Best AI voice generator for ads in 2026: ElevenLabs pricing vs 5 other voices
Listen to the same ad read by ElevenLabs, Seed Audio, MiniMax, Inworld, Kokoro and Grok Voice. What ElevenLabs costs per plan and per 1,000 characters, and what each voiceover cost to make.
Short answer: ElevenLabs' newest model, Eleven v4, is the voice we reach for when the read on an ad has to be the best one, at $0.08 per 1,000 characters on its API, or about 4 cents for a 30-second script. For volume, Seed Audio (Hermoso's default narrator) costs $0.03 per 1,000 characters, and Inworld TTS and Kokoro cost 1 to 2 cents.
Voice is a matter of taste more than any other model type, so listen below and pick by ear. Same script, six models.
What ElevenLabs costs
ElevenLabs sells monthly plans with a character allowance, and per-character API pricing. From its pricing pages, October 2026:
| Plan | Price a month | Text to speech included | Commercial use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | About 10 minutes | No |
| Starter | $6 | About 30 minutes | Yes |
| Creator | $22 (first month often discounted) | About 121 minutes | Yes |
| Pro | $99 | About 600 minutes | Yes |
| Scale | $299 | About 1,800 minutes | Yes |
| Business | $990 | About 6,000 minutes | Yes |
On the API, Eleven v4, Eleven v3 and Multilingual v2 are $0.08 per 1,000 characters on every tier, and the faster Flash and Turbo models are $0.04. A 30-second ad script is roughly 75 words, or about 450 characters, so one read costs about 4 cents.
Six AI voices, one ad script
We sent the same line to six voice models on October 20, 2026, one take each, with a warm female voice where the model offers a choice:
"Your mornings, sorted. Northbean cold brew is smooth, strong, and ready when you are. Grab a bottle on your way out."
Price vs quality, voice by voice
| Model | Maker | Per 1,000 characters | 30-second script | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eleven v4 | ElevenLabs | $0.08 | about 4 cents | The voice we use for the hero read; also gives word-level timing for captions |
| Seed Audio | ByteDance | $0.03 | about 1.4 cents | Hermoso's default narrator; voices in English, Chinese, German, French, Spanish and Italian |
| Speech 2.8 HD | MiniMax | $0.10 | about 4.5 cents | Six preset voices; the faster Speech 2.8 Turbo is $0.06 |
| Inworld TTS | Inworld | $0.01 | under 1 cent | The cheapest of the six, with voices in many languages |
| Kokoro | Open model | $0.02 | about 1 cent | A small open model with a dozen English voices |
| Grok Voice | xAI | $0.015 | under 1 cent | xAI's voice model |
Prices are the model makers' prices, October 2026, rounded. Every voice model we offer is in the voice model list.
Which AI voice to use for which ad
- The voiceover on the ad you'll run: Eleven v4. The price difference is a few cents per read, so pay it where the read matters.
- Captions timed to every word: Eleven v4, because it returns when each word is spoken.
- Lots of variations, or long scripts: Seed Audio, Inworld TTS or Kokoro, at a quarter of the price or less.
- Ads in several languages: Eleven v4 for the widest range, Seed Audio for its language-specific voices.
- A person speaking on camera: skip text to speech. Video models like Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0 make the voice and the lip movement in the same pass; see our video model test.
ElevenLabs on its own, or inside an ad tool?
If you only need voiceovers, an ElevenLabs plan is a good deal. If the voice is one part of an ad, it's usually cheaper to use it where the rest of the ad is made, so you're not paying for a separate voice plan you only half use. On Hermoso, ElevenLabs and the other voices run at the model maker's price, with no markup on models, and the AI voiceover generator writes the script, picks the voice and lays it under your video. All six reads on this page cost about 3 cents to make, together. For full ad budgets, see what an AI video ad costs to make.
Questions people ask
What is the best AI voice generator for ads?
For the read on the ad you will run, ElevenLabs' Eleven v4, at about 4 cents for a 30-second script. For volume, Seed Audio at $0.03 per 1,000 characters, or Inworld TTS and Kokoro at 1 to 2 cents. Listen to samples before you pick: voice is mostly taste.
How much does ElevenLabs cost?
As of October 2026, ElevenLabs plans run from Free (about 10 minutes of speech) to Starter at $6, Creator at $22, Pro at $99, Scale at $299 and Business at $990 a month. Its API costs $0.08 per 1,000 characters for Eleven v4, v3 and Multilingual v2, and $0.04 for Flash and Turbo.
How much does an AI voiceover cost?
A 30-second script is about 450 characters. That costs about 4 cents on Eleven v4, about 1.4 cents on Seed Audio and under 1 cent on Inworld TTS, at the model makers' prices.
Is ElevenLabs free?
ElevenLabs has a free plan with about 10 minutes of text to speech a month, without a commercial license. Using voiceovers in ads needs a paid plan or API use.
What is the cheapest AI voice generator?
Of the six we tested, Inworld TTS at about $0.01 per 1,000 characters, then Grok Voice and Kokoro at 1.5 to 2 cents.