Of all the tools I tested for AI voice generation, ElevenLabs was the best for instant voice cloning. It lets you choose any style, accent, and voice and also offers text-to-speech options.
It supports 29 languages and after testing almost 10 other AI voice generators including Speechify and Amazon Polly, I think ElevenLabs provides the best stability and clarity.
While it does have some limitations, it is extremely realistic and can be used across several industries such as video game development, content creation, AI assistance, and others. If you had tried AI voice technology about two to three years ago, you’d be surprised how advanced this technology has become now.
I recommend ElevenLabs for:
Businesses that need accurate AI voice generation, primarily for English speaking countries
I do not recommend ElevenLabs for:
Companies or individuals who are looking for strong accents because ElevenLabs might overlook accents in some cases
ElevenLabs Pros and Cons
Check out the pros and cons of ElevenLabs to see if it suits your needs.
Pros
- Easy to use, even for beginners
- Accurate voice cloning that copies your tone and style in no time
- Creates realistic audio from text
- Offers a free account for beginners
- Users can share custom voices within the ElevenLabs community
Cons
- It may overlook accents in some cases
- It may overlook the natural roughness in some voices
How I Tested ElevenLabs
I began with a free account. But it was so captivating that I soon moved to the Creator plan. I tested several AI voices and played with accents and styles. It started with text-to-speech and soon moved to voice cloning, which was even more fun.
The free plan is good for beginners but it will give you access to only three voices. The Creator plan will let you play with thirty voices and the Scale plan will have 660 voices for you.
That’s an amazing number but out of my budget so I limited myself to the Creator plan.
With the Creator plan, you can access the Usage Analytics dashboard that shows you character usage trends along with some other metrics.
My Experience with ElevenLabs
I started by generating text-to-speech output with ElevenLabs. It got me hooked in no time. In about 10 minutes, I found myself entering more text and playing with various accents.
It is very efficient and accurate, and I especially loved the voice cloning feature that will clone any voice you upload. However, instant voice cloning is not available in the free plan.
While the system will accept a voice sample of 1 minute, I noticed that longer voice samples lead to a more accurate output.
Multiple short voice samples will also work but I won’t recommend that because it can be confusing for AI – especially if the samples are recorded with different microphones and different levels of background noise.
While ElevenLabs is by far the best AI voice tool I have tested, it tries to make the voices too clear by taking away the natural roughness from them.
THAT and the fact that it drops some accent and tries to make the voice with a more “neutral accent” are two issues that I faced.
Other than that, I think ElevenLabs is much superior to the alternatives out there. I’ll also discuss the alternatives in this article so you can check them and see the results for yourself.
Alright so, what other things can you do with ElevenLabs? While I was mostly concerned with text-to-speech and voice cloning, I also spent quite some time playing with voice changing.
Record your voice and ask AI to change it using any of the several models in their library.
You can play with the settings to change the voice output – change the stability, clarity, style, and other factors to fine-tune it to your taste.
With ElevenLabs, you can dub a given video in several languages to make your business videos accessible to a large international community.
I absolutely loved the possibilities offered by ElevenLabs. While it has several use cases in the business world, it’s also a great tool to play around with.
How Much Does it Cost?
There are five main pricing plans:
- Free for $0
- Starter for $5/month
- Creator for $22/month
- Pro for $99/month
- Scale for $330/month
If you just want to play around, ElevenLabs is free. With the free plan, you can begin text-to-speech in just a few minutes after registration. However, I didn’t find the Free plan of much use. You’d need at least the Creator plan for anything substantial and that would cost you $22. I got it for $11 because it was on sale when I purchased it.
If you’re a developer and want AI speech in your project, you’ll need the right APIs that will be available in the Pro and Scale plans. My needs were pretty limited so I stayed with the Creator plan.
User Reviews
While I was amazed by the capabilities of AI voice generation at this point, I checked other user reviews too.
I noticed the same kind of feedback as mine. ElevenLabs performs great with white English voices, but it is not that accurate with other languages or accents. There are pronunciation problems with some other languages.
Many users also had issues with pricing plans as they felt the plans were not consistent with their needs.
I believe that if you want audio in a neutral accent, ElevenLabs is definitely worth trying. Its voice cloning features are amazing, as other users have confirmed.
Voice Cloning with ElevenLabs
Voice cloning is the feature that makes ElevenLabs stand out. Many companies offer generic voices for text-to-speech but with voice cloning, you can save your voice and use it for videos or other uses.
For voice cloning, you need to record a voice sample of a few minutes. You can also record several small snippets of audio as long as there is no difference in the recording quality of the microphones you use.
Once your voice is synthesized by the AI, it can be used to create audio in 29 languages. And your voice will be cloned in no time, which means you can start generating audios right there and then.
Keep in mind that instant voice cloning is different than professional voice cloning. Professional voice cloning is more realistic and can be used for audiobooks, podcasts, and other purposes.
You can have instant voice cloning in the Starter plan but for professional voice cloning, you’ll need to subscribe to the Creator plan or above.
Real World Applications
Sure, ElevenLabs is fun to play with. Enter some text and play it in your voice. It’s like you are talking to yourself from another dimension.
But entertainment isn’t the only selling point of this technology. Let’s look at some real world examples where you can use it.
Content Creation
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about ElevenLabs is content creation. It’s an amazing tool for YouTubers and other video makers. And that’s not all, it can be used for audiobooks and podcasts too.
Educational Content
If you’re a teacher and want to create online courses, tutorials, or other study material, you can easily clone your voice and write the text to be converted to speech. You can then use the generated audio files with your course material.
Gaming
With realistic voices, gaming experience can become more immersive. Besides, if you’re a game developer who wants to show a real-world character in your game, you can easily clone their voice and use it.
AI Assistance
Companies making chatbots and virtual assistants always try to provide a more lifelike experience to their customers. With highly realistic voices, customers will feel like they are interacting with a real human instead of a bot.
Accessibility
Most online content is inaccessible to visually impaired individuals. To ensure that your content or material is accessible to differently abled persons, you can create audio formats for your text or video with the help of ElevenLabs.
Customer Support and Community
ElevenLabs has an AI chatbot that can handle general inquiries. For more specific questions, you can contact them using the contact form. And for any other questions, there’s a Discord community.
I love Discord communities. There are so many online users and you can just discuss your questions there or help others out. You can also share ideas with others. I found a lot of help regarding APIs on their Discord server.
I used the contact form to contact customer support and got an answer in a few hours so I’m happy with the support. Plus the Discord community is amazing. So I guess ElevenLabs is a safe bet as far as customer support goes.
Does it Integrate?
A tool such as ElevenLabs will be truly practical only if it integrates well with other platforms. Since it has immense potential in other applications, how well do its APIs perform?
Let’s discuss it.
ElevenLabs provides powerful APIs with Pro and Scale plans. APIs are available with lower plans as well but with higher plans, you get more powerful APIs.
Get high quality at 400ms latency that can be used with any application such as chatbots, content videos, and others.
The voice and TTS API offered by ElevenLabs is flexible and can adapt to the emotions behind the text. I was surprised as the generated speech included an element of surprise and used natural pauses like a real human.
There is a huge library of voices to let you have the right model for your needs. You can use ElevenLabs for long-form content too, so there’s no need to break your text into fragments.
There are several other voice generation tools out there but API flexibility is one other thing that sets ElevenLabs apart from others.
Its low-latency turbo model (Eleven v2 Turbo) gives about 400ms latency and comprehensive API documentation.
And if you still feel stuck, there is always that vibrant Discord community you can trust. There is documentation, customer support, AND Discord, which makes API integration a breeze.
Data Security
When it comes to voice cloning, I’m sure you’ll think about security. The good thing is that ElevenLabs is SOC2 and GDPR compliant.
It also has a full privacy mode for enterprises that ensures zero data retention. So your business data remains with you and not on ElevenLabs servers.
Apart from that, it is end-to-end encrypted so even if there’s a malicious actor in between, they cannot intercept your data.
ElevenLabs Alternatives
While I prefer ElevenLabs for voice generation, it’s not the only option out there. Here are some alternatives you can try.
1. Speechify
Just like ElevenLabs, Speechify can convert text to speech and give output in different tones and accents.
It also offers multiple languages so you can dub a video to reach a wider audience. Speechify also has a voice cloning feature, although I feel ElevenLabs clones voices better.
Like ElevenLabs, it also has a free plan so you can try it before committing to a premium subscription. But then again, you can’t clone your voice in the free plan.
If you’re a developer, I would recommend ElevenLabs but if you just want to play around with text-to-speech, Speechify is a better option since it gives you access to more voices in its free plan than ElevenLabs does.
2. Descript
Descript is a little different than ElevenLabs. It’s more of a video editing tool than just voice generation. It can edit your audio and video in a very easy way.
If you’re a podcaster or a YouTuber who’s looking for more than an audio generator, Descript will be the right choice for you.
Descript supports multiple languages and video and audio editing tools.
It doesn’t just clone your voice, it also lets you change your video by adding a green screen and other effects.
Descript comes with a free plan, which is rather limited but it gives you a taste of its services. If you like it, you can subscribe to a premium plan.
3. PlayHT
This is yet another tool that operates pretty much like ElevenLabs. It’s a text-to-speech generator and a voice cloner. It offers multiple languages and dubbing facilities.
In theory, it’s similar to ElevenLabs but I feel its audio is more bot-like than human-like.
It comes with a free plan as well so make sure you try it to see if it meets your needs. PlayHT also offers TTS APIs for developers and there are over 800 AI voices to choose from.
There are voices of different emotions, accents, and characters that you can use depending on your application.
Conclusion
After using ElevenLabs and generating audio for my business videos, I feel that it’s the perfect solution for people like me.
I cannot speak in a consistent tone like a news anchor and ElevenLabs helps me create audio in my own voice for my videos.
While ElevenLabs is near perfect, there are some shortcomings with accents and pronunciations in different languages.
Apart from that, it’s an excellent tool for content creators, educators, and other professionals who want to generate voice audio.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Yes, you can use ElevenLabs audio files for commercial use as they are royalty-free. However, their license cannot be used to develop a competitive product.
To give the right tone to your voice, add some context to the text. This will give you a more human-like output.
Yes, you can customize the stability, style, volume, and other parameters of generated voices.
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