Free tool · TTS cost calculator

What will AI narration actually cost you?

Skip the spec tables. Enter how much you narrate per month and see every ElevenLabs plan priced against your real volume — with the cheapest plan that honestly fits highlighted. Including “stay on free” when that’s the right answer.

Plan prices & credits checked September 23, 2026 — see the math

Finished narration per month

Minutes of finished audio. A weekly 10-minute video ≈ 40 minutes/month.

Will this narration earn money?

Regeneration margin

Every plan, priced against your volume

Cheapest plan that fits your credits and your license needs wins. Usage bars show what share of each plan’s quota you’d burn.

Plan	Price / mo	Credits / mo	Your usage	Verdict

Annual billing usually cuts about 17% off the monthly price — Creator works out near $18/mo billed yearly. Confirm the live number on elevenlabs.io/pricing before buying; we re-check these figures regularly.

Show your math

No black box. Here is exactly how the number above is built:

Model note: we assume 1 character = 1 credit (the standard Multilingual v2 / v3 rate). ElevenLabs’ faster Flash and Turbo models cost about half a credit per character, so if you narrate on those, halve the credit numbers above.

Or hire a human voice actor?

Standard eLearning narration runs about $0.25/word — roughly $37.50 per finished minute at a typical 150 wpm pace (Jessica Lewis Voice, published rate guide). Here’s that against your number:

Human voice actor (one month of your volume)

—

plus scheduling, retakes billed extra, revisions billed extra

Your recommended ElevenLabs plan

—

unlimited regenerations inside your quota, revise one line free

AI voice isn’t always the right call — a human is still better for emotional, character-driven, or premium-brand reads. But for straight narration at volume, the math is not close.

Your full breakdown is ready

See every ElevenLabs plan priced against your volume, the step-by-step math behind the recommendation, and what a human voice actor would cost for the same work.

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Quick answers

How many credits does one minute of narration use?

About 1,000 characters makes about 1 minute of finished audio, and the standard models charge 1 credit per character — so roughly 1,000 credits per minute. We show every step in Show your math above.

Can I stay on the free plan?

If your narration earns nothing and fits inside 10,000 credits (~10 minutes/month), yes. Two catches: the free tier is non-commercial — no monetized videos, no client work — and published free-tier content requires attribution (putting “elevenlabs.io” in the title). The week anything earns money, Starter ($6/month) is the cheapest legal move.

What if I regenerate a lot?

Every regeneration burns credits — that’s why the calculator defaults to a +25% margin. If you chase the perfect read, pick +50% before trusting the recommendation. Regenerating inside one quota still costs you nothing extra.

Is annual billing worth it?

ElevenLabs’ annual billing usually runs about 17% cheaper than paying monthly. It’s worth it once your volume has been stable for 2–3 months — not before, because unused credits don’t roll over forever and your cadence might change.

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No earnings promises: this calculator is about cost and credits, not about how much you’ll make. Plan prices and credit quotas verified against published ElevenLabs pricing, September 23, 2026 — always confirm on elevenlabs.io/pricing before buying, since plans change.

Disclosure: Ear Tested is reader-supported. We participate in the ElevenLabs Creator Affiliate Program — if you sign up through our links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes our test results or the math above.