Voice AI pricing looks simple on the surface — a flat monthly fee — until you actually try to figure out how much narration that fee buys you. Here's how ElevenLabs and PlayHT pricing breaks down in practice.
ElevenLabs plan tiers
| Plan | Price | Characters included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 10,000 / month |
| Starter | $5/mo | 30,000 / month |
| Creator | $22/mo | 100,000 / month |
| Pro | $99/mo | 500,000 / month |
| Scale | $330/mo | 2,000,000 / month |
Converting characters to actual minutes
Spoken English runs roughly 800-1,000 characters per minute of narration at a natural pace. That means:
- The Creator plan (100,000 characters) covers roughly 100-125 minutes of finished narration per month
- The Pro plan (500,000 characters) covers roughly 8-10 hours per month
If you're producing a weekly 10-minute podcast intro or narrating short-form video scripts, Creator at $22/month is usually plenty. Audiobook-length projects need Pro or Scale.
Voice cloning changes the math
Cloning a custom voice from a sample recording is included on Creator tier and above, but cloned voices typically consume characters at a higher effective rate than stock voices — plan for roughly 15-20% more character usage when generating with a cloned voice versus a standard library voice.
ElevenLabs vs PlayHT
| ElevenLabs | PlayHT | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry paid tier | $5/mo | Free (12,500 chars one-time) |
| Mid tier | $22/mo (100K chars) | $39/mo (600K chars) |
| Voice count | 5,000+ library | 900+ library |
| Languages | 32+ | 142 |
PlayHT's Creator plan includes roughly 6x more characters than ElevenLabs' Creator plan for less than double the price — meaningfully cheaper per character at that tier. ElevenLabs' strength is voice quality and its larger, more polished voice library; PlayHT leans on lower cost-per-character and broader language coverage.
A daily 3-minute video narration script (~2,700 characters/day) uses roughly 81,000 characters/month — just inside ElevenLabs' Creator tier at $22/month, or comfortably inside PlayHT's Creator tier at $39/month with 7x headroom to spare.
Watch for character overage pricing
Going over your monthly character allotment on either platform triggers pay-as-you-go overage charges, typically priced noticeably higher per character than your plan's included rate. If your usage fluctuates month to month, it's often cheaper to size up one tier than to eat overage fees regularly — run the numbers on your actual usage before assuming the cheaper base plan wins.