ElevenLabs alternatives

Read this before comparing the minutes

All three vendors sell monthly credits and translate them into minutes of speech. Those minute figures are each vendor's own estimate on its own models. They are useful for comparing price levels. They say nothing about how the voices sound, and we have not generated the same script on each service yet.

Where the alternatives differ on paper

Entry price. At the time of the checks shown below, the lowest paid plans at Cartesia and Fish Audio list more included minutes for the money than ElevenLabs' lowest paid plan. The table has the exact figures.

Annual billing. ElevenLabs says annual billing means paying for ten months out of twelve. Fish Audio shows its annual prices by default and lists the monthly price beside them, so check which one you are reading. Cartesia's pricing page shows monthly prices.

Unused credits. ElevenLabs rolls unused credits over for up to two months on paid plans. Cartesia says credits roll over and that you can hold up to twice your monthly credits. Fish Audio says monthly quotas reset and unused minutes do not roll over.

Commercial use. None of the three allows commercial use on the free plan according to their pricing pages. ElevenLabs lists a commercial license from Starter, Cartesia from Pro, and Fish Audio says paid subscribers can use verified voices they own commercially.

Free plans. All three have one. They differ in monthly credits and, at Fish Audio, in a cap on characters per generation.

API. Fish Audio bills API use separately from subscriptions, as pay-as-you-go credit. Cartesia's plans include prepaid credit for voice agents alongside speech credits.

Which to look at first

• You want the lowest monthly bill for narration: start with the entry plans in the table and compare included minutes.
• Your usage is uneven from month to month: rollover matters. ElevenLabs and Cartesia state one, Fish Audio does not offer it.
• You are building a voice agent or calling an API: read each vendor's API pricing, which is separate from these subscription plans.

What is missing here

Two things, and we would rather say so than fill the space. We have no sourced data on why people leave ElevenLabs, so this page does not claim to know. And we have not run a listening test. When we do, the script, the audio files, the plan and the date will be published here.