How to Clone a Voice with ElevenLabs (2026)

Clone a voice in ElevenLabs only when you have the right to that voice, and only on the plan that lists the kind of clone you need. Instant voice cloning is the lower-tier feature. Professional Voice Cloning is listed from Creator at $22/month. A commercial publish still needs a paid plan: the commercial license starts at Starter, $6/month, not on Free.

This is a plan-and-consent guide, last checked against ElevenLabs’ pricing page on October 16, 2026. It is not a bypass for someone else’s likeness, and it does not invent sample-length rules the pricing page does not print. We did not score clone quality.

Decide which clone you are allowed to make

Answer these before you open the product:

1. Whose voice is it? Yours, or someone who has agreed in writing if money, ads, or a public post is involved. A tool that accepts an upload is not permission.
2. Will the audio earn money or promote a product? Then Free is the wrong plan to publish from. Starter is the first plan with a commercial license.
3. Do you need a professional clone, or a quick instant clone? Professional Voice Cloning starts on Creator. Scale includes 3 professional clones. Business includes 10. Do not expect the professional feature on Free or Starter.
4. Is a library voice enough? If it is, do not buy Creator. Starter at $6/month already covers commercial narration. The plan ladder is ElevenLabs review.

Figure (consent diagram, not a product screenshot). Alt: Three gates in a row. Permission from the person. Then the plan: instant cloning on lower tiers, Professional Voice Cloning from Creator at $22 a month. Then the license: commercial publish starts at Starter, $6 a month. A blocked path shows a public figure, a client, or a coworker with no agreement.

If the voice is a recording you can simply clean, stop and use Descript. That path is in ElevenLabs alternatives.

What the plans allow you to do

You want	Minimum plan	Price
Hear stock voices and experiment	Free	$0, 10,000 credits/month, no commercial license
Publish a commercial voiceover with a library or instant clone path	Starter	$6/month, 30,000 credits, commercial license
Professional Voice Cloning	Creator	$22/month, 121,000 credits, extra credits available
Several professional clones and seats	Scale, then Business	$299/month for 3 clones and 3 seats. $990/month for 10 clones and 10 seats

Monthly prices exclude tax. Yearly billing and first-month promotions exist. Use the ongoing price until checkout shows otherwise. ElevenLabs’ pricing summary does not publish how many credits one minute of cloned speech costs. A “full audiobook this afternoon” plan is a guess.

A first session that does not waste the pool

1. Write a short script you would actually say: four to eight sentences, with the names and numbers spelled the way they should be spoken.
2. Sign in at ElevenLabs. Use Free to hear library voices first. If a library voice is close enough, stay there until you are ready to pay for a license, and pay before you publish.
3. If you still need a clone, confirm the tier in the account. Instant cloning is the lower-tier path. Professional Voice Cloning is the Creator path. If the control you need is missing, you are on the wrong plan. Do not upload audio hoping the paywall is cosmetic.
4. Record in a quiet room, at a steady distance from the microphone, in the tone you want the clone to keep. That is practical recording advice, not a published minimum duration. We are not quoting a required number of minutes, because the pricing page does not give one.
5. Generate the short script once. Listen for the wrong name, a swallowed digit, or a mood you did not ask for.
6. Read the credits that one generation used. Multiply by the number of minutes you actually plan to ship this month, with room for a second take. If that total fits in Starter or Creator, stay there. If it does not, the higher tiers are credit and seat plans, described in the review.
7. Publish only after the commercial-license plan is the one you are on.

Keep the project. Regenerating a paragraph later spends credits again. Fix the line. Do not rerun the chapter because one word was soft.

Uses that match the product

• Your own channel, when you cannot record every week and you are cloning yourself.
• A client’s narration, with a written release and a Creator plan if they want a professional clone of their voice.
• A course, dubbed with Dubbing Studio, which is listed from Starter. Dubbing a consented voice and inventing a new speaker are different acts. Read what the project is doing.

Uses that do not

• A celebrity, a politician, a coworker, or a client who has not agreed.
• A support line that pretends the clone is the real person. ElevenAgents is a disclosed voice-agent product. Impersonation is not a feature.
• A song. That is Suno, reviewed in Suno review.
• A face. HeyGen Creator at $29/month includes voice cloning for avatar video. Compare presenters in HeyGen vs Synthesia.
• Listening to a PDF. Speechify is the listening tool.

The faceless YouTube path that uses a narrator without pretending the voice is a specific private person is how to start a faceless YouTube channel.

Fit before you record anything

Situation	Do this
You are cloning yourself for a monetized video	Starter if an instant or library path is enough. Creator if you need Professional Voice Cloning
You are cloning a client	Written permission, then Creator or a seat plan with enough clone slots
You have no permission	Do not clone. Use a library voice on a plan with a commercial license, or hire the person
You already have a clean take	Edit it in Descript. Skip the clone
You need the dollar cost per character in a contract	Murf’s API card is easier to quote. See the alternatives guide

FAQ

Is ElevenLabs voice cloning free?

You can experiment on the free plan inside its credit cap. Professional Voice Cloning is listed from Creator at $22/month. Commercial use of the audio is listed from Starter at $6/month. Free is not the plan to publish from.

How much audio do I need to upload?

The pricing page we used does not publish a minimum duration. Record clean speech in the tone you want, generate a short script, and judge the result. Anyone quoting a required minute count without a current help-center link is ahead of this guide.

Can I clone someone else’s voice?

Only with their permission. Disclose a synthetic voice where a platform, a client, or a local rule requires it. A paid plan does not create that permission.

Last verified

October 16, 2026, from ElevenLabs’ pricing page. Feature gates move. If Creator no longer lists Professional Voice Cloning, stop and reread the pricing page before you pay.

Sources: ElevenLabs pricing, ElevenLabs.

ElevenLabs is in the audio, voice, and music directory. Directory pages may use affiliate links. A purchase through them may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you.