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The ElevenLabs free plan gives you 10,000 credits a month — about 10 minutes of speech — for $0, checked 1 Nov 2026. It covers text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, voice design, and music, but not commercial use. The $1 first-month Starter offer (shown until Nov 8 when checked) is the cheapest paid step up.
Best for: Trying ElevenLabs voices across text to speech, speech to text, and sound effects before paying, plus students and hobbyists who need under 10 minutes of audio a month.
Not for: Anyone publishing audio for clients, ads, or monetized channels — the terms of service limit free accounts to non-commercial use only.
Starting price: $0/month for the free plan; Starter is $6/month, or $1 for the first month as shown until Nov 8 when checked 1 Nov 2026.
What does the ElevenLabs free plan include?
The free plan is a working tier rather than a stripped demo. After signing up, you get 10,000 credits every month and access to the same core products paying users see: text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, voice design, music generation, productions, and image generation. Studio access is included too, with 3 projects — enough to assemble a short narrated video or test a multi-voice workflow. If you are new to the platform, our step-by-step guide to using ElevenLabs walks through the dashboard first.
Audio renders at 128 kbps and 44.1 kHz on the free plan, the same base quality as Starter and Creator, and you can generate in any of the 74 supported languages. What stays locked is everything tied to earning money or scaling up: the commercial license, instant voice cloning, professional voice cloning, the dubbing studio, and 192 kbps audio all require a paid plan. You also get 2 concurrent requests, compared with 3 on Starter and 5 on Creator, so batch jobs queue a little longer.
One detail worth knowing: the 10,000 credits refill at the start of each billing cycle, and unlike paid plans, the free plan gets no rollover — whatever you do not use simply disappears. That makes the free tier a use-it-or-lose-it monthly allowance, which suits experimentation just fine since there is nothing to lose.
| Free plan fact | Figure (1 Nov 2026) |
|---|---|
| Price | $0/month |
| Credits | 10,000 per month |
| Speech per month | About 10 minutes |
| Studio projects | 3 |
| Audio quality | 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz |
| Languages | 74 |
| Concurrent requests | 2 |
| Commercial use | No |
| Voice cloning | No |
How much audio do 10,000 credits actually buy?
ElevenLabs bills text to speech at one credit per character — that figure comes straight from the official documentation, so the maths is exact rather than estimated. An average English narrator speaks roughly 800 to 900 characters per minute, which means 10,000 characters convert to about 11 to 12 minutes of finished audio. ElevenLabs rounds the free tier to approximately 10 minutes in its own plan comparison, and that is the number to plan around.
Put it in project terms: a 60-second short-form narration runs about 800 to 900 characters, so the free plan covers roughly 11 to 12 of those a month. A 5-minute YouTube voiceover needs around 4,000 to 4,500 characters, so you get about two per month. A 30-minute podcast episode would need roughly 25,000 characters — two and a half times the entire monthly allowance — which is where the free plan clearly stops. For the full tier-by-tier numbers, see our ElevenLabs pricing breakdown.
Other products spend credits differently. Speech to text, sound effects, and music generation each draw from the same 10,000-credit pool, so mixing products in one month eats the allowance faster. The pricing page FAQ confirms the allowance resets at the start of each billing cycle, which begins on the day you subscribed — not on the first of the calendar month. The same one-credit-per-character rate applies on every plan; paid tiers simply buy more credits.
| Plan | Monthly credits | Approx. minutes | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 10,000 | ~10 | $0 |
| Starter | 30,000 | ~30 | $6 ($1 first month, shown until Nov 8) |
| Creator | 121,000 | ~121 | $22 ($11 first month, 50% off) |
| Pro | 600,000 | ~600 | $99 |
| Scale | 1,800,000 | ~1,800 | $299 |
| Business | 6,000,000 | ~6,000 | $990 |
What can the free plan not do?
The free plan’s limits are contractual as well as technical. Section (c)(i) of the ElevenLabs Terms of Service (last updated 9 October 2026) states that free users “may only use the Services for non-commercial purposes,” while paid subscribers “may use the Services for commercial purposes.” In practice, nothing generated on the free plan can go into client work, advertisements, or monetized videos. The terms also require non-commercial users to sign up with a personal email address rather than a business one.
On the feature side, the free plan excludes every cloning tool. Instant voice cloning appears as a headline Starter feature, and professional voice cloning starts on Creator — free users generate with stock and community voices only. The dubbing studio, music commercial use, and the 44.1 kHz PCM audio output via API (a Pro feature) are also paid-only.
Then there are the quiet limits. Unused credits never roll over on the free plan, while paid plans can bank up to two months of unused credits. Only 2 requests run at once. And there is no option to buy extra minutes on the free tier — when the 10,000 credits are gone, the only official path to more audio that month is upgrading to a paid plan.
Free plan vs Starter: when the $6 upgrade pays off
The jump from free to Starter is the most consequential upgrade in the whole lineup, because it is where the commercial license appears. Starter costs $6 a month, and on 1 Nov 2026 the first month was priced at $1 — an 83% discount shown with an “Until Nov 8” end date and a countdown reading about 7 days. That single dollar buys the commercial license, 30,000 credits (about 30 minutes), instant voice cloning, 20 Studio projects instead of 3, music commercial use, the dubbing studio, and image and video generation. The current first-month offers are tracked on our ElevenLabs discount page.
Do the maths on a small creator: two 5-minute narrations a month fit inside the free plan at roughly 8,000 to 9,000 credits. The moment a third video, a client request, or any monetized upload enters the picture, free is exhausted or contractually off-limits, and Starter’s $6 covers about six such videos. Annual billing brings Starter to $5 a month (two months free), which suits anyone who knows they will need commercial rights all year.
| Feature | Free ($0) | Starter ($6/month) |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly credits | 10,000 | 30,000 |
| Approx. minutes | ~10 | ~30 |
| Commercial license | No | Yes |
| Instant voice cloning | No | Yes |
| Studio projects | 3 | 20 |
| Music commercial use | No | Yes |
| Dubbing studio | No | Yes |
| First-month offer | None | $1 (shown until Nov 8) |
ElevenLabs free plan pros and cons
Pros
- Genuinely free with a monthly refill: 10,000 credits every billing cycle with no card required, so it works as a permanent trial bench.
- Full product access: text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, voice design, music, productions, and image generation are all usable, not just TTS.
- 74 languages on the current v4 model family, at the same 128 kbps base quality as the Starter and Creator tiers.
- Clean upgrade path: moving to Starter or above lets unused paid credits roll over for up to two months.
Cons
- Non-commercial use only, written into the terms of service — the single biggest limitation.
- No voice cloning of any kind; instant cloning needs Starter and professional cloning starts on Creator.
- 10,000 credits cover only about 10 minutes, so a single 30-minute project exceeds the whole month.
- Unused credits never roll over on the free plan, while paid plans can bank up to 2× their quota.
- No 192 kbps audio, no PCM output via API, and only 2 concurrent requests.
Who should NOT use the ElevenLabs free plan
Skip the free plan if you earn anything from your audio. Freelancers delivering client voiceovers, YouTubers with monetized channels, podcasters running ads, and course creators selling lessons all need the commercial license that starts at Starter. Teams piping ElevenLabs through the API should also start at Starter or higher for the extra concurrency and credit headroom. And if your project needs a cloned voice — your own or a licensed one — free cannot do it at any price; instant cloning is a Starter feature and professional cloning starts on Creator. Compare the wider market in our free AI voice generators roundup before you commit.
Frequently asked questions
Is the ElevenLabs free plan really free?
Yes. The free plan costs $0 per month with no credit card required at sign-up, and the 10,000 credits refill every billing cycle. It is a permanent tier rather than a time-limited trial. The trade-off is the allowance size — about 10 minutes of speech — and the non-commercial-use restriction written into the terms of service.
How many minutes of audio does the free plan give?
About 10 minutes a month. Text to speech costs one credit per character, so 10,000 credits convert to roughly 10,000 characters — around 11 to 12 minutes at an average narration pace, which ElevenLabs rounds to approximately 10 minutes in its plan comparison. A 5-minute YouTube voiceover uses about 4,000 to 4,500 credits, so expect roughly two of those per month.
Can I use the ElevenLabs free plan for commercial projects?
No. Section (c)(i) of the ElevenLabs Terms of Service, last updated 9 October 2026, states that free users may only use the services for non-commercial purposes, while paid subscribers may use them commercially. Client work, advertisements, and monetized videos all require at least the Starter plan, which adds the commercial license for $6 a month.
Do unused free credits roll over to the next month?
No. The pricing page FAQ states that unused credits roll over for up to two months only while you maintain an active paid subscription, and that rollover does not apply to the free plan. Each billing cycle starts you back at exactly 10,000 credits. Paid plans can hold up to 3× their monthly quota this way; the free plan cannot.
What happens when I use up my 10,000 free credits?
Generation stops until the next billing cycle refills the allowance — there is no pay-as-you-go top-up on the free tier and no way to buy extra minutes. Your account, voices, and projects stay intact; only new generation is blocked. If you need audio sooner, upgrading to Starter ($6 a month) adds 30,000 fresh credits immediately.
Is there a free trial of the ElevenLabs paid plans?
There is no separate time-limited trial; the free plan itself is the trial. The closest equivalent is the Starter first-month offer: $1 for 30,000 credits instead of $6, shown until Nov 8 when checked 1 Nov 2026 — an 83% first-month discount with a countdown of about 7 days. Creator also shows 50% off its first month ($11 instead of $22).
Sources checked
Prices, credit allowances, and plan features were taken from the official ElevenLabs pricing page on 1 Nov 2026 (https://elevenlabs.io/pricing). The commercial-use rule comes from the ElevenLabs Terms of Service, last updated 9 October 2026 (https://elevenlabs.io/terms-of-use). The one-credit-per-character rate comes from the official documentation (https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/intro).
Last updated 1 Nov 2026. Prices checked on the official ElevenLabs pricing page on that date; confirm at checkout.