ElevenLabs vs LiveKit: voice AI pricing compared
Updated 2026-11-10 · listed A to Z, not ranked
ElevenLabs sells AI voice products (text to speech, speech to text, dubbing, music, sound effects and voice agents) on monthly plans. Every plan gives you a pool of credits, and every product draws from the same pool at its own rate.
LiveKit Cloud runs real-time voice and video AI agents (WebRTC, telephony and model inference). Plans set the features; usage is billed per minute.
Listed A to Z, from elevenlabs.io and livekit.com. Every figure below is quoted from those pages.
- Main price table
- Text to speech, Text to speech, Speech to text, Speech to text, Speech to text add-ons, Realtime voice models, Speech Engine, Music, Voice isolator, voice changer, sound effects, Dubbing
- Free option
- None in the published plan table
- Published prices
- ElevenLabs API pricing per minute and per 1k characters (TTS $0.04–$0.08, speech to text $0.22/hour, realtime voice $0.08/min), plus Starter $6 to Business $990 plans.
- Main price table
- Build, Ship, Scale, Enterprise
- Free option
- Build: $0/mo, no credit card required
- Published prices
- Build $0/mo, Ship from $50/mo, Scale from $500/mo; agent sessions $0.0100/min plus inference per model.
How we checked: Prices quoted from each official pricing page: ElevenLabs checked Nov 10, 2026, LiveKit checked Nov 10, 2026. Taxes, usage overages and promotions can change what you pay; confirm with each provider before you buy.
How they compare
- Main price table. ElevenLabs lists 10 entries (Text to speech, Text to speech, Speech to text, Speech to text, Speech to text add-ons, Realtime voice models, Speech Engine, Music, Voice isolator, voice changer, sound effects, Dubbing); LiveKit lists 4 (Build, Ship, Scale, Enterprise).
- Free option. ElevenLabs: none in the published plan table. LiveKit: Build: $0/mo, no credit card required.
- How prices are quoted. ElevenLabs: “API pricing: per minute and usage-based billing (USD)”. LiveKit: “Plans”.
ElevenLabs plans and prices
| Product | Model / mode | Price on elevenlabs.io/pricing/api |
|---|---|---|
| Text to speech | v4, v3, v2 Multilingual | $0.08 per 1,000 characters (about $0.08 per minute of audio) |
| Text to speech | v4 Turbo, v3 Conversational, Flash / Turbo | $0.04 per 1,000 characters (about $0.04 per minute) |
| Speech to text | Scribe v2, Scribe v2 Medical | $0.22 per hour |
| Speech to text | Scribe v2 Realtime | $0.39 per hour |
| Speech to text add-ons | Keyterm prompting / transcript editing | $0.05 / $0.07 per hour (realtime $0.08 / $0.12) |
| Realtime voice models | v1 Mini, v1 Max | $0.08 per minute of connected audio, plus LLM tokens (Mini $0.20 in / $6.00 out, Max $1.80 / $9.00 per 1M) |
| Speech Engine | Standard / burst | $0.08 / $0.16 per minute |
| Music | Eleven Music | $0.15 per minute |
| Voice isolator, voice changer, sound effects | - | $0.12 per minute |
| Dubbing | v1 with / without watermark; v2 | $0.33 / $0.50 per minute; $2.20 per minute |
API usage is billed in US dollars, not plan credits. Prices exclude taxes. Checked Nov 6, 2026.
| Plan | Price per month | Credits per month | Annual billing, per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $6 | 30,000 | $5 |
| Creator | $22 ($11 for the first month) | 121,000 | $18.33 |
| Pro | $99 | 600,000 | $82.50 |
| Scale | $299 (3 seats) | 1,800,000 | $249.17 |
| Business | $990 (10 seats) | 6,000,000 | $825 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Annual billing is the monthly price × 10. The pricing page also showed a limited-time first-month offer on Starter when we checked.
From elevenlabs.io, checked Nov 10, 2026. Full breakdown: ElevenLabs pricing.
LiveKit plans and prices
| Plan | Price | For |
|---|---|---|
| Build | $0/mo, no credit card required | Starting a project: agent deployment, observability and simulations |
| Ship | Starting at $50/mo | Shipping to real users: team collaboration, custom voices, instant rollback |
| Scale | Starting at $500/mo | Scaling: role-based access, metrics export APIs, region pinning, private links, HIPAA |
| Enterprise | Custom | Volume pricing, shared Slack channel, SSO, support SLA |
LiveKit says its plans include monthly allotments for agent session minutes, inbound calling minutes (for US local phone numbers) and inference credits.
| Item | Rate |
|---|---|
| Agent session | $0.0100/min |
| Telephony, LiveKit US local number | $0.0100/min |
| Observability (enabled) | $0.0100/min |
| LLM example: Gemma 4 31B | $0.0014/min |
| STT example: AssemblyAI Universal-3.6 Pro Streaming | $0.0075/min |
| STT example: Deepgram Nova-3 (Monolingual) | $0.0048/min |
| TTS example: Fish Audio S2.1 Pro | $0.0090/min |
The page lists many more LLM, STT and TTS models, each with its own per-minute price; the calculator's default phone-call example totals $0.0479/min.
From livekit.com, checked Nov 10, 2026. Full breakdown: LiveKit pricing.
FAQ
How much does ElevenLabs cost?
ElevenLabs API pricing per minute and per 1k characters (TTS $0.04–$0.08, speech to text $0.22/hour, realtime voice $0.08/min), plus Starter $6 to Business $990 plans. (checked Nov 10, 2026).
How much does LiveKit cost?
Build $0/mo, Ship from $50/mo, Scale from $500/mo; agent sessions $0.0100/min plus inference per model. (checked Nov 10, 2026).
Do ElevenLabs and LiveKit have a free option?
ElevenLabs: none in the published plan table. LiveKit: Build: $0/mo, no credit card required.
Which is better, ElevenLabs or LiveKit?
We do not pick a winner. The two price and package their products differently; the tables above quote each official pricing page so you can match a plan to your own usage.
Where do these prices come from?
Each vendor's own pricing page: elevenlabs.io (checked Nov 10, 2026) and livekit.com (checked Nov 10, 2026). Prices change; confirm on the vendor's page before you buy.
Sources (official pages, read 2026-11-10)
Spot something out of date? Email hello@youraitools.co and we’ll fix it.