ElevenAPI — Independent Software Review

Build production-ready audio AI in minutes with ElevenAPI.

Compliance Transparency Index

Grade: A — Score: 88/100

Best For

• Developers embedding multilingual speech generation in products. REST and official Python and TypeScript SDKs expose streaming TTS with model-specific latency, language and request limits.
• Teams combining transcription and synthesis in one account. Scribe supports batch and realtime STT, while Speech Engine packages the speech loop for an existing chatbot.
• Media systems automating more than narration. Music, sound effects, dubbing, voice changing and isolation are available through programmatic endpoints with separate usage units.
• Engineering organizations that can govern API access in their own backend. Scoped keys, IP allowlists, quotas, service accounts and single-use tokens support workload separation.
• Enterprises able to negotiate exact data controls. SSO, custom rate limits, regional environments, Zero Retention Mode and private TTS or STT deployment are documented with scope restrictions.

Not Ideal For

• Teams wanting one simple, all-inclusive operating rate. Subscription allowances are shared across differently metered capabilities, PAYG is prepaid, concurrency varies by model, and Music adds organization-size eligibility rules for self-service plans.
• Organizations needing the complete audio-model catalogue inside their own cloud without a sales process. Published private deployment covers Eleven v2 and v2.5 TTS plus Scribe v2 on AWS or GCP, while full technical documentation is restricted and requires an NDA for prospects.
• Regulated workloads requiring zero retention for every endpoint. The Enterprise control excludes Music, Image and Video, Dubbing and persistent voice-cloning samples, applies only to eligible API traffic and must be enabled on qualifying requests.
• Nontechnical production teams that need timeline editing, document import and manual review rather than programmatic responses. Those workflows belong to ElevenCreative and remain subject to its separate plan and service-specific terms.

Operational Overview

Pricing Structure

Free: USD $0/month; permanent free plan, not a paid-tier trial

• Shared monthly allowance represented as 10,000 v3 TTS characters or 4.5 hours of Scribe v2 transcription
• 2 concurrent Multilingual v2 TTS requests, 4 Flash requests, 8 batch STT requests and 6 realtime STT requests
• General terms restrict free use to non-commercial purposes
• Music access is not separated cleanly: the API pricing table combines Free and PAYG in one column and displays 3 included minutes, while PAYG documentation says PAYG enables Music access that is otherwise disabled on Free

Starter: USD $6/month, billed monthly; or $5/month equivalent, billed yearly. Taxes extra

• Shared monthly allowance represented as 60,000 v3 TTS characters or 27 hours of Scribe v2 transcription
• 3 concurrent Multilingual v2 TTS requests, 6 Flash requests, 12 batch STT requests and 9 realtime STT requests
• Paid commercial-use permission, subject to capability-specific terms
• Music-specific terms restrict self-service Starter enrollment to individual users

Creator: USD $22/month, billed monthly; or $18.33/month equivalent, billed yearly. Taxes extra

• Shared monthly allowance represented as 220,000 v3 TTS characters or 100 hours of Scribe v2 transcription
• 5 concurrent Multilingual v2 TTS requests, 10 Flash requests, 20 batch STT requests and 15 realtime STT requests
• Professional Voice Cloning access is part of the shared ElevenLabs account tier
• Music-specific terms restrict self-service Creator enrollment to individual users

Pro: USD $99/month, billed monthly; or $82.50/month equivalent, billed yearly. Taxes extra

• Shared monthly allowance represented as 990,000 v3 TTS characters or 450 hours of Scribe v2 transcription
• 10 concurrent Multilingual v2 TTS requests, 20 Flash requests, 40 batch STT requests and 30 realtime STT requests
• Music-specific terms restrict self-service Pro enrollment to individual users

Scale: USD $299/month, billed monthly; or $249.17/month equivalent, billed yearly. Taxes extra

• Shared monthly allowance represented as 2,990,000 v3 TTS characters or 1,359 hours of Scribe v2 transcription
• 15 concurrent Multilingual v2 TTS requests, 30 Flash requests, 60 batch STT requests and 45 realtime STT requests
• Music concurrency increases from 2 on Starter through Pro to 5
• Music-specific terms restrict self-service Scale enrollment to individuals or organizations with fewer than 10 employees

Business: USD $990/month, billed monthly; or $825/month equivalent, billed yearly. Taxes extra

• Shared monthly allowance represented as 9,900,000 v3 TTS characters or 4,500 hours of Scribe v2 transcription
• 15 concurrent Multilingual v2 TTS requests, 30 Flash requests, 60 batch STT requests and 45 realtime STT requests
• Business does not raise the published speech concurrency above Scale
• Music-specific terms restrict self-service Business enrollment to individuals or organizations with fewer than 50 employees

Enterprise: Custom quote; prices, minimum commitments and negotiated terms are not public

• Custom rate limits, support, SLAs and MSA terms
• SSO and SCIM for enterprise workspaces
• BAA route for eligible HIPAA use
• Optional Zero Retention Mode, regional environments and private TTS or STT deployment; scope and terms vary

Pay As You Go Top Up: Prepaid usage from USD $5 or INR 500; capability-specific API rates apply

• Available on self-service tiers including Free; subscription allowance is consumed first
• Does not change the underlying plan's voice slots or product permissions
• Optional automatic top-ups; service pauses at zero balance if a top-up is unavailable
• Funds expire 12 months after purchase and are non-refundable except where law requires otherwise

Published API usage rates: TTS USD $0.05-$0.10/1,000 characters; other capabilities use per-hour, per-minute or per-generation rates. Taxes extra

• v3 and v2 Multilingual TTS $0.10 per 1,000 characters; v3 Conversational and Flash or Turbo TTS $0.05 per 1,000 characters
• Scribe v2 $0.22/hour; Scribe v2 Realtime $0.39/hour; entity detection $0.07/hour; keyterm prompting $0.05/hour
• Speech Engine $0.08/minute; burst usage $0.16/minute
• Music $0.15/minute; Voice Isolator, Voice Changer and Sound Effects each displayed at $0.12/minute
• Dubbing v1 $0.33/minute with watermark or $0.50 without; Dubbing v2 $2.20/minute

Alternative Consideration

Consider switching to Google Cloud Text-to-Speech: Google offers a comprehensive suite of AI services with extensive language support and integration options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does ElevenAPI use a separate balance from my ElevenLabs subscription?

No. ElevenAPI requests consume credits from the same ElevenLabs account allowance used across the platform, with consumption varying by product, model and whether generation occurs through the API or website. The figures shown for TTS, transcription, music and other APIs are alternative ways of using the shared allowance, not separate balances that can be added together. PAYG funds are consumed after included credits and extend usage without changing the underlying plan's permissions or limits.

Can ElevenAPI output be used commercially in an app, game or media project?

ElevenLabs says output generated during a paid subscription can be used commercially, subject to rights, law and the applicable service-specific terms; Free output is non-commercial and requires attribution when shared. Adding PAYG funds to Free does not change the underlying plan's permissions, so it should not be treated as a commercial licence. Music terms limit Starter, Creator and Pro enrollment to individuals, Scale to individuals or organizations with fewer than 10 employees, and Business to individuals or organizations with fewer than 50 employees; self-service media rights also exclude film, television, radio and Studio Games. The full Enterprise Music plan removes those listed media exclusions, while Beta services and other capability-specific terms can impose further restrictions.

Can ElevenAPI be called from a browser or mobile app without exposing an API key?

Do not place an ElevenAPI key or other long-lived secret in browser or mobile code. ElevenLabs requires API-key calls to come from a server or another environment you control, and it provides short-lived single-use tokens or other designated client methods for certain supported connections. Restrict server-side keys by endpoint scope, credit quota and IP range, and enforce access to voices, conversations and generated files in your own application because a vendor credential is not user authorization.

Can ElevenAPI stream speech in real time for a voice application?

Yes. ElevenAPI supports streaming Text to Speech and realtime Speech to Text, with HTTP or WebSocket options depending on the endpoint. Flash models advertise about 75 ms of model inference latency and Scribe v2 Realtime about 150 ms, but those figures exclude network time, scheduling, buffering and the rest of your application pipeline. Measure time to first audible output in the regions, voice types and traffic conditions your users will actually encounter.

Why does ElevenAPI return a 429 error when the account still has credits?

A 429 is not necessarily a billing failure. ElevenLabs documents two relevant responses: too_many_concurrent_requests means the workspace exceeded its applicable concurrency limit, while system_busy means the service was under heavy traffic. Concurrency varies by model and plan, such as 2 Multilingual v2 or 4 Flash TTS requests on Free and 15 or 30 respectively on Scale and Business, so inspect the response and active requests, then use the vendor's prescribed waiting and exponential-backoff behavior.

Can ElevenAPI create and use a custom voice clone programmatically?

Yes. The Instant Voice Cloning endpoint accepts audio files and returns a voice ID that can be used for generation, while separate endpoints cover Professional Voice Cloning workflows. Professional Voice Cloning is part of the shared account tier from Creator upward, and a returned voice may require verification. Voice cloning requires stored samples and is not eligible for ElevenAPI Zero Retention Mode, so it is unsuitable when those samples cannot be retained.

Can I stop ElevenAPI inputs and outputs from training ElevenLabs models?

Yes, for newly submitted data. Disable Improve the models for everyone under Terms and privacy, then Data use; ElevenLabs says new data submitted after the saved change will not be used to train its models. The opt-out is not retroactive, and Enterprise data is excluded from training by default except as needed to provide that customer's services. Training choice, ordinary retention and Zero Retention Mode are separate controls.

Can ElevenAPI process protected health information with zero retention?

Do not send protected health information through ElevenAPI unless an executed Business Associate Agreement, applicable law or another express written agreement permits it. The documented Enterprise route combines a BAA with Zero Retention Mode for eligible API traffic, which must be enabled with enable_logging=false. Zero Retention Mode covers listed TTS, Text to Dialogue, Voice Changer and Speech to Text endpoints, but not Music, Image and Video, Dubbing or stored voice-cloning samples, and it does not cover web-interface traffic. Review every endpoint and downstream system in the data path before transmitting PHI.

Can ElevenAPI run inside my own cloud or data center?

ElevenLabs documents private standalone deployment of its v2 and v2.5 Text to Speech models and Scribe v2 on Amazon SageMaker or Google Vertex AI. It does not publicly document an on-premises or data-center deployment for the full ElevenAPI catalogue, so Music, Dubbing, cloning and the other APIs should not be assumed to be available privately. Access is enterprise-led, and prospective customers must sign an NDA before receiving the full technical documentation.

How does ElevenAPI compare with Amazon Polly for text to speech?

Amazon Polly uses direct character billing at USD $4 per million characters for Standard voices, $16 for Neural, $30 for Generative and $100 for Long-Form, and AWS says cached audio can be replayed without another synthesis charge. ElevenAPI lists USD $50 per million characters for v3 Conversational, Flash or Turbo and USD $100 per million for standard v3 or v2 Multilingual before any verified promotion, with usage drawing from a shared ElevenLabs subscription or PAYG balance. ElevenAPI also bundles voice cloning, transcription, dubbing, music and sound-effects APIs, while Polly is the narrower option when straightforward AWS text-to-speech billing and replay are the main requirement. Compare a representative script, required voice rights and total architecture rather than treating the per-character rates as quality-equivalent products.

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