ElevenLabs Voice Cloning Pricing: What Cloning Costs (2026)

Voice cloning costs $6/month on Starter for Instant cloning and $22/month on Creator for Professional cloning. Generation costs 1 credit per character — about 850 credits per minute — so Starter’s 30,000 credits cover ~30 cloned minutes monthly. Clone only your own voice or a voice with written consent. Prices checked 4 Nov 2026.

How much does ElevenLabs voice cloning cost?

Two prices, two products. Instant Voice Cloning costs $6/month on Starter ($1 first month, shown until Nov 8 when checked on 4 Nov 2026). Professional Voice Cloning costs $22/month on Creator ($11 first month) — the cheapest plan with a professional slot. Above that, Pro ($99), Scale ($299), and Business ($990) add credits and slots, not cheaper cloning.

The subscription is only half the cost. Every character you generate costs 1 credit, and credits are the real budget line: Starter includes 30,000/month, Creator 121,000, Pro 600,000, Scale 1.8M, Business 6M. A cloning project that generates 2 hours of audio a month needs about 100,000 credits — Creator territory, not Starter.

One-time buyers should note there is no pay-as-you-go cloning tier and no lifetime deal. The minimum spend for a single cloning project is one month of Starter.

The first-month discounts soften the entry price. When checked on 4 Nov 2026, Starter showed $1 for the first month with an ‘Until Nov 8’ badge, and Creator showed $11 for the first month. These are rolling promotional prices rather than permanent cuts — the standard rates are $6 and $22 — so confirm the current offer at checkout before budgeting around the discount.

What does each plan include for cloning?

The full picture from the official pricing page, checked 4 Nov 2026:

Note the Professional slot counts: Creator and Pro each include just 1. Teams needing several professional voices must jump to Scale ($299, 3 slots) or Business ($990, 10 slots). For the full plan comparison, see our ElevenLabs pricing guide.

Credit maths: what does one cloned minute actually cost?

The formula is simple: 1 credit per character, about 850 characters per spoken minute of English, so one cloned minute costs roughly 850 credits. A 10-minute video costs ~8,500 credits; a 60-minute podcast episode ~51,000 credits; a 10-hour audiobook ~510,000 credits.

Price three typical projects:

1. Weekly 5-minute videos: 4 videos a month = 20 minutes ≈ 17,000 characters ≈ 17,000 credits. Fits Starter’s 30,000 with room to spare. Monthly cost: $6.
2. Weekly 30-minute podcast: 4 episodes = 120 minutes ≈ 102,000 characters ≈ 102,000 credits. Needs Creator’s 121,000. Monthly cost: $22.
3. One 10-hour audiobook ≈ 510,000 characters ≈ 510,000 credits. Needs Pro’s 600,000. Monthly cost: $99 — plus the 3-hour recording session for the PVC sample.

Discounted API models (0.5–1 credit per character on V2 Flash/Turbo English and V2.5 Flash/Turbo Multilingual) can cut these numbers up to half for API users. See our credits-per-minute breakdown for the full maths.

Which plan fits your cloning volume?

Match the plan to monthly output, not ambition. Under 30 minutes of generated audio a month: Starter ($6). 30–120 minutes: Creator ($22). 120–600 minutes: Pro ($99). Beyond that: Scale or Business.

For Professional cloning specifically, the decision is Creator vs Pro: both include exactly 1 PVC slot, so the $77 difference buys credits (121,000 vs 600,000) and audio quality (192 kbps plus WAV/PCM 44.1 kHz on Pro), not more professional voices.

Seasonal creators can subscribe for one month, generate everything, and cancel — the clone and the audio remain usable. Just confirm the commercial license covers your use case before publishing.

Upgrading mid-project is straightforward: moving from Starter to Creator adds the higher credit allowance and unlocks the professional slot. Downgrading works in reverse, so a sensible pattern is to start on Starter for the instant clone, then step up to Creator only when the 30+ minute professional sample is recorded and ready.

Costs and limits to know before you pay

Extra credits cost extra: the pricing page lists roughly $0.20 per extra minute on Starter and $0.17–$0.18 on higher plans. Blowing past your quota mid-project gets expensive fast, so budget the character count before you subscribe.

Verification failures cost time, not credits — but a rejected PVC sample can delay a project by days. Record the full 30+ minutes (3 hours optimal) before subscribing so the paid month is spent generating, not re-recording.

Concurrent request limits (2 on Free through 25 on Business) and audio quality caps (128 kbps until Creator’s 192 kbps; WAV/PCM 44.1 kHz from Pro) affect production pipelines more than hobbyists. Check both against your workflow before choosing.

Unused credits do not accumulate forever. The pricing page describes monthly allowances, and paid plans carry their own rollover terms — check the official page before assuming a large unused balance survives into next month. For one-off projects, this is another reason to generate everything inside the paid month rather than stockpiling.

Consent and verification rules on paid plans

Paying does not relax the consent rule: clone only your own voice or a voice with written consent. ElevenLabs runs voice verification on every clone, plus a captcha verification step on professional voices.

Misuse — fraud, impersonation, misleading content — is illegal in most jurisdictions, according to the official voice cloning page. Keep written consent with your project files, especially for client work.

Who should NOT pay for voice cloning

Anyone who has not secured written consent for the voice — no plan legitimizes an unauthorized clone. Anyone generating under ~10 minutes a month who could use the free text-to-speech tier instead (though not for cloning). And anyone expecting Professional cloning at Starter prices: PVC starts at $22/month, with no exceptions.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to clone a voice on ElevenLabs?

$6/month on Starter for Instant Voice Cloning ($1 first month shown until Nov 8 when checked on 4 Nov 2026), or $22/month on Creator ($11 first month) for Professional Voice Cloning. Generation then costs 1 credit per character from your plan’s monthly allowance — 30,000 credits on Starter, 121,000 on Creator.

How many credits does 1 minute of cloned audio cost?

About 850 credits. ElevenLabs charges 1 credit per character and a minute of spoken English is roughly 850 characters. Discounted API models (V2 Flash/Turbo English, V2.5 Flash/Turbo Multilingual) run 0.5–1 credit per character, cutting the per-minute cost for API users.

Which plan is cheapest for Professional Voice Cloning?

Creator at $22/month ($11 first month), which includes 1 professional voice clone slot and 121,000 credits. Pro ($99/month) also includes only 1 professional slot — it adds credits and 192 kbps/WAV audio, not more PVC slots.

Can I pay once instead of subscribing?

No. ElevenLabs sells cloning through monthly plans only — there is no pay-as-you-go tier and no lifetime deal on the official pricing page. For a single project, buy one month of the plan you need, generate everything, then cancel.

What happens if I exceed my monthly credits?

The pricing page lists extra-minute pricing of roughly $0.20 on Starter and $0.17–$0.18 on higher plans. Plan your project’s character count in advance — a 60-minute episode needs about 51,000 credits — so the overage never surprises you.

Do I need a paid plan to keep my cloned voice?

Your clone lives in your VoiceLab library under your account’s voice slots. If you cancel, the slot allowance drops — Free keeps 3 custom slots — so check that your saved voices fit the lower cap before downgrading. The safest sequence is to finish generating all audio first, then cancel.

Is the $1 first-month Starter offer still available?

It was shown on the official pricing page with an ‘Until Nov 8’ badge when checked on 4 Nov 2026, alongside a rolling countdown banner. Offers change, so confirm the current price at checkout before subscribing.

Sources checked

Plan prices, credit allowances, voice slot counts, per-plan cloning access, and extra-minute rates come from the official ElevenLabs pricing page, checked 4 Nov 2026. Cloning requirements, audio lengths, and verification rules come from the official ElevenLabs voice cloning page, checked 4 Nov 2026.