ElevenLabs vs Murf (2026): Pricing Models, Voice Cloning and Which Fits Your Project

ElevenLabs vs Murf (API) at a glance. Check each vendor's pricing page before buying; plans change often.
Feature	ElevenLabs	Murf (API)
Pricing model (as of Oct 2026)	Monthly plans with shared credits	Pay as you go per 1,000 characters
Free option	Free plan, 10k credits/month	$10 free API credit
Entry cost	Starter $6/mo (30k credits)	Falcon TTS $0.01 per 1,000 chars; Gen2 TTS $0.03 per 1,000 chars
Commercial license	From Starter	See Murf terms
Voice cloning	Instant from Starter; Professional from Creator ($22)	Professional Voice Cloning listed under Enterprise
Credit expiry	Roll over up to 2 months on active paid plans	Purchased API credit never expires

Affiliate disclosure: this site takes part in the ElevenLabs affiliate program and may join others. If you subscribe through our links we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It doesn’t change the facts below, which come from the vendors’ own pages.

How this comparison was made: Research-based. ElevenLabs details come from elevenlabs.io/pricing and Murf details from murf.ai/pricing, both checked as of Oct 2026. We haven’t run blind listening tests, so we don’t claim either sounds better. Murf’s Studio (non-API) plan prices didn’t load in a form we could verify on our check date, so this comparison uses Murf’s published API pricing and leaves Studio prices out.

The short version

ElevenLabs is an AI audio platform with monthly creator plans. One credit pool covers text to speech, speech to text, voice cloning, dubbing, sound effects and music.
Murf publishes simple per-character API pricing, with a $10 free API credit and purchased credit that never expires. It also offers a Studio product and dubbing; check murf.ai for current Studio plan prices.

If you’re a creator who wants a monthly plan with a commercial license and cloning, ElevenLabs’ pricing is easier to read today. If you’re building TTS into a product and want pay-as-you-go rates, Murf’s API pricing is straightforward.

ElevenLabs plans (as of Oct 2026, monthly billing)

Plan	Price	Credits/month	Notable features
Free	$0	10,000	TTS, STT, sound effects, music, 3 Studio projects
Starter	$6	30,000	Commercial license, instant voice cloning, Dubbing Studio
Creator	$22	121,000	Professional voice cloning
Pro	$99	600,000	44.1 kHz PCM via API, 192 kbps audio
Scale	$299	1,800,000	3 seats
Business	$990	6,000,000	10 seats

ElevenLabs says annual billing equals 10 months’ price (for example, $5/mo for Starter). It was also running first-month discounts on Starter and Creator on our check date.

How credits work, per ElevenLabs: text to speech uses about 1 credit per character on the Multilingual v2 model. Speech to text is 330 credits/minute, and dubbing is 2,000–10,000 credits/minute depending on mode. Unused credits roll over for up to two months on an active paid plan, but are lost if you downgrade or cancel. The plan table lists 74 languages for text to speech.

For a deeper breakdown, see our full ElevenLabs review.

Murf API pricing (as of Oct 2026)

Endpoint	Price
Text to Speech (Falcon), built for real-time voice agents	$0.01 per 1,000 characters
Text to Speech (Gen2), studio-quality voiceovers	$0.03 per 1,000 characters
Voice Changer	$0.10 per minute
Translation	$0.02 per 1,000 characters

Murf’s API page also lists:

$10 free for API calls to start
150+ voices in 35+ languages and styles
Pay as you go, and purchased credit never expires
5 concurrent requests and 24×7 chat support on the self-serve tier
An Enterprise tier with Professional Voice Cloning, on-premise deployment, higher concurrency and an SLA
Stated compliance with HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II

Murf says its Falcon model has time-to-first-audio under 100 ms.

Cost example: a 10,000-word course script

A 10,000-word script is roughly 60,000 characters including spaces (an estimate).

ElevenLabs: at about 1 credit per character, that’s about 60,000 credits. That’s more than Starter’s 30,000, so you’d need Creator (121,000 credits, $22/mo), or Starter plus top-ups. Regenerations use more credits.
Murf API (Gen2): 60 × $0.03 = about $1.80. On Falcon it’s about $0.60. The $10 free credit would cover it. This is API usage, so you need to call the API or use a tool built on it rather than a point-and-click editor.

The figures aren’t directly comparable, because ElevenLabs’ plan includes a web studio, cloning and a commercial license. They do show that for raw, high-volume TTS through an API, Murf’s per-character rate is low.

Voice cloning

ElevenLabs: instant voice cloning from Starter ($6), and professional voice cloning from Creator ($22). Scale and Business include 3 and 10 professional clones.
Murf: Professional Voice Cloning is listed under Enterprise on its API pricing page.

If you want to clone your own voice on a small budget, ElevenLabs has the clearer self-serve path.

Which should you choose?

You are…	Lean toward
A YouTuber or course creator who wants narration in a web app	ElevenLabs Starter or Creator
Cloning your own voice cheaply	ElevenLabs
Dubbing videos into other languages	ElevenLabs (Dubbing Studio from Starter)
A developer adding TTS to an app or voice agent	Murf API (or ElevenLabs API)
Wanting credits that never expire	Murf API pay-as-you-go

Commercial use and disclosure

ElevenLabs only includes a commercial license from Starter, so the Free plan isn’t suitable for monetised content. For Murf, check its terms for the product you use. Whichever you choose, follow platform rules (YouTube, podcast directories) on disclosing synthetic voices, and don’t clone a voice you don’t have permission to use.

Best AI voice generators for a wider field
Descript vs Runway if your voiceover goes into video
Best AI transcription tools for the reverse job, speech to text

FAQ

Is Murf cheaper than ElevenLabs? For API text to speech, Murf lists $0.01–$0.03 per 1,000 characters as of Oct 2026, which is low for high volumes. ElevenLabs’ monthly plans bundle a web studio, cloning and a commercial license, so compare on the features you’ll use.

Does ElevenLabs or Murf have a free plan? ElevenLabs has a Free plan with 10,000 credits a month, but no commercial license. Murf gives $10 of free API credit.

Which supports more languages? ElevenLabs’ plan table lists 74 languages for text to speech, and Murf’s API page lists 35+ languages. Check that your specific language and accent are supported.

Bottom line

ElevenLabs is the easier pick for creators who want a monthly plan with cloning, dubbing and a commercial license. Murf’s API is a simple, low per-character option for developers and high-volume TTS. Use ElevenLabs’ free plan and Murf’s $10 credit to try your own script on both before you commit.

See ElevenLabs plans · See Murf pricing

Sources

Official vendor pages used for prices and features (checked October 2026; plans change, so confirm before buying):