ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs turns text into spoken audio, clones voices, and now generates music and sound effects, and it is the default choice for podcasters, indie game makers and developers building voice agents. The Free plan is a permanent 10,000 credits a month with no card required.

What the free plan gives you

You get 10k credits per month, which covers roughly ten minutes of standard text to speech. Speech to Text, Sound Effects, Voice Design, Music, Productions and Image are all switched on, and you can keep 3 projects in Studio. You get 2 custom voice slots and around 10 concurrent requests, which is enough to wire the API into a prototype. Free output carries an attribution requirement and is for non-commercial use.

Where the free plan stops

The two things that push most people to pay are the commercial licence and voice cloning. Neither is on the Free plan. The Starter plan at $6 a month adds a commercial licence, Instant Voice Cloning, 20 Studio projects, Dubbing Studio and 30k credits. If you burn through credits producing long-form audio, the Creator plan at $22 a month (121k credits) and Professional Voice Cloning is the next step. The 2 voice slot cap on Free is also tight if you want a cast of characters.

Who it suits

Take the Free plan if you want to test voices, script a demo, or run a low-volume hobby project where attribution is fine. Anyone publishing audio for a client, a paid product or monetised YouTube channel needs Starter at minimum, since the commercial licence lives there and 10k credits runs out in a single long episode.