ElevenLabs Review (2024) – Is This Worth the Hype?

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About ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs is an American tech research company founded by Piotr Dabkowski and Mati Staniszewski in 2022. They work on developing natural-sounding text-to-speech and voice-generation software by implementing AI and deep learning techniques.

They offer a variety of AI voice tools on their platform. From AI voice generation to voice dubbing, voice changing, and voice cloning, you get everything under one roof! Recently, ElevenLabs raised $80 million in January 2024, making it the latest AI Unicorn!

ElevenLabs aims to break language barriers with on-demand audio translation for all kinds of voices, from education to movies, gaming, and even real-time conversations.

How does ElevenLabs Work?

ElevenLabs is built on a deep-learning model for speech synthesis. First, the AI model is trained on extensive amounts of human speech. This helps it identify and understand the nuances of human language like tones, rhythm, pitch, intonations, and emotions. 

Once the AI model is trained on large amounts of data, it can accurately replicate human speech in its natural flow. This is how you can generate surprisingly realistic voices in ElevenLabs.

ElevenLabs User Interface

The user interface of ElevenLabs looks simple, neat, and easy to use. As you log in, the dashboard features the Speech Synthesis tool where you can generate speech from text or speech.

All other tools are neatly arranged on the left panel, allowing for effortless access with a single click. Overall, I found the interface to be well-organized and easy to navigate. Even beginners will be able to operate it with no trouble.

Testing Parameters

To test the AI voice capabilities of ElevenLabs, I used the following audio content in the English and Hindi languages. Throughout this article, I’ve used these recordings to generate different types of AI voices. 

English Audio on AI Art Copyright Law

Hindi Audio on Importance of Reading Books

These audios are recorded in my original voice. Now, let’s start experimenting with the below tools to see how my voice changes! 

ElevenLabs Features

Now, let’s dive deeper and discover the key features offered by ElevenLabs. 

1) AI Models

ElevenLabs offers different AI voice models. You can select anyone as per your use case.

• Eleven Turbo V2: This is the fastest AI model built by ElevenLabs. It can generate highly refined and natural-sounding speech in English, with an audio generation time of approximately 400 ms!
• Eleven English V1: This is the first AI model released by ElevenLabs. It generates speech in different voices, moods, and styles. But it’s restricted to the English language.
• Eleven Multilingual V1: This model supports 9 language options for generating lifelike voices.
• Eleven Multilingual V2: It can generate realistic voiceovers in 29 mainstream languages.

So, if you need to generate content in a range of languages, you can use the Eleven Multilingual V2. For English voices, the Eleven English V1 model would be suitable. Whereas, if you need fast generating in English, the Eleven Turbo V2 model is the best!

The best part is that ElevenLabs automatically recommends the most appropriate AI model whenever you select an AI voice.

 2) Voice Library

ElevenLabs features 40+ pre-made voices in different English accents, like American, British, Indian, Australian, and African. But if you want to experiment with different languages and styles, they have an enormous library of 10k+ AI voices from their community.

ElevenLabs supports 29 different languages, including French, German, Hindi, Arabic, Korean, Italian, and more. You can filter these voices by parameters like category, gender, age, and accent, or use cases like Conversational, Social Media, Advertisement, Narrative & Story, etc.

Under each AI voice, you can find different tags describing the characteristics of their voice, like calm, pleasant, childish, gentle, deep, intense, etc. Overall, their voice library is very rich. However, they should add a language and a tone filter to pick the best voices with ease.

3) Voice Settings

If you wish to customize your generated voice, you can do so from the Voice Settings tab. It features a slider bar where you can adjust the voice stability, and refine the clarity + similarity enhancement, style exaggeration, and speaker boost. Let’s understand these features below.

Voice Stability

Lower stability values can produce more expressive speech with varying outputs. Higher values generate more stable and monotonous speech. 

For instance, here’s a voice generated at 97% voice stability. Look at how monotonous it sounds. You can’t feel much emotion in the voice. 

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Whereas, here’s the same audio generated at 1% voice stability. The difference is quite evident. You can actually feel the emotions and intonations here. 

Clarity+Similarity Enhancement

This setting is mainly used with the Voice Changer tool. Low values are recommended if there are distortions present in the speech. Higher values can improve voice clarity. However, very high values can lead to distortions in speech. It’s best to keep it on a balanced scale.

Style Exaggeration

This setting is also primarily used with the Voice Changer tool. It’s at 0.0 by default, which ensures better generation speeds. You can increase the values to produce a more exaggerated speech than your input audio. However, extremely high values can cause instability. 

Here’s how the above voice sounds with 85% style exaggeration.

Speaker Boost

It improves the similarity of the generated speech to the original voice. Enabling this option may lower the speeds a bit. However, I didn’t notice any major differences by enabling this setting. You can keep it enabled by default.

4) Audio Export and Sharing

The AI voice files generated by ElevenLabs can be exported in MP3 format or shared with others via public links. 

The receivers can listen to the AI voices for free without registering on ElevenLabs. However, they don’t have advanced sharing options like link password protection, emailing specific users via links, etc.

ElevenLabs Voice Tools

1) AI Voice Generation

You can generate AI speech in your favorite voice through the Text-to-Speech tool. All you have to do is paste your script in the text box. It will show you the number of words (credits) consumed under the script.

Then, select a language model and an AI voice. Finally, tweak the voice settings like stability, clarity, and style and hit the ‘Generate’ button. Following are the outputs generated by the Text-to-Speech tool. 

AI Voice in English

AI Voice in Hindi

I loved the quality of the AI voice outputs in ElevenLabs. They were crisp, clear, and very realistic. Nobody can tell them apart from the voices of real people!

2) Voice Changing

Have you ever wanted to transform your voice into a different one? Maybe a deeper masculine voice, or a high-pitched feminine one? ElevenLabs AI makes this possible with its Voice Changer tool.

To change your voice, you simply need to head over to the Speech-to-Speech tool and upload your voice. Then you can choose the target voice from their extensive library and watch the transformation!

Check out some examples that I generated with the Speech-to-Speech tool. 

AI Voice in English

AI Voice in Hindi

I loved this tool. It preserved all the details of the input audio, including the tone, pitch, style, voice intonation, and variations. However, it only works well as long as the input and output languages are the same.

For example, when I uploaded a Hindi audio and tried to change it into an American female’s voice, the pronunciation of words was terrible. So, make sure you select the right language when using this tool.

3) Instant Voice Cloning

What if AI could record your podcasts or videos in your voice? Think about the number of hours it would save! Well, all of this is now possible with AI Voice Cloning. This tool simply requires a sample of your voice and then trains itself to generate new sounds and narrations based on it.

To test this tool, I uploaded a few samples of my voice recordings in both English and Hindi languages. Then, I used the cloned voice to read out a script with a mix of English and Hindi content that was similar in context to the training data. 

I was impressed at how swiftly it created the voice clone. Following is the cloned voice reading out a text in English and Hindi languages. Let me know which one sounds similar to my voice!

Kripesh’s Cloned Voice

To my surprise, the Hindi voice sounded quite similar to my original voice. However, it converted the English script into an American accent, which I didn’t like much.

They also have a professional voice cloning feature, which is available on the Creator plan. It may take up to a month to train the AI model on your voice, but the results produced are starkly similar to the original voice!

For example, here’s a professional voice clone of my voice that I trained on a decent amount of long-form data.

Kripesh’s Professional Voice Clone

In my opinion, this output sounds much more similar to my original voice. What do you think? How similar is it? Let me know in the comments below.

Overall, voice cloning is a valuable tool and can help you immensely with content creation. But it still needs a lot of improvements. I loved the accuracy of the professional voice clone, though.

The free plan offers 3 custom voices. Whereas, on my plan (Creator plan), I’m getting 30 custom voices. I’m sure this tool will enhance your productivity and also help maintain a constant audio quality!

4) Voice Dubbing 

You can even dub your voice into a different language with ElevenLabs. To get started, you can select your source language, and target language, and upload your video or audio file. It also supports platforms like YouTube, X, Vimeo, TikTok, etc.

In my experience, the English-to-Hindi dubbing was superb. For instance, here’s the English-to-Hindi dubbed version of my audio track on “AI Art Copyright Laws”’.

English to Hindi Dubbing

As you can observe, it does sound a bit like me! I like how the dubbed version matched the pace, style, and tone of delivery. It makes the overall voice dubbing sound natural. 

However, it used pure Hindi language with a rich and complex vocabulary. If you wish to simplify the words used in the audio, there’s no option to edit the script.

Next, I tried to dub my Hindi audio content on “Importance of Reading Books” into English. Let’s hear how that sounds!

Hindi to English Dubbing

I personally didn’t like this version. The dubbing made the overall speech very slow and made my voice sound like I was speaking in an Italian English accent! 

Overall, the Hindi-to-English dubbing was poor. But there’s a lot of potential with English-to-Hindi dubbing. This could work for YouTube video content, podcasts, film production, educational content, etc. You can also experiment with other languages to see if it works well!

5) Long-Form Speech Synthesis

If your work revolves around creating long-form content like audiobooks, you’ll love the Projects tool. You can import your script through URL, document, or simply paste it as text content. 

Next, you can pick your project name, narration voice, AI model, voice quality, download settings, and update the pronunciation dictionary for specific words. 

You’ll be forwarded to the Long-form Speech Editor, where you can format and add more content as chapters.  

It lets you assign multiple narrators to different paragraphs and add as many as 200 chapters per project! After you’re done adding your chapters, you can convert it into an audiobook and download it as an MP3 file. It’s a really exciting tool for voice artists and audiobook creators!

Listen to this children’s audiobook I created narrating the story “The Adventures of Elsa”. It comprises 3 chapters with multiple speakers!

So, did you like the audiobook? Did it sound realistic or could you guess it was AI-generated? Share your opinions in the comments box below!

6) AI Speech Classifier

This tool helps you identify if a piece of audio was generated using ElevenLabs. To start using it, you can upload your audio on the platform.

It thoroughly analyzes the first minute of the sample and detects its probability of being created using ElevenLabs. 

7) Audio Native

Have you ever wanted a media player on your blog posts that automatically reads out all your content for the users? The Audio Native feature of ElevenLabs makes that possible. 

It’s basically an AI text-to-speech generator for your blog or website.

You can provide your website URL and customize the audio player settings like appearance, voice, pronunciation, etc. It generates an iFrame script that can be embedded into your website to implement this functionality.

If you are a blogger or a website owner, this could be an interesting feature to try out!

8) Prompting

If you want to refine the text-to-voice generation capabilities of ElevenLabs, they have advanced prompts you can use to bring out different effects.

For example, to add pauses in your script, you can use the command: <break time =”1.0s” />

You can adjust the timing and position of the pause according to your script. Alternatively, you can also a add simple dash (-), em-dash (—), or multiple dashes (– –) for inserting pauses between your sentences.

Similarly, they also have commands for adding emotions and alternate pronunciations for different words. This feature may be slightly complex to use for an average user.

If you want more information on prompting, you can check out the ElevenLabs Prompting Guide.

How Can You Earn With ElevenLabs?

If you were wondering how you can start earning with ElevenLabs, here’s an interesting way. They now allow you to share your professionally cloned voices in their Voice Library.

Whenever someone uses your voice on their projects, you will earn a share of the revenue. However, this is only applicable to Professionally Cloned Voices, which are available on the Creator+ plan.

So, this is a simple way through which you can earn a passive income with ElevenLabs. For more details, you can check out their guidelines on sharing your professionally cloned voices.

ElevenLabs Support

ElevenLabs offers customer support via a knowledge base and email tickets. The knowledge base features 90+ articles. I liked how the articles are straightforward, and cover all the major user queries.

They also have a helpful Discord community where you can interact with other ElevenLabs users and get their help in troubleshooting your problems. Overall, the support offered by ElevenLabs is good. I hope they also introduce chat support in the future!

ElevenLabs Roadmap

I loved the fact that ElevenLabs is growing at a swift pace. Their changelog depicts consistent additions of features. For example, they added the Dubbing Studio Alpha and the Voice Library 3.0 in the last few months. You can check out the ElevenLabs Changelog page for more details.

ElevenLabs Pricing

ElevenLabs AI offers 4 premium plans, namely Starter, Creator, Independent Publisher, and Growing Business. Besides these, it also has an enterprise plan for larger businesses with custom requirements.

The following table compares the key features of ElevenLabs’ pricing plans.

	Starter	Creator	Independent Publisher	Growing Business
Pricing	$1/mo	$11/mo	$99/mo	$330/mo
Characters	30k	100k	500k	2M
Custom Voices	10	30	160	660
License	Commercial	Commercial	Commercial	Commercial
Additional Characters	N.A.	$0.30 per 1k char	$0.24 per 1k char	$0.18 per 1k char

For this review, I have purchased the Creator plan which is priced at $11/month. With this plan, you get 100k characters/month along with 30 custom voices, professional voice cloning, and the ability to create long-form content.

With the Creator plan, you also get a commercial license, so you can use the AI-generated voices for commercial projects too.

In my opinion, there’s a huge gap between the Creator and the Independent Publisher plans. They should introduce a mid-tier plan around $50/month, as switching from $11/month to $99/month may not be viable for most of the users!

Free Plan

Yes, ElevenLabs has an impressive free plan, where you get 10k characters/month (~1.5k to 2.5k words), and 3 custom voices. However, you can only use your generated voices for personal use. A commercial license is not available on the free plan.

Payment Methods

You can make your payment through the following methods on ElevenLabs: International credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

Refund Policy

ElevenLabs offers refunds within 14 days of purchase. However, to get your money back, you shouldn’t have used any character credits for that duration.

I personally didn’t like these conditions imposed on the refund. A refund policy secures users from losing their money if the product isn’t what they need. Thus, I think ElevenLabs should offer a 14-day money-back guarantee with no conditions.

Will AI Voice Be Monetized?

A major concern for creators using AI voices is the monetization aspect of these voices. You can easily use AI-generated voices for creating marketing content, including Facebook and Google Ads, etc. But will it be monetized?

A while back, there were no issues with the monetization of AI voices. However, now they have introduced some strict guidelines which makes monetization tricky.

So, my suggestion would be to use Audacity to fine-tune your AI voice before publishing it online. You can find the Audacity tutorials on YouTube. Just follow the steps to fine-tune your voice and you’re good to go!

Alternatively, you can also use the Pro Voice Cloning feature available on ElevenLabs premium plans. Cloned voices combined with fine-tuning through Audacity will help you safely bypass any monetization issues.

Another tip from my side would be to use good quality creatives, including videos, images, text effects, and background music to create an engaging end-product. This will make the monetization even easier.

ElevenLabs Pros

1) Highly Refined Voices

ElevenLabs offers highly natural and lifelike voices. It generated a natural-sounding speech with natural pauses, pacing, and tone inflections.

2) Extensive Voice Library

ElevenLabs features 40+ highly refined and realistic AI voices in different English accents. If you wish to experiment with more languages, they also have a Community Library where you can find 10k+ voices in different languages and styles.

3) Modern Interface

The user interface of ElevenLabs is modern, clean, and organized. The dashboard is easy to navigate and even beginners will find it easy to use. 

4) Versatile Voice Platform

ElevenLabs is a versatile tool with an AI Voice Generator, Voice Cloning, Voice Changing, Voice Dubbing, and more. Thus, you can perform all kinds of voice-related tasks right from ElevenLabs itself.

5) Fast Voice Cloning

The professional voice cloning tool offered by ElevenLabs is appreciable. Even though it’s not precise at the moment, the results are pretty close to the original voice. The best thing is that it generates a voice clone instantly!

6) Impressive Voice Changer

I loved the AI Speech-to-Speech tool of ElevenLabs. It changes your voice to an AI voice with utmost precision. The results are super impressive.

7) Long-form Audiobooks

ElevenLabs also offers long-form voice creation on its Creator plan and above. This is great for creating audiobooks separated by chapters. It also ensures a consistent voice and tone throughout your audiobook. 

8) Affordable Starter Plan

The pricing plans of ElevenLabs AI start from an affordable price of $1/month, where you get 30k characters/month. (between 4200 and 7500 words) This is an excellent and pocket-friendly way to test out this tool.

ElevenLabs Cons

1) Limited Customization

At the moment, ElevenLabs offers limited customization options. I think more options could be added. For example, the ability to shift voice pitch, or mold a voice according to a certain tone or emotion with ease.

2) Average Voice Dubbing

The voice dubbing performed by ElevenLabs is not very precise. They also don’t allow editing the script of the dubbing to simplify or customize the language and words. ElevenLabs can surely work on improving the voice dubbing.

3) Complex Pronunciation Dictionary

Most AI Voice Generators offer a pronunciation dictionary in case you want a specific word to be pronounced differently. However, ElevenLabs lets you add pronunciations through prompts, which is quite complex.

4) Measures Character Count

ElevenLabs counts the AI Credits in characters, not words, unlike other voice generators. So, before generating your AI voice, trim out all the blank spaces from your script to save up on the character credits.

5) Doubtful Refund Policy

ElevenLabs offers a 14-day refund policy with its plans. However, the amount is refunded only if you haven’t used any AI credits on your plan. I think they should not impose any restrictions and offer a transparent refund policy. 

Who Should Use Eleven Labs?

ElevenLabs is a versatile AI voice platform that could be used for high-quality content narrations or voiceovers. They can also be used for creating audiobooks, online courses, video games, podcasts, storytelling, etc.

Thus, ElevenLabs AI could be a really valuable tool for content creators, startups, YouTubers, freelancers, small businesses, video game developers, educators, bloggers, voice artists, and all AI enthusiasts.

Why Should You Trust Me?

I’ve been working full-time in the digital industry since 2015. In all these years, I’ve used and tested hundreds of AI tools. These include AI writers, AI domain name generators, AI website builders, AI Art Generators, AI video generators, and so on!

I’ve recently tested dozens of AI Voice Generators for creating an article on the Best AI Voice Generation Tools. Testing out so many AI tools regularly has given me the knowledge and experience to suggest to you the right one for your needs.

Conclusion

ElevenLabs looks like a powerful AI Voice Platform with versatile tools. It features an extensive voice library offering multiple languages and accents, and tools for dubbing, cloning, and changing your voice. All of this is available at an affordable price starting from $1/month!

However, they can work on adding more features, like better customization options, a simpler pronunciation dictionary, and improving the voice dubbing tools. Overall, if you’re a YouTuber, startup, voice artist, video game developer, etc you can consider trying out ElevenLabs!

Anyway, have you used any AI voice generators before? How does ElevenLabs compare to them? Let me know in the comments below. And if you’re interested in AI voices, you can also check out the list of our Best AI Voice Generators.

I’ll be back with more such interesting articles soon. This is Kripesh signing off. Cheers, and keep learning. 🙂

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