ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is the category leader in AI voice synthesis, reaching an $11 billion valuation in February 2026 after raising $500 million in Series D funding. Its Eleven v3 model produces speech that the vast majority of listeners cannot distinguish from human voices in short clips — with support for 70+ languages and over 10,000 voice options.

Beyond text-to-speech, ElevenLabs has expanded into a full audio suite: voice cloning from short samples, Scribe v2 speech-to-text, Eleven Music, sound effects, video dubbing, and Conversational AI agents. Its recent Eleven v3 model introduces audio tags — inline prompts like [whispers], [laughs], or [sighs] — giving creators granular emotion and tone control.

Pricing: Free (10,000 characters/month), Starter ($5/month), Creator ($22/month, 100,000 characters, voice cloning, commercial rights), Pro ($99/month, 500,000 characters, faster processing), Scale ($330/month), Business ($1,320/month), Enterprise (custom). Credits expire monthly, don't roll over. In practice, production use can cost 1.5–2x advertised estimates due to regenerations and failed renders.

The main friction is the credit system, which can be confusing to estimate and penalises month-to-month variability. Customer support is email-only and has faced criticism for slow response times.