TL;DR / Key Takeaways
- Automatic dubbing: about 3,000 credits per minute per language; Dubbing Studio: about 10,000.
- The $99 Pro plan covers roughly 200 minutes of automatic dubbing a month, about $0.50 a minute.
- ACX (Audible) prohibits unauthorized AI narration; Spotify, Google Play and ElevenReader accept it.
- ElevenReader Publishing pays 60% on direct sales and $0.20 per hour streamed, with no exclusivity.
- Rask and Synthesia cost more per minute but add lip-sync for talking-head video.
Short answer: ElevenLabs automatic dubbing costs about 3,000 credits per minute of video, per target language. That works out to roughly 200 minutes a month on the $99 Pro plan, about $0.50 a minute, which is cheaper than Rask, Synthesia or HeyGen's plans. For audiobooks, ElevenLabs Studio narrates whole books, but Audible's ACX does not accept AI narration unless it has authorized it. Spotify, Google Play and ElevenLabs' own ElevenReader do accept AI-narrated books. Updated October 29, 2026.
How we checked: ElevenLabs credit costs and limits come from its pricing page and documentation; platform rules come from ACX, KDP, Spotify and Google Play's own help pages; competitor prices come from their pricing pages. All were read October 29, 2026. The per-minute costs and book estimates are our own arithmetic, and each one says so.
What ElevenLabs dubbing costs
| Dubbing mode | Credits per minute of video, per language | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic | 3,000 (2,000 with a watermark) | Upload a video, pick a language, download the dub |
| Dubbing Studio | 10,000 (5,000 with a watermark) | Edit the transcript and translation, reassign speakers, regenerate single lines |
ElevenLabs' documentation says paid-plan dubs are not watermarked, while its pricing page lists separate with-watermark and without-watermark rates, so budget with the higher figure. Each extra language costs the same again: a 10-minute video dubbed into three languages is 30 minutes of dubbing.
| Plan | Price per month | Credits | Automatic dubbing (our estimate) | Dubbing Studio (our estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $6 | 30,000 | About 10 minutes | About 3 minutes |
| Creator | $22 ($11 first month) | 121,000 | About 40 minutes | About 12 minutes |
| Pro | $99 | 600,000 | About 200 minutes | About 60 minutes |
| Scale | $299 | 1,800,000 | About 600 minutes | About 180 minutes |
- Languages: 90+, according to ElevenLabs.
- Limits: up to 1 GB and 180 minutes per file in the app, 45 minutes in Dubbing Studio, and 3 GB per file through the API.
- Exports from Dubbing Studio: MP4, AAC, AAF, SRT and WAV stems per speaker.
- API: creating and downloading dubs works on every plan; editing transcripts through the API is Enterprise-only.
Dubbing alternatives, priced per minute
| Tool | Plan | Dubbing minutes included | Cost per minute (our math) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs | Pro, $99/month | About 200 (automatic) | About $0.50 |
| Rask AI | Creator $39/month; Creator Pro $99/month (adds lip-sync) | 25; 100 | $1.56; $0.99 |
| Synthesia | Starter $19/month; Pro $89/month | Up to 16; up to 78 | About $1.19; about $1.14 |
| Speechify Studio | Starter $100/year | About 8 hours a year (3 credits per second) | About $0.21 |
| HeyGen | Creator $29/month to Business $149/month | Not published per minute | Could not verify |
Rask and Synthesia earn their higher price when you need lip-sync on a talking-head video (Rask's enhanced lip-sync uses 3 minutes of allowance per minute of video). Speechify Studio is the cheapest per minute on paper but sells only annual plans. ElevenLabs is the value pick for voice-led content: podcasts, narrated explainers, courses and YouTube videos where the voice carries the video.
AI audiobooks with ElevenLabs Studio
- Import EPUB (recommended), PDF, DOCX, TXT, HTML or a URL; chapters are detected automatically, up to 500 per project.
- Cast different voices per paragraph, including your own Professional voice clone.
- Export MP3 or WAV; paid plans get 192 kbps MP3 or 16-bit 44.1 kHz WAV, with title, author and ISBN metadata embedded.
- Studio is on every plan, including Free, but the Free plan has no commercial licence. Selling the book needs at least Starter.
Our estimate of what a book costs to narrate: an 80,000-word novel is roughly 480,000 characters, and at 1 credit per character on Multilingual v2 that is most of a Pro plan's 600,000 monthly credits. A shorter non-fiction book of about 40,000 words fits in a Pro month with room for re-takes. ElevenLabs puts the cost of publishing through its own program at "Free - ~$200 per book," paid in credits.
Where you can sell an AI-narrated audiobook
| Platform | Accepts AI narration? | What its own help pages say |
|---|---|---|
| Audible via ACX | Only if authorized | Books must be human-narrated unless otherwise authorized; unauthorized AI or text-to-speech narration is prohibited. Voice Replica, a narrator's AI copy of their own voice, is in limited beta. |
| Audible via KDP Virtual Voice | Yes, Amazon's own voices only | Beta, US only, made from your KDP eBook, priced $3.99 to $14.99, 40% royalty, clearly labelled. |
| Spotify | Yes | Accepts digital-voice narration from providers such as ElevenLabs and Google Play Books, and adds a disclosure line. |
| Google Play Books | Yes, Google's own auto-narration | Beta with no program fee; price on Google Play must not be higher than elsewhere. |
| ElevenReader Publishing | Yes | 60% on direct sales and $0.20 per hour streamed, no exclusivity; also distributes to Spotify and inAudio. |
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Which plan to buy
- Testing one video or one chapter: Starter ($6, about $1 for the first month).
- A channel dubbing a few videos a month, or one short book: Creator ($22, $11 first month), about 40 minutes of automatic dubbing.
- Regular dubbing into several languages, or a full-length book a month: Pro ($99), about 200 minutes of automatic dubbing.
More on choosing a voice tool: best ElevenLabs alternatives and the ElevenLabs Dubbing Studio page.
Frequently asked questions
How much does ElevenLabs dubbing cost per minute?
Automatic dubbing uses about 3,000 credits per minute of video per language (2,000 with a watermark), and Dubbing Studio uses 10,000 (5,000 with a watermark). On the $99 Pro plan that is roughly 200 minutes of automatic dubbing a month, about $0.50 a minute by our calculation.
Can I publish an ElevenLabs audiobook on Audible?
Not through ACX unless ACX authorizes it: its rules require human narration and prohibit unauthorized AI or text-to-speech narration. Spotify, Google Play and ElevenReader Publishing accept AI-narrated audiobooks.
How many languages does ElevenLabs dubbing support?
ElevenLabs says its dubbing supports 90+ languages. Each target language is billed separately.
Does ElevenLabs add a watermark to dubbed videos?
ElevenLabs' documentation says free-plan dubs are watermarked and paid-plan dubs are not. Its pricing page also lists a cheaper with-watermark rate, so check the option when you create the dub.