ElevenLabs sells voice audio by the credit, roughly one credit per character on its standard models, on plans from Free to $990 a month. A 9-minute two-host episode is about 7,400 characters, so the Creator plan ($22 a month, 121,000 credits) covers about 16 of them, or about $1.15 each on annual billing.
I run Jellypod, so I have done this credit math for a lot of people who priced out ElevenLabs before making a show. Jellypod bills 30 credits per minute of finished audio instead, which makes a 9-minute episode 270 credits. The two are not the same product, and the last section says when each one is the right buy.
Key takeaways
- ElevenLabs Free gives 10,000 credits a month (about one episode), with no commercial license and 3 projects. Paid plans run from Starter ($6 a month) to Business ($990 a month).
- A 9-minute two-host episode is about 7,400 characters, so it costs about 7,400 ElevenLabs credits: 4 episodes on Starter, 16 on Creator, 81 on Pro.
- On Jellypod the same episode costs 270 credits, so the $25-a-month Starter plan (5,000 credits) covers 18, and regenerating audio is free.
- ElevenLabs charges only for voice. Script, hosts, hosting, and publishing are separate work, which is where the real cost per episode diverges.
The ElevenLabs pricing page, captured September 29, 2026.
How much does ElevenLabs cost per month?
ElevenLabs lists seven tiers on its pricing page, checked September 29, 2026:
| Plan | Monthly | Annual, per month | Credits a month | Notable limits and unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | n/a | 10,000 | 3 projects, no commercial license |
| Starter | $6 | $5 | 30,000 | Commercial license |
| Creator | $22 | $18.33 | 121,000 | Professional voice cloning |
| Pro | $99 | $82.50 | 600,000 | 44.1kHz PCM output, 192kbps audio |
| Scale | $299 | $249.17 | 1.8M | 3 workspace seats |
| Business | $990 | $825 | 6M | 10 seats, 10 professional voice clones |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom terms, DPA and SLA |
Creator shows a $11 first month at the time of writing. The commercial license is the line to watch on the free tier: you can test voices, but you cannot publish the audio commercially until you pay.
What is one finished podcast episode worth in credits?
ElevenLabs lists "approximately 1 credit per character" for standard text to speech, with lower rates on Flash and Turbo models through the API. To turn that into episodes, I used our own episode math: Jellypod plans a script at 150 words per minute, so a 9-minute episode is about 1,350 words, or about 7,400 characters with spaces (at roughly 5.5 characters a word, my estimate).
| Plan | Price per month (annual) | Episodes a month | Cost per episode |
|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs Starter | $5 | 4 | $1.25 |
| ElevenLabs Creator | $18.33 | 16 | $1.15 |
| ElevenLabs Pro | $82.50 | 81 | $1.02 |
| Jellypod Starter | $25 | 18 | $1.39 |
ElevenLabs episodes assume 7,400 credits with no regenerated takes. Jellypod episodes assume 270 credits (9 minutes at 30 credits a minute). Cost per episode is the monthly price divided by whole episodes.
On raw audio, ElevenLabs is cheaper per episode at every tier above Starter. The table leaves out the part that changes the answer: on ElevenLabs a retake spends credits again. On Jellypod, regenerating audio is free, so fixing a mispronounced name costs nothing. Jellypod's price also covers the script draft, up to four hosts, hosting, and publishing to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Cost per episode from the table above. Jellypod's figure includes script, hosts, hosting, and publishing.
What did ElevenLabs change in May 2026?
On May 7, 2026, ElevenLabs lowered self-serve API and Agents pricing and introduced pay as you go. Its own examples: Flash text to speech on Creator fell from $0.11 to $0.05 (up to 55% lower), Scribe v2 speech to text on Starter from $0.40 to $0.22 (up to 45%), and Agents on Starter from $0.10 to $0.08 a minute (up to 20%). ElevenLabs states that quality did not change.
The API pricing page currently lists pay-as-you-go text to speech at $0.04 per 1,000 characters for Flash and Turbo, and $0.08 for Multilingual v2 and v3. At those rates the 7,400-character episode costs about $0.30 on Flash or about $0.59 on v2 or v3. It also shows a promotional rate on the v4 models, "72% off until Oct 12", so check the page before you budget around them.
Pay as you go matters if you are calling the API from your own app. It does nothing for the cost of writing the script or publishing the show. Jellypod has an API too, on the Creator plan and above, and it returns finished episodes rather than a raw audio stream.
Which ElevenLabs plan should a podcaster pick?
Match the plan to the episodes you make, not the credit total:
- Testing voices: Free covers about one episode and blocks commercial use.
- One show a week: Starter's 30,000 credits cover about 4 episodes, with a commercial license.
- Two or three shows, or retakes: Creator's 121,000 credits cover about 16 episodes with headroom for retakes.
- Volume and teams: Pro and above are for API workloads and shared workspaces, not a solo podcast.
Is ElevenLabs or Jellypod cheaper for a podcast?
For voice audio from a script you already wrote, ElevenLabs is usually cheaper, and its voices have finer emotion and style control. If you also need the script, the hosts, hosting, and distribution, the audio bill is only one line of the cost.
A Jellypod episode is a topic, link, or file, then an editable script, then audio for one to four hosts up to 60 minutes on every plan, then a published feed. Credits are spent when narration and visuals are generated, and drafting, editing, publishing, and downloading are free. Starter includes 5,000 credits, Creator 11,000, and Business 30,000 a month, and you can buy top-ups on paid plans. For the full feature-by-feature view, see Jellypod vs ElevenLabs.
If you only need a voice for a script you already have, our text to voice tool is the closer match, and how to make an AI voice sound human applies to either tool. If your real job is editing recorded audio, compare Descript pricing. If you only want a private audio summary of your notes, see NotebookLM pricing.
What should you verify before buying?
- Your real episode length. Double the episode and every ElevenLabs count above halves.
- Retakes. Count how many times you regenerate a typical episode and multiply the credits.
- Model. Flash, v2, and v3 bill differently, and I used 1 credit per character for the standard case.
- License. Confirm the commercial terms for your plan on the ElevenLabs pricing page.
