ElevenLabs
A Tier · 8.5/10
Best-in-class AI voice generation -- now includes 11.ai (MCP-based voice assistant), Eleven v3 expressive speech, and IBM watsonx partnership. $500M raise at $11B valuation (Feb 2026)
Score Breakdown
The Good and the Bad
What we like
- +Voice quality is still the best available -- Eleven v3 (2026) adds expressive speech with laughter, sighs, emotional inflection that no competitor matches
- +11.ai (alpha launched June 2025, still gated through 2026) is the first serious MCP-based voice-first personal assistant -- persistent context across tasks, talk-not-type agent workflows
- +Voice cloning from just a few minutes of audio remains shockingly accurate, now with stronger consent/verification after 2025 deepfake incidents
- +~50% pricing cut in February 2026 (post-$500M raise at $11B valuation) makes the Starter and Creator tiers significantly more affordable than in 2025
What could be better
- −Character limits mean costs still add up fast for long-form content (audiobooks, podcasts) even after the 2026 price cut
- −Free tier restricts you to personal use -- need to pay for commercial
- −11.ai is alpha-only -- not yet GA and access is gated
- −Mistral Voxtral TTS (March 2026) now offers open-source 4B-param speech for free -- the gap has narrowed for self-hosting use cases
Pricing
Free
- ✓10,000 characters/mo
- ✓3 custom voices
- ✓Eleven v3 access
- ✓Personal use only
Starter
- ✓30,000 chars/mo
- ✓10 custom voices
- ✓Commercial license
- ✓Pricing cut ~50% in Feb 2026
Creator
- ✓100,000 chars/mo
- ✓30 custom voices
- ✓Professional Voice Cloning
- ✓Eleven v3 expressive speech
11.ai (Alpha)
- ✓MCP-based voice-first personal assistant
- ✓Persistent context across tasks
- ✓Launched June 2025 as alpha proof-of-concept; access still gated, ongoing maturation through 2026
Enterprise (IBM watsonx)
- ✓Agentic voice for enterprise via IBM partnership (March 25 2026)
- ✓Regulated-industry voice cloning
- ✓Volume pricing
Known Issues
- DEPRECATION STATUS SETTLED (verified on vendor docs 2026-07-18): **scribe_v1 is now formally listed in the 'Deprecated models' table** -- 'First generation speech recognition (outclassed by v2 models)', replacement suggestion `scribe_v2` -- with NO removal date published (the ambiguous removal wording from early July is gone; it remains deprecated-but-available). Current STT flagships are Scribe v2 and Scribe v2 Realtime. Also now marked deprecated/legacy on the same models page: **eleven_turbo_v2_5, eleven_turbo_v2, and music_v1**. The monolingual_v1 + multilingual_v1 removals executed 7/9-7/10 stand. If you still call any v1 or turbo_v2-era model id, plan migrations now rather than waiting for a removal date to be announcedSource: ElevenLabs docs: Models (elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/models, scraped 2026-07-18) · 2026-07-18
- V1 MODEL REMOVAL EXECUTED (2026-07-09; confirmed via docs delisting 7/10): **eleven_monolingual_v1 and eleven_multilingual_v1 are now delisted entirely from the vendor models page** -- the July 9 removal went through as scheduled, and pinned API calls to those TTS v1 model IDs should be treated as failing. **scribe_v1 remains listed as deprecated** ('outclassed by v2 models') with the removal-date wording now gone -- if you're still pinned to scribe_v1, migrate to scribe_v2 immediately rather than betting on the ambiguity. No past-tense changelog entry was posted for the removal; the delisting is the confirmation. These are model deprecations, not voice-library removals; cloned/library voices are unaffected. Separately (7/6 changelog): the Agents 'Simulate conversation' endpoints are deprecated in favor of newer test endpoints, and the `disable_interruptions` param was replaced by `interruption_mode`Source: ElevenLabs docs (elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/models -- checked 2026-07-09 and 2026-07-10), ElevenLabs changelog (2026-06-08 removal announcement) · 2026-07-09
- PRODUCT (2026-05-26 + 2026-05-28): **Eleven Music v2** (5/26) -- genre switching mid-track, coherent fast rap, embedded sound effects in generated tracks (see the elevenmusic page for detail). **Dubbing v2** (5/28) -- next-gen dubbing pipeline on the main platform. Also: UK Government voice-AI partnership announced 6/8. No pricing changes attached to either releaseSource: ElevenLabs blog (elevenlabs.io/blog), TechCrunch (2026-05-27) · 2026-05-28
- Platform continues to face deepfake-abuse pressure -- voice cloning requires verified identity for new accounts as of 2026Source: The Verge · 2026-01
- 11.ai alpha has intermittent latency issues on longer agentic chains -- still maturingSource: Product Hunt 11.ai threads · 2026-03
Best for
Content creators who need the highest-quality voiceovers, audiobook producers, developers building voice-enabled apps, and enterprises using IBM watsonx wanting premium agentic voice. 11.ai alpha users who want voice-first AI assistants.
Not for
Users who only need occasional text-to-speech (browser TTS is free), or open-source purists (Mistral Voxtral fills that niche now).
Our Verdict
ElevenLabs remained the clear voice-quality leader through 2026 and extended its lead with Eleven v3 expressive speech plus the 11.ai MCP-based voice assistant (alpha). The February 2026 $500M raise at $11B and subsequent ~50% pricing cut made the consumer tiers meaningfully cheaper. The IBM watsonx partnership unlocks regulated-industry enterprise voice. If you produce any serious audio content, this is still the default. The only real competitive pressure is from Mistral's Voxtral TTS on the open-source side and from Google/Meta native voice models bundled into Gemini/Llama.
Sources
- ElevenLabs docs: Models (scribe_v1/turbo_v2/music_v1 deprecated; v1 removals executed) (accessed 2026-07-18)
- ElevenLabs official site (accessed 2026-04-16)
- Voice.ai: ElevenLabs debuts 11.ai (accessed 2026-04-16)
- IBM Newsroom: ElevenLabs + IBM watsonx (accessed 2026-04-16)
- G2 Reviews (accessed 2026-04-16)
- Hands-on testing (including 11.ai alpha) (accessed 2026-04-16)
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