11labs API Review & Alternatives [2024]

If you’re a developer who wants to leverage AI software into your existing tech, you’ll need an API to do it. One popular tech developers love? AI voice generators, with an expected market value of $4,889 million by 2032. 

In this ElevenLabs API review, we’ll go through the AI voice generator’s features, pros, cons, and alternatives to help you choose the best option for your business.

What is Eleven Labs?

ElevenLabs is a software company with a few different AI tools that mainly center around AI voice generation. Its products include: 

• Text-to-speech: Generates AI audio based on inputted text
• Speech-to-speech: Generates AI audio based on inputted audio or video content
• Projects: Editor for audiobooks, video games, and other formats where you can set different AI voices for various sections and edit based on sound, timing, quality, and tone. 
• Voice cloning: Submit audio or video recordings of your voice and have the machine learning AI features adjust to create an accurate clone
• Voice library: Save multiple AI voices on the cloud library

What is Eleven Labs API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface (API), which is a technology that enables two pieces of software to connect and communicate with one another. The ElevenLabs API helps developers integrate the AI voice platform into their existing applications. 

Eleven Labs API Review

Let’s take a look at the functions and features of the ElevenLabs API to help you visualize the platform. 

How does Eleven Labs API work?

‍

‍

The ElevenLabs API essentially helps you integrate the software’s AI voice generators with your own tech. For example, you could integrate the API into your e-commerce website and create a custom AI voice for your chatbot. 

Another possibility is to voice-clone your existing social media video content to transfer those voices to your app. This helps streamline AI voice generation in your language and use case of choice. 

Eleven Labs API Features

‍

‍

Here’s a quick glance at ElevenLabs API features: 

• Contextual awareness: Intonation, text, and tone nuance and adjustments based on environment and situation
• Real-time latency: The API’s features respond to your input in under 500 milliseconds (MS) — this is known as latency, and provides a quick result
• Emotional range: Adjustable emotional tone to suit different products, narratives, and characters
• Voice variety: Many different voice types and tones, male and female, categorized by names like Harry and Mathilda, all conveniently stored in the Voice Library
• Audio streaming: Potential for long-form content creation
• Multilingual capability: 29 different languages to choose from, like English, Spanish, Greek, and more. 
• High-quality output: 128 kbps for clear audio quality 
• Voice filters: Select AI voices based on language, gender, age, suggested use cases, and accent
• Financial rewards: Ability to generate payouts when the software’s community uses and pays for your voice, which builds branding and generates passive income
  

‍

Eleven Labs API Use Cases

‍

‍

Eleven Labs API use cases include text-to-speech for:

• Videos
• Audiobooks
• Chatbots
• Presentations
• TikTok videos
• Virtual reality
• AI game characters
• Podcasts
• Healthcare
• Accessibility
• Gaming

Pros

• Abundant AI voices and accents to choose from
• Experienced with audiobook, storytelling, and video game use cases
• Customizability with pitch and emotional range
• Ability to generate passive income when members of the community use your voice

Cons

• No text-to-video generation
• Limited direct integrations

Eleven Labs API Alternatives

Not sure if the ElevenLabs API is right for you? Check out these alternatives:

1. Tavus API

Tavus is an AI video generator that creates thousands of potential voice and video clones based on your likeness. The API allows you to submit a video of yourself for the platform to capture your expressions, voice, and likeness, adjust variables for personalization, and create clones for your applications. The platform also includes personalized video backgrounds, lip-syncing for accuracy, cohesive branding, and both personalized and scalable video production. 

Tavus’s Replica API generates ultra-realistic talking head videos that capture natural facial expressions and movements, while the video campaign API includes end-to-end solutions for video advertising sequences, including landing page generation and analytics. Finally, the average ROI sits around 500% for Tavus’ clients. 

‍

Features:‍

• Voice cloning that captures emotion and facial expressions
• Realistic talking heads with facial expressions and emotional range
• Three-dimensional facial scenes with neural radiance fields (NERFS)
• Hyper-customizable templates
• Lip-syncing with lips and facial movements for added realism (in HD)
• Translations and dubbing
• Automated workflows with event triggers
• Batch–based video productions to scale to thousands of videos

‍

Try Tavus today!

‍

2. PlayHT

‍PlayHT is a text-to-voice AI generator that offers audio in almost every language in the world, along with a voice and pronunciation library to correct errors and save custom abbreviations and terms. The platform also offers customization options to change voice style and tone, though this feature isn’t available for all languages.

The platform’s API pricing varies greatly, with 25,000 characters per month at $5, or 10 million characters per month (240 minutes of audio) at about $1,000 monthly. 

‍

‍Features:

• Real-time voice generation
• Voice cloning
• Custom pronunciation
• Voice library with 800+ AI voices
• 142 languages and accents
• Customization tools for tone, speed, and style
• Secure data encryption

3. Murf AI

Murf AI is an AI voice generator that offers text-to-speech generation in 20+ languages. Its API allows you to create large-scale batches of voices, including custom voice clones from your own content. 

Its voice editing features allow you to add pauses, infuse emotions into specific sentences and words (happy, excited, angry, sad, etc), align speed and rhythm, adjust pronunciation, and emphasis on syllables, words, and phrases. 

Features:

• 120 text-to-speech voices by age, gender, and tone
• 20+ languages
• Pitch and emphasis editing features
• Multiple accents
• Voice cloning
• Podcasts, ads, explainers, presentations, product demos, and more use cases and templates

4. Speechify

‍Speechify is a text-to-speech AI voice generator that offers unique celebrity voices like Snoop Dogg and Gwenyth Paltrow, along with 100+ accent options for AI voices. The platform can also generate AI voice and audio from PDFs, large document downloads, and images. Finally, it also lets you listen to voice recordings 9X faster than the average reading speed. Speechify does have an API coming soon, but it isn’t available just yet. 

‍Features:‍

• 40+ languages and 100+ accents
• Text highlighting for simultaneous listening and reading
• Image to speech
• Cloud library for file and voice storage
• Celebrity AI voices
• Desktop and mobile syncing

‍

5. Synthesia

‍Synthesia is a text-to-voice and video AI generator with over 300 templates and content available in over 100 languages. It also offers features like screen recording, team collaboration, and subtitles. Its API lets you use various templates to create personalized videos for various use cases, like sales enablement, IT training, marketing how-to’s, learning and development, and more. 

‍Features:

• AI voice generator
• AI video generator
• 160+ languages
• 120+ voices and accents
• Custom avatars
• Script to video
• Text to video
• Voice cloning
• Zapier integration

6. Deepbrain AI

Deepbrain AI is an AI video generator with hundreds of different AI avatars that can replicate your text inputs into AI videos. They convert PDFs, blog articles, text bodies, URLs, and PowerPoint presentations to AI videos in 80+ different languages. Its video editor feature also allows you to customize backgrounds, transitions, texts, and animations. 

Its API lets you create videos within 10 minutes, and you can keep tabs on progress with the platform’s webhooks for notifications and automation.

Features:

• Text-to-video 
• Text-to-speech
• 80+ languages
• Custom and 3D avatars
• Customizable video templates
• Natural custom gestures
• Versatile accents and voices
• AI video editor

7. Colossyan

Colossyan is an AI voice and video generator that specializes in videos for use cases in employee onboarding, internal training, and customer education use cases. Its API also lets you use localization features that help you create AI videos in 50+ languages. Lip syncing, green screen removal, and multi-scene AI video generation are also available through the API.

‍Features:

• Auto translation
• Prompt to video
• AI voices in 50+ languages and 200+ voices
• Lip syncing
• Customizable based on voice, gender, and accents
• Custom avatar
• Subtitles
• Green screen removal

‍

More About Eleven Labs API

Here are a few more details to help you assess whether the ElevenLabs API suits your business needs. 

Is Eleven Labs API free?

Eleven Labs API does have a free tier among its pricing plans. The most basic plan is free and allows you to generate 10,000 characters’ worth of AI voice audio, which translates to approximately 10 minutes of audio. But for more features and audio time, you’ll need to subscribe to higher tiers that range from $5 to $330 per month.

Does Eleven Labs do voice cloning?

Yes, Eleven Labs does offer two types of voice cloning: Instant Voice Cloning (IVC), which is available on the Starter Plan), and Professional Voice Cloning (PVC), which is available on the Creator plan. PVC lets you clone voices for short audio samples instantaneously and helps you train the AI model to improve and eventually become indistinguishable from your original voice. IVC lets you clone short samples but doesn’t include the same learning potential for better accuracy. 

Use the Best Text-to-Speech Generator API

Bottom line? ElevenLabs API is a convenient option for text-to-speech voice generation and it has a solid variety of accents and customization features to choose from. It’s important to note, however, that it doesn’t include any AI video generation to help brands scale to thousands of videos, and use cases center more around creative storytelling and gaming than learning and development or corporate training. 

If you want a dynamic AI voice generator that extends to videos and personalized experiences with customizable emphasis and pitch, Tavus is the ideal option. Its API helps you create ultra-realistic talking heads that mimic human expressions to the ‘t. How? Neural radiance fields that provide three-dimensional facial expressions for ultimate human likeness. 

‍Try Tavus today!