ElevenLabs measures usage in credits. Every plan includes a monthly allowance, and text to speech, speech to text, sound effects, music, voice changing and dubbing all draw from that same pool. For text to speech on the ElevenLabs website, the basic rule is simple: one character of text costs one credit. Beyond that, costs depend on the product, the model, the voice and whether you use the website or the API. This guide explains how credits are counted, where the rules differ, and how to estimate what a project will use.
Plan, credit and model details in this guide come from ElevenLabs' official pricing pages, documentation and help center, checked October 2, 2026. ElevenLabs changes its plans, models and offers often, so confirm the current figures before you rely on them. The worked examples are WriterFlowLab's own estimates, not measurements, and we have not run hands-on tests. WriterFlowLab may earn a commission if you sign up for ElevenLabs through links on this site. See our affiliate disclosure and editorial policy.
What a credit is
A credit is ElevenLabs' unit of usage. Its pricing page says all products "draw from one shared monthly credit pool", so credits spent on one feature leave fewer for the others. According to ElevenLabs' billing documentation, the number of credits an action uses "depends on your plan, whether you're generating via the website or API, the product you're using, and the model."
Monthly credits by plan
Checked October 2, 2026. ElevenLabs' plan comparison table also gives an approximate number of minutes of text to speech on the website for each plan:
- Free: 10,000 credits a month (about 10 minutes)
- Starter: 30,000 credits (about 30 minutes)
- Creator: 121,000 credits (about 121 minutes)
- Pro: 600,000 credits (about 600 minutes)
- Scale: 1,800,000 credits (about 1,800 minutes)
- Business: 6,000,000 credits (about 6,000 minutes)
- Enterprise: a custom number of credits
For prices and the features included in each plan, see our ElevenLabs overview or ElevenLabs' official pricing page.
How text to speech uses credits
On the ElevenLabs website
ElevenLabs' model documentation says that for generations in its web app, one character costs one credit on each of its current text to speech models, including Eleven v4, Eleven v3, Multilingual v2, and the Flash and Turbo models, "excluding credit multipliers" (explained below).
Because usage is based on the text you submit, estimate from your script's character count rather than its word count.
Through the API
API usage is where the rules diverge. ElevenLabs' pricing page says Multilingual v2 costs one credit per character, while its Flash and Turbo models are discounted for API usage, "costing between 0.5 and 1 credit per character." The models documentation also describes API generations as discounted. ElevenLabs also publishes separate API pricing, quoted in dollars per 1,000 characters for text to speech and per minute or hour for other products, along with pay-as-you-go options. If you build with the API, use the API pricing page rather than the web-app rule.
Voices with credit multipliers
Some voices in ElevenLabs' Voice Library cost more credits to use. According to its help center, these are voices whose owners set a custom rate when they shared them, which is now a legacy feature that is not available for newly shared voices. A voice with a 2x multiplier, for example, uses twice the credits of a standard voice. ElevenLabs labels these voices in the library and shows a notice before you generate.
Credit costs for other ElevenLabs products
ElevenLabs' pricing page lists these approximate costs. Most are charged by the minute or per generation rather than per character:
- Speech to text: 330 credits per minute
- Music: 900 credits per minute
- Sound effects: 200 credits per generation
- Voice Changer and Voice Isolator: 1,000 credits per minute
- Dubbing: 2,000 credits per minute for automatic dubbing with a watermark, 3,000 without a watermark, 5,000 in Dubbing Studio with a watermark, and 10,000 in Dubbing Studio without one
These are per-minute figures, so a few minutes of dubbing can use as many credits as a long text to speech script.
How many characters is a minute of audio?
There is no single answer, because it depends on the voice, the model, the speed setting and how long your words are. Two rough reference points:
- ElevenLabs' own figure: its plan table equates 10,000 credits with about 10 minutes of website text to speech, and its documentation describes 10,000 characters as about 10 minutes of audio. Both work out at roughly 1,000 characters a minute.
- Our estimate from word counts: our articles average about six characters per word, counting spaces and punctuation. At an average speaking pace of 130 words per minute, that comes to roughly 800 characters a minute.
Our guidance: plan with ElevenLabs' 1,000 characters a minute. It is the more cautious figure, and it leaves room for regenerations. Our word counter shows the exact character count of a script, and the speaking time calculator estimates how long it will run.
Worked examples
These are estimates, worked out from ElevenLabs' published rules and our own word counts. They assume website text to speech at one credit per character and a standard voice with no multiplier. Our character counts include spaces and punctuation, so if ElevenLabs counts characters differently, actual usage could be a little lower. Your actual usage will differ.
- A short explainer script. The example script in our AI voiceover script guide is 109 words and 591 characters, so one generation uses about 591 credits. Generating it three times while you experiment, without free regenerations, uses about 1,800 credits.
- An audio version of a blog post. A 1,200-word article at about six characters per word is roughly 7,200 characters, or about 7,200 credits. That is most of the Free plan's 10,000 monthly credits, or enough for about four such posts on Starter's 30,000.
- A ten-minute video voiceover. At 130 words per minute, ten minutes is about 1,300 words, or roughly 7,800 characters. Using ElevenLabs' figure of about 1,000 characters a minute, budget closer to 10,000 credits.
- The same blog post through the API. On Flash or Turbo models, which cost between 0.5 and 1 credit per character through the API, the same 7,200 characters could use as few as 3,600 credits. Check the API pricing page for your model and plan.
- A voice with a multiplier. With a 2x multiplier, the 7,200-character post would use about 14,400 credits.
- Mixing products. Transcribing a ten-minute recording with speech to text uses about 3,300 credits. Automatically dubbing a three-minute video with a watermark uses about 6,000.
Rollover, top-ups and running out
- Monthly reset: credits reset at the start of each billing cycle, which begins on the day you subscribed.
- Rollover: on paid plans, ElevenLabs says unused credits roll over for up to two months, so your balance can reach at most three times your monthly allowance. This applies as long as you keep an active paid subscription and do not downgrade or cancel. Rollover does not apply to the Free plan.
- Downgrading or cancelling: unused paid credits expire at the end of the billing cycle.
- Running out: according to ElevenLabs' billing documentation, new subscriptions can buy pay-as-you-go credits, which last 12 months and are used once the monthly allowance is spent. Some older plans use usage-based billing instead, which ElevenLabs describes as a legacy feature.
- Limited-time offers: when we checked, ElevenLabs was running a time-limited launch offer for its newest model that changed how some usage counted against credit balances. Offers like this change often, so check the pricing page for current terms.
Ways to make credits go further
These are practical suggestions, not official ElevenLabs advice:
- Finish editing before you generate. Every generation costs credits, so fix the script first rather than regenerating to test small wording changes. Our guide to writing a script for an AI voiceover covers that edit.
- Test with a short sample. Generate the opening lines in your chosen voice before committing the whole script.
- Generate in sections. When one line needs fixing, you can regenerate that section instead of the whole script. Generations on the website are also limited to 5,000 characters on paid plans and 2,500 on the free plan.
- Use free regenerations. ElevenLabs offers up to two free regenerations when the text, voice and model stay the same, and it shows whether a regeneration is free before you generate.
- Remove text you do not want spoken. Usage is based on the text you submit, so delete stray notes, duplicate lines and anything else you do not want spoken before you paste. The text cleaner can help.
- Check for multipliers. Look for the multiplier label before choosing a Voice Library voice for a long project.
Frequently asked questions
How many credits does ElevenLabs use per character?
On the website, one credit per character on its current text to speech models, unless the voice has a credit multiplier. Through the API, ElevenLabs' Flash and Turbo models cost between 0.5 and 1 credit per character, according to its pricing page.
How many minutes of audio do 10,000 credits give you?
About 10 minutes of website text to speech, according to ElevenLabs' plan table. The actual length depends on the voice, the speed setting and your text.
Do unused ElevenLabs credits roll over?
On paid plans, unused credits roll over for up to two months while you keep an active subscription. They do not roll over on the Free plan.
Next steps
For a step-by-step generation workflow, see how to use ElevenLabs for AI voice content. If you are weighing ElevenLabs against another voice tool, read our Murf AI vs ElevenLabs comparison, or see our ElevenLabs overview for plans and features.