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ElevenLabs is an artificial intelligence-powered platform that delivers exceptional text-to-speech and speech cloning capabilities. With its advanced deep learning models, ElevenLabs can generate highly realistic and human-like voices from text input. However, access to these powerful AI voices is not free. ElevenLabs runs on a freemium model with limited features available to non-paying users. This article explores the options for using ElevenLabs for free by taking advantage of free trials, promotional offers, and alternative access methods.
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What is ElfLabs?
ElevenLabs offers both text-to-speech and voice cloning features through the same online platform. Users can enter text and ElevenLabs generates an audio file in which the text is spoken in a selected voice. For voice cloning, users provide audio samples of a target voice, and ElevenLabs creates a custom synthetic version that can then speak any text the user inputs.
The service offers exceptionally high-quality and natural voices, powered by deep neural networks and extensive datasets. In addition to sounding human, the voices are also customizable in terms of speaking rate, pitch, intonation and more expression controls.
However, unlimited access to these AI voice talents requires payment, either directly or through purchasing credits. Let’s see how ElevenLabs implements its pricing and where there are opportunities to use the platform without paying.
How can you get ElevenLabs for free?
Limitations of the ElevenLabs Free Plan
ElevenLabs does offer a free subscription level, but imposes strict usage limits. The free plan has a quota of only 10,000 characters per month for generated speech. Furthermore, it only allows one custom voice model at a time.
These severe limitations make it unrealistic to rely solely on the free plan for most purposes. 10,000 characters corresponds to less than 2 minutes of average speech. And the inability to create multiple custom voices severely limits how users can apply ElevenLabs’ voice cloning capabilities.
However, the free plan gives access to all available AI voice types. So as long as you only need one custom voice and very little voice output, it can meet your needs.
Trials and promotions
Like many other SaaS platforms, ElevenLabs offers free trials and account credit giveaways to attract new paying subscribers. By taking advantage of these offers you will have access to ElevenLabs free of charge, at least for a short period of time.
The service offers new users a seven-day free trial on any subscription. The trial period unlocks all the benefits of paid subscriptions without payment. You can enjoy unlimited generated speech, multiple custom voices, priority support and more. This trial provides a great opportunity to explore the capabilities of ElevenLabs in depth before considering purchase.
ElevenLabs also occasionally runs promotions that award free credits usable for text-to-speech. These credits are typically offered to newsletter subscribers and allow speech generation beyond the limits of the free plan. The platform may sporadically offer between $5 and $60 credits, allowing for an additional 100,000 to 1.2 million characters. You can extend this reach even further by optimizing text for efficient conversion to speech.
Multiple accounts
Because the free plan allows one custom voting model, creating multiple free accounts can bypass this limitation. Each account allows you to build and use a separate voice clone. Switching between accounts then provides multiple accounts without paying.
However, the monthly signing limit of 10,000 still applies to each account. This method therefore provides greater flexibility in the speech model, but not greater speech generation capacity. And constantly logging in and out of accounts can be annoying. Still, for sporadic voice cloning needs, this approach could potentially work for free.
Also read: How do you use NightCafe for free?
Alternative text-to-speech services
Relying solely on ElevenLabs’ free layer seriously hinders output potential. But many capable text-to-speech services exist that offer free subsample usage without such strict limits. These alternatives generate automated speech that is less sophisticated than ElevenLabs, but can meet basic needs at no cost.
For example, Natural Readers offers 300,000 characters of free speech per month. Meanwhile, Voicery gives 5 million characters before demanding payment. And Spreaker Studio’s text-to-speech slider can generate unlimited speech samples of up to 60 seconds. Exploring these and other options for free synthetic speech could compliment ElevenLabs’ capabilities at no cost.
However, no free alternative can match the human-level output quality that ElevenLab enables, especially for voice cloning. Still, these services can handle straightforward speech generation and audio prototyping tasks before investing in ElevenLabs’ superior voices.
Apply for ElevenLabs grants
In addition to the standard subscriptions, ElevenLabs Grants offers another path to free access. This program awards credits worth $500 per month for three months to eligible startups that want to integrate ElevenLabs into their product.
To qualify, startups must have less than $10 million in funding and 25 or fewer full-time employees. Applicants must convince ElevenLabs of the intent and ability to deliver a marketable product using their voice within the three-month period. If the implementation of the ElevenLabs Speech API or SDK is successful and meets expectations, recipients can continue to access the platform at discounted follow-on prices.
For early-stage startups focused on voice-first products, securing an ElevenLabs Grant provides a major boon of premium voice assets at no upfront cost. And the program’s timeline encourages rapid development and validation of market fit. Thus, for eligible startups, this program deserves consideration as a tremendously valuable channel for free and supportive access.
Conclusion
ElevenLabs delivers exceptional competence in text-to-speech and speech cloning through cutting-edge AI research and engineering. But offering corporate-level voice talent for pennies is obviously an unsustainable business model. Several options allow you to explore ElevenLabs for free, but profound restrictions apply. Ultimately, those who want to truly leverage the consistency of this platform’s world-class vocal capabilities in production use cases will reasonably opt for standard paid subscriptions.
However, ElevenLabs commendably offers free trials, promotional credits, alternative entry routes such as startup grants, and a subscription tier for free forever. These extensions are intended to increase awareness of ElevenLabs’ capabilities among potential customers. They provide real utility value under the right circumstances, despite inherent limitations. So while permanent and comprehensive free access to this top-quality AI voice platform remains unrealistic for most, ElevenLabs commendably offers multiple free opportunities to experience the groundbreaking vocal innovations in artificial intelligence.
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