ElevenLabs sells voice generation and related audio tools through monthly plans. It measures usage in credits, which are shared across its products each month. For text-to-speech, one credit is roughly equal to one text character, so a longer script generally uses more credits.
The main choice is whether you need commercial usage, voice cloning, higher audio quality, more credits, or multiple seats. The plans range from Free at $0 to custom-priced Enterprise. For narrated explainer videos and product demos, explainroo is a free, open-source alternative that makes videos on your computer with help from an AI coding agent.
How ElevenLabs credits relate to characters
A character is one letter, number, punctuation mark, or space in the text you submit for speech. A 1,000-character script therefore uses roughly 1,000 credits for text-to-speech, though the exact credit cost depends on the product and model. Other ElevenLabs products also use credits, often at different rates. Your full balance therefore does not equal a fixed number of spoken characters.
For example, the Free plan’s 10,000 monthly credits represent roughly 10,000 characters of text-to-speech if you spend the full balance on that use. The ElevenLabs pricing breakdown describes this shared-credit approach and the plan allowances. Check the official ElevenLabs pricing page for current prices and included features before subscribing.
ElevenLabs plans and monthly prices
Recent plan breakdowns list the following monthly prices and credit allowances. Credits refresh monthly with the subscription.
| Plan | Monthly price | Monthly credits | Main differences |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10,000 | Noncommercial use with attribution; no voice cloning |
| Starter | $6 | 30,000 | Commercial license and Instant Voice Cloning |
| Creator | $22 | 121,000 | Professional Voice Cloning and 192 kbps audio |
| Pro | $99 | 600,000 | PCM audio through the API and up to 10 concurrent requests |
| Scale | $299 | 1.8 million | 3 seats and 3 Professional Voice Clones |
| Business | $990 | 6 million | 10 seats, 10 Professional Voice Clones, and low-latency text-to-speech |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Contract-specific terms and support |
Flexprice and Cekura summarize the plan-specific figures. A seat is one user account covered by the subscription. Concurrent requests are separate generation requests that can run at the same time.
The Free plan is for noncommercial use and requires attribution to ElevenLabs. Starter is the lowest listed paid plan with a commercial license. The Creator plan adds Professional Voice Cloning, which uses more training material to create a closer voice match than Instant Voice Cloning. A promotion has also been listed at $11 for the first month of Creator; confirm the price at checkout before relying on it.
Annual billing is listed as providing two months free compared with paying monthly. The reported monthly equivalents are $5 for Starter and $18.33 for Creator. Pro is $82.50, Scale is $249.17, and Business is $825. Those rates require annual billing, so compare the total annual charge with your expected usage before choosing.
Which plan fits your workload?
Choose Free to test speech generation for personal or noncommercial work. If you plan to publish or monetize the audio, Starter is the entry point for commercial use. Its 30,000 credits are also a reasonable starting allowance for shorter scripts or occasional recordings.
Choose Creator if you need Professional Voice Cloning or its listed audio quality. Choose Pro when you need a much larger monthly allowance or PCM output through the API. PCM is an uncompressed audio format, useful when a production workflow needs it instead of a compressed file. Scale and Business include more seats and voice-cloning capacity. Enterprise is for buyers who need custom contract terms.
Before upgrading, estimate how much text you will generate in a month and remember that other ElevenLabs products also consume credits. If you mainly need narration for a few videos, compare the script’s character count with your allowance rather than estimating from video length alone.
Pay As You Go and extra usage
ElevenLabs also offers Pay As You Go, or PAYG, which lets eligible self-serve customers buy usage without relying only on a monthly subscription allowance. When an account has both subscription credits and a PAYG balance, ElevenLabs uses the plan credits first and then draws from the prepaid balance. The PAYG documentation says the minimum top-up is $5, and purchased funds expire 12 months after purchase.
PAYG keeps your balance in dollars rather than a fixed number of credits. If you change to a plan with a different credit-to-dollar rate, the displayed credit value of that balance changes even when its dollar value stays the same. Check the PAYG terms before downgrading or adding a large balance.
The billing arrangement also depends on the account. PAYG replaces usage-based overage billing for new self-serve customers, while existing subscribers who already use usage-based billing and Enterprise customers follow different terms. If you already have an older subscription, check its billing settings rather than assuming the newer PAYG rules apply.
When explainroo is a better fit
ElevenLabs is a direct choice when you need its voice-generation products, voice cloning, or API access. explainroo takes a different route: it is a free, open-source kit under the MIT license that lets an AI coding agent create narrated explainer videos and product demos on your computer. Try explainroo, or browse its example videos.
To make a video, give a coding agent this prompt, replacing the bracketed words with your subject:
Make me a short explainer video about [your topic]. Use explainroo for it, read its AGENTS.md and follow the steps.
The agent sets up explainroo, creates the video, checks it, and returns an MP4 file. It writes script.md for the narration and scenes.js for the drawings. explainroo handles the rest on your computer: the Kokoro open voice model reads the script in an English voice, Whisper marks when each word is spoken, Chrome draws the scenes, and ffmpeg combines the result into a video. You do not need an account or API key for narration. Optional AI illustrations through OpenRouter cost money per image; the other explainroo components cost nothing per video. The coding agent itself is a separate service and may have its own price.
explainroo supports wide, tall, portrait, and square videos, with different visual styles and word-by-word captions on tall, portrait, and square formats. For product demos, the agent can rebuild screens from a product’s code or website and show a pointer clicking through them. You describe the video to the agent and request changes. explainroo does not provide a drag-and-drop editor or edit existing camera footage. It also does not create talking avatars or live-action AI footage. See the documentation or source code for setup details.
Pick ElevenLabs when you need its voice tools and commercial voice-generation options. Pick explainroo when you want a narrated explainer or product demo made locally through a coding agent, and its English narration and editing approach fit your needs.
