ElevenLabs pricing is not one number. It is a subscription tier, a monthly credit allowance, and, since May 7, 2026, a second and separate pay-as-you-go price list for anyone calling the API directly instead of using the app.
That split matters if you are trying to figure out whether a plan actually covers what you want to make. Jellypod sits downstream of this exact question a lot: people arrive after pricing out ElevenLabs for a two-host podcast, doing the credit math themselves, and finding out the number on the page and the number they need are not the same thing. To make that concrete, we pulled the median script length across a sample of 2,000 real Jellypod episodes. Stripped of speaker tags and formatting, the median script runs about 6,800 to 7,000 characters of actual spoken dialogue, the exact unit ElevenLabs bills against. That number is what turns "121,000 credits a month" into "about 17 episodes a month," which is the question most people searching ElevenLabs pricing are actually trying to answer.
What changed on May 7, 2026
ElevenLabs cut prices across its self-serve API and introduced pay-as-you-go billing for developers who do not want a monthly plan at all:
- Text to Speech: up to 55% cheaper. The Flash model on the Creator plan dropped from $0.11 to $0.05 per 1,000 characters processed.
- Speech to Text: up to 45% cheaper. Scribe v2 on the Starter plan fell from $0.40 to $0.22 per 1,000 characters.
- ElevenAgents: up to 20% cheaper. Starter-plan agent minutes dropped from $0.10 to $0.08 a minute.
- Pay-as-you-go, no subscription required. Anyone can now buy credits and use the API without committing to a monthly tier, aimed at teams still prototyping before they commit to production volume.
Quality and voice selection did not change. What changed is how much the same generation costs, and who can access API pricing without a subscription first. It's a similar shape to what NotebookLM's own 2026 pricing tiers changed: more capacity for the same money, not a different underlying product.
The current plans
| Plan | Monthly price | Annual price | Credits/mo | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | - | 10,000 | TTS, STT, sound effects, voice design, 3 projects. No commercial license, no voice cloning. |
| Starter | $6 | $5/mo | 30,000 | Commercial license, instant voice cloning, 20 projects, dubbing studio. |
| Creator | $22 | $18.33/mo | 121,000 | Professional voice cloning, ElevenLabs' most popular tier. |
| Pro | $99 | $82.50/mo | 600,000 | 44.1kHz PCM output via API, 192kbps audio quality. |
| Scale | $299 | $249.17/mo | 1.8M | 3 workspace seats, team collaboration, 3 professional voice clones. |
| Business | $990 | $825/mo | 6M | 10 seats, 10 professional voice clones, TTS as low as 5 cents a minute. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Negotiated volume and terms. |
Annual billing works out to 10 months of fees for 12 months of access on every paid tier. Unused credits roll over, capped at twice the plan's monthly allowance.
What a credit actually buys you
ElevenLabs bills close to 1 credit per character on its standard models, which is straightforward until you try to picture what "121,000 credits" means for something you are actually making. Applying the real median script length from Jellypod's own episodes (about 7,000 characters of spoken dialogue per two-host episode) to each plan's monthly allowance gives a much more concrete answer:
| Plan | Credits/mo | Roughly this many two-host episodes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 10,000 | ~1 |
| Starter | 30,000 | ~4 |
| Creator | 121,000 | ~17 |
| Pro | 600,000 | ~85 |
| Scale | 1.8M | ~257 |
| Business | 6M | ~857 |
That estimate assumes a median-length episode on a standard voice model, with no regenerated takes. Longer episodes, professional voice clones, or higher-fidelity models all use more credits per minute, so treat these as a ceiling, not a guarantee.
ElevenLabs vs. doing the credit math yourself
ElevenLabs is a voice engine, not a podcast platform. It does not draft a script, assign hosts, or publish an RSS feed, so the credit total above only covers turning finished text into audio. Everything before that (writing the episode, structuring it, editing it after a first pass) is a separate workflow you have to build or buy.
Jellypod uses a simpler math on the same underlying problem: credits are only spent when you generate audio, at a flat 60 credits per minute of finished output, regardless of voice or model. Drafting, editing the script, and regenerating lines while you get it right cost nothing. Jellypod's Starter plan, currently $25/mo billed yearly, includes 5,000 credits a month, about 83 minutes of finished audio, or roughly nine episodes at a typical 8 to 10 minute length. You are not estimating character counts against a per-character rate; the platform already did that math for the format it's built around.
If your bottleneck is voice quality specifically and you already have a script, editing pipeline, and distribution sorted out, ElevenLabs' per-character pricing is the right tool, and it's worth weighing against other AI voice generators on quality and cost before committing. If you are trying to go from a document or an idea to a published, two-host episode, the character math above is exactly the kind of thing a purpose-built tool absorbs for you.
Frequently asked questions
How much does ElevenLabs cost per month?
Plans run from Free (10,000 credits, no commercial rights) to $990/mo for Business (6 million credits, 10 seats). Most solo creators land on Starter ($6/mo) or Creator ($22/mo), depending on whether they need professional voice cloning. Enterprise pricing is negotiated directly with ElevenLabs.
Did ElevenLabs pricing go down in 2026?
Yes. On May 7, 2026, ElevenLabs cut Text to Speech pricing by up to 55%, Speech to Text by up to 45%, and ElevenAgents by up to 20% on its self-serve API, and introduced pay-as-you-go credits for developers who do not want a monthly subscription.
How many podcast episodes does an ElevenLabs plan actually cover?
It depends on episode length and voice model, but using a real median script length of about 7,000 characters per two-host episode, the Creator plan's 121,000 monthly credits covers roughly 17 episodes, and Pro's 600,000 credits covers roughly 85. Longer episodes or premium voice models use more credits per episode.
Is ElevenLabs cheaper than Jellypod?
They price different things. ElevenLabs charges for voice synthesis by the character. Jellypod charges 60 credits per minute of finished audio and includes scripting, editing, and publishing in the same credit pool, with drafting and regeneration free on every plan. Which is cheaper depends on whether you're only buying a voice or the entire path from source material to a published episode.
Does ElevenLabs have a free plan?
Yes, 10,000 credits a month with no commercial usage rights and no voice cloning. It covers text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, and voice design across 3 projects, enough to test quality before paying for commercial rights.
The short version
ElevenLabs got meaningfully cheaper in May 2026, up to 55% on the API rates that self-serve developers actually pay, plus a new pay-as-you-go option with no subscription required. The harder question was never the discount, it's translating a credit allowance into something you can plan a show around. Applying real episode-script data puts a number on that: Creator's 121,000 credits is about 17 two-host episodes a month, not an abstract quota. If you'd rather skip that conversion entirely, Jellypod bills by the minute of finished audio and keeps every editing pass free, so the only number you have to track is how many episodes you actually published.