ElevenLabs Pricing Plans 2026: Free, Starter, Creator & PAYG
ElevenLabs now has three distinct pricing layers to understand: Creative subscription plans with monthly credits, prepaid Pay As You Go balance for self-serve usage, and ElevenAPI product rates expressed by workload. This guide keeps those layers separate.
Evidence basis: current ElevenLabs pricing and billing documentation checked September 24, 2026. Taxes and regional checkout can differ. Methodology · Sources & corrections
Quick answer — ElevenLabs pricing plans: Free is $0 with 10k monthly credits; Starter is $6 with 30k; Creator is $22 with 121k and currently shows $11 for the first month; Pro is $99 with 600k; Scale is $299 with 1.8M; Business is $990 with 6M; Enterprise is custom. PAYG is a separate prepaid usage balance and does not replace plan-level feature limits.
ElevenLabs plans at a glance
| Plan | Monthly price | Monthly credits | Main step-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10k | Core voice/audio tools; limited Studio projects |
| Starter | $6 | 30k | Commercial license, instant voice cloning, Dubbing Studio, Image & Video |
| Creator | $22 ($11 first-month promo shown) | 121k | Professional Voice Cloning and additional credits |
| Pro | $99 | 600k | Higher-quality API audio output and larger allowance |
| Scale | $299 | 1.8M | 3 workspace seats, team collaboration, more professional voice clones |
| Business | $990 | 6M | 10 seats, 10 professional voice clones, lower-latency TTS economics at scale |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom terms, SSO, DPA/SLA, elevated limits and scale discounts |
Prices above are the public monthly rates shown on ElevenLabs on September 24, 2026 and exclude taxes, levies and duties. Creator currently shows a first-month 50% promotion. Recheck the live pricing page before purchase.
Pay As You Go: the new self-serve overage model
Pay As You Go (PAYG) is a prepaid balance that lets self-serve users continue using ElevenLabs without relying only on the monthly subscription allowance. ElevenLabs documents PAYG for self-serve tiers including Free, Starter, Creator, Pro, Scale and Business.
- You add funds in advance through Developer settings / Top Up.
- Your subscription plan's included credits are consumed first.
- When those credits are exhausted, usage draws from the PAYG balance.
- Manual Top Up and Auto Top Up are available.
- PAYG funds expire 12 months after purchase.
- Top Ups are non-refundable.
- You can set an optional monthly spend cap.
- Your underlying plan still controls voice-slot, concurrency and other plan-level limits.
That last point matters: PAYG extends usage, but it does not automatically turn a Free or Starter account into a Pro/Business account.
Official ElevenLabs PAYG documentation →
Usage-based billing is now a legacy feature
ElevenLabs explicitly describes usage-based billing as legacy. It is not available for new self-serve subscriptions. PAYG is the replacement mechanism for new self-serve users who need usage beyond included monthly credits.
Eligible existing legacy Creator, Pro, Scale and Business accounts can retain usage-based billing, and Enterprise contracts remain on an overage model. Legacy usage-based billing is postpaid: additional credits are charged after the included quota, subject to the account's threshold and billing rules.
Do not read an old ElevenLabs guide that mentions “usage-based billing” and assume a new self-serve account can still enable it. Check whether the documentation is describing a legacy account or the current PAYG system.
ElevenAPI pricing: direct USD workload rates
The current ElevenAPI pricing page expresses API costs in US dollars by product/unit. This is a separate comparison layer from the Creative plan's monthly credit headline, so do not equate “10k credits” with a fixed universal API dollar amount across every product.
| API product | Current public rate | Billing unit |
|---|---|---|
| Text to Speech v3 | $0.10 | per 1,000 characters |
| Text to Speech v2 Multilingual | $0.10 | per 1,000 characters |
| Flash / Turbo TTS | $0.05 | per 1,000 characters |
| v3 Conversational TTS | $0.05 | per 1,000 characters |
| Scribe v2 Speech to Text | $0.22 | per hour |
| Scribe v2 Realtime | $0.39 | per hour |
| Music | $0.15 | per minute |
| Voice Changer / Voice Isolator | $0.12 | per minute |
| Sound Effects | $0.12 | per minute |
| Automatic dubbing with watermark | $0.33 | per source minute |
| Automatic dubbing without watermark / Dubbing Studio | $0.50 | per source minute |
Subscription vs PAYG vs legacy overage
| Billing path | Best understood as | Who gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Recurring monthly/annual plan with included credits and plan limits | Self-serve + Enterprise variants |
| PAYG | Prepaid balance that extends self-serve usage | New/current self-serve tiers, including Free |
| Legacy usage-based billing | Postpaid overage beyond monthly credits | Eligible legacy Creator/Pro/Scale/Business accounts |
| Enterprise overage | Contract-specific overage model | Enterprise |
Which plan should a video creator consider?
Starter is the first paid tier with a commercial license and instant voice cloning. Creator adds Professional Voice Cloning and a much larger allowance. Pro is the more relevant step when API/audio quality and materially higher volume are central. Scale and Business are team/production tiers rather than simple solo-creator upgrades.
The right choice depends on the specific workload: TTS characters, dubbing source minutes, STT hours, music, sound effects, concurrency and voice-clone requirements. A single “credits per dollar” comparison can hide those differences.
Annual billing and promotions
ElevenLabs supports monthly and annual subscription billing, and its live pricing interface can show promotions such as the current Creator first-month discount. Because promotional amounts and regional taxes can change, use the live pricing page for the final checkout total rather than relying on an older annualized figure.
Related ElevenLabs buyer guides
- ElevenLabs API Pricing — deeper API-specific comparison.
- ElevenLabs Annual vs Monthly — billing-cycle decision.
- ElevenLabs Commercial License — commercial-use rules.
- ElevenLabs Cancellation & Refund Policy — cancellation/refund intent.
- ElevenLabs Alternatives — direct and adjacent alternatives.