher than both ReadAloud Live ($4) and ReadAloud Studio ($10) per 1M characters.

Free tier at ElevenLabs: Free plan: $0 per month with 10,000 credits per month (about 10 minutes of audio per the pricing page). The Commercial License is listed as starting at the Starter plan.

What ElevenLabs lists as strengths

  • Expressive model line-up: v4 and v3 support audio tags and multi-speaker dialogue, covering 70+ to 90+ languages. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Large voice catalogue: 3,000+ Voice Library voices plus instant and professional cloning and text-described Voice Design. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • WebSocket text-streaming endpoint with word-to-audio alignment for partial text input, plus a vendor-stated ~75ms Flash model for realtime use. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Wide output format choice including mp3, pcm, wav, opus and 8 kHz mu-law and A-law for telephony. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Pay-as-you-go and subscription options with a free plan for evaluation. (source: elevenlabs.io)

Conditions to check with ElevenLabs

Streaming and time to first audio

ElevenLabs: WebSocket streaming is listed and HTTP streaming is listed. Vendor-stated: 'Ultra-low latency (~75ms)' for Flash v2.5; footnote 'Excluding application & network latency' (https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/models). Not measured by us. Test from your own servers with your own text.

Voices and languages

ElevenLabs: 3,000+ community-shared voices in the Voice Library per docs; the Voice Changer entry on the pricing page cites 17,000+ voices; languages listed: 29 (Multilingual v2), 32 (Flash v2.5), 70+ (v3), 90+ (v4 and v4 Turbo), depending on model; custom voices: Instant Voice Cloning (short samples, available on most plans, Starter and up per pricing page) and Professional Voice Cloning (Creator plan or above; verification step confirms the voice is the account holder's own; docs say cloning someone else's voice is not allowed even with consent). Voice Design creates voices from text descriptions. The Commercial License is listed from the Starter plan upward.

Limits and formats

  • Per request: Model dependent: 5,000 (v3), 10,000 (v4, Multilingual v2), 40,000 (Flash v2.5). (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • Output formats listed: mp3 (22.05 to 44.1 kHz, 32 to 192 kbps), pcm (8 to 48 kHz), wav (8 to 48 kHz), opus (48 kHz, 32 to 192 kbps), ulaw_8000 and alaw_8000.
  • SSML is listed as supported.

API shape and switching cost

ElevenLabs does not list an OpenAI-compatible speech endpoint. Documented endpoint is POST /v1/text-to-speech/{voice_id} with an xi-api-key header and an output_format query such as mp3_44100_128; no OpenAI-style /v1/audio/speech mode was found in the pages read.

What we could not confirm about ElevenLabs

  • Per-plan concurrency limits (pricing page table has a Concurrent requests row, column mapping ambiguous in extracted text)
  • SOC 2 and GDPR statements (Trust Center content did not render)
  • Whether HIPAA eligibility covers the text-to-speech API specifically
  • Whether an OpenAI-compatible speech route exists (none found in pages read)
  • Price per 1M characters under subscription plans (depends on credits per character; list prices are what is recorded here)
  • Time-limited promotions were shown on the pricing pages when we reviewed them; they are left out, so the prices on this page are list prices; check the pricing page for current offers.

What to consider when choosing an ElevenLabs alternative

  • Price your monthly characters on each ElevenLabs tier you would use.
  • If you stream text in as a language model produces it, confirm that ElevenLabs' WebSocket input handles partial sentences the way your code expects.
  • ElevenLabs' per-request limit is stated as: model dependent: 5,000 (v3), 10,000 (v4, Multilingual v2), 40,000 (Flash v2.5). Compare it with the length of your longest text and plan how you will split it. (source: elevenlabs.io)
  • If you rely on SSML for pauses or pronunciation, note that ElevenLabs lists support for it and that ReadAloud does not accept SSML.

Options besides ElevenLabs

Three other vendors from our dataset, chosen because they share ElevenLabs' category or pricing model, and ReadAloud, which we make. They are listed alphabetically, not ranked, and each summary comes from that vendor's own pages.

  • Cartesia

    Cartesia is also a text-to-speech API platform, and it lists a price per character as ElevenLabs does. Its pages mention HIPAA, SOC 2 and GDPR.

    Reviewed 2026-10-10 (source: cartesia.ai)

  • ReadAloud

    A streaming text-to-speech API: ReadAloud Live at $4 and ReadAloud Studio at $10 per 1M characters. English today.

    Disclosure: this is our product

  • Speechify API (SpeechifyAI Build)

    Speechify API (SpeechifyAI Build) is also a text-to-speech API platform, and it lists a price per character as ElevenLabs does. Its pages mention SOC 2.

    Reviewed 2026-10-10 (source: speechify.ai)

  • Unreal Speech

    Unreal Speech is also a text-to-speech API platform, and it lists a price per character as ElevenLabs does.

    Reviewed 2026-10-10 (source: unrealspeech.com)

How ReadAloud differs from ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs' per-character figures are in the pricing list above, next to ReadAloud Live at $4 and ReadAloud Studio at $10. Live: one American English voice. Studio: several English voices. Requests are limited to 5,000 characters.

Details about ElevenLabs come from its public pages as they were on October 10, 2026. ElevenLabs may have changed them since, and a page that was unclear to us may be clear to you. Corrections: support@readaloudai.org. We make ReadAloud, so read this page with that in mind and check anything important with ElevenLabs directly.

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