Fish Audio vs ElevenLabs: Pricing and Voices Compared
A side-by-side look at Fish Audio and ElevenLabs: how credits are metered, what each plan includes, and which one fits narration, cloning or voice agents.
ElevenLabs is a subscription voice platform with a free tier and a broad product suite. Fish Audio is a one-time credit model focused on expressive text to speech, cloning and voice agents: packs start at $9 and API access arrives with the $99 Studio pack. If you publish audio continuously and want a predictable monthly bill, ElevenLabs fits. If you want to buy capacity once and spend it over a year without a renewal, Fish Audio fits.
What is the difference in pricing model?
The two products do not meter the same way, which is why headline prices mislead:
| Fish Audio | ElevenLabs (published 2026-09-27) | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | One-time credit packs | Monthly subscription |
| Entry price | $9 Starter | $0 Free, $6 Starter per month |
| Metering | 1 credit ≈ 1,000 characters | ~1 credit per character (V2 multilingual) |
| Renewal | None — buy another pack when it runs low | Monthly or annual, cancels with the plan |
| Expiry | Credits valid 12 months | Monthly credits reset each cycle |
| Commercial rights | From the Creator pack | Commercial licence from Starter |
| API access | Included with the Studio pack | Included, with higher limits on higher tiers |
Fish Audio’s packs are $9 for 1,000 credits, $29 for 4,000 and $99 for 15,000. ElevenLabs’ published plan prices are $0 (10,000 credits), $6 (30,000 credits), $22 (121,000 credits), $99 (600,000 credits), $299 (1,800,000 credits) and $990 (6,000,000 credits).
What does a credit actually buy?
Convert both to characters before comparing anything.
- Fish Audio: 1 credit covers about 1,000 characters, so the $9 Starter pack covers roughly one million characters of speech.
- ElevenLabs: one text character consumes about one credit on its multilingual models, with discounted rates on some faster models.
A concrete example: a ten-hour audiobook is roughly 600,000 characters.
- On Fish Audio that is about 600 credits — under 4% of the $99 Studio pack, which also includes API access.
- On ElevenLabs that is 600,000 credits — the entire monthly allowance of the $99 Pro tier, renewed every month.
Whether that gap holds for you depends on how often you regenerate, which models you use, and how much of your work is narration rather than live conversation. The arithmetic is in your character counts, not in the plan names.
How do the voice libraries compare?
ElevenLabs ships a curated library plus cloning: Instant Voice Cloning from its Starter tier and Professional Voice Cloning on Creator and above. Voices are managed inside a workspace with seats, which is convenient for teams that want central control.
Fish Audio leans on scale and reusability: the library hosts more than 2,000,000 voices, voices are not locked to the language they were recorded in, and cloning from a short sample is included in every pack rather than gated behind a tier. If your project needs a specific presenter, a character, or a voice already in your archive, the voice cloning guide covers consent and rights before you build it.
Which one is better for long-form narration?
Long-form work is a battle against regeneration cost. Every script change re-renders the affected paragraphs, and the cheaper the re-render, the more freely you can edit.
Fish Audio is built around that constraint: scripts are the source of truth, generation happens in paragraphs or chapters, and the Studio workflow is designed for chapter-level control rather than one continuous take. ElevenLabs is stronger when you also need adjacent media features — dubbing, sound effects, music, image and video tooling — inside the same subscription.
Which one is better for voice agents and a production API?
Both platforms ship real-time APIs, and both expect you to pay for concurrency.
- Fish Audio: API access is included in the $99 Studio pack together with the highest concurrency for real-time streams. The voice agent guide breaks down where latency comes from.
- ElevenLabs: API access is available across paid tiers, with higher concurrency and 44.1 kHz PCM output on its higher plans.
If you are prototyping a conversational product, the deciding factor is usually which one lets you measure end-to-end latency cheaply. Fish Audio’s one-time packs make that experimentation inexpensive; a subscription is easier to justify once traffic is predictable.
What about languages and cloning?
Both cover the languages most products need. ElevenLabs publishes support for roughly 74 languages. Fish Audio covers 30+ languages, and any voice in the library can read a script in another language, which keeps a brand or character recognisable across markets.
Cloning depth differs more than language count:
- Fish Audio: cloning from a short sample is included in every pack, including the $9 Starter pack, with commercial usage rights arriving at the Creator pack.
- ElevenLabs: Instant Voice Cloning starts at $6, Professional Voice Cloning at $22, and both are tied to the active subscription.
Can you move a project between the two?
Yes, and the migration is mostly bookkeeping. Keep scripts in your own repository, not inside a vendor dashboard. Choose or clone a voice in the destination platform, generate a full paragraph, and compare pacing before you re-render everything. Because both platforms generate from text, a script you own can be re-rendered anywhere — the work you cannot move is a voice you cloned on a plan you cancel.
How should you decide?
Four questions usually settle it:
- Is your volume steady or spiky? Steady volume suits a subscription; spiky projects suit one-time packs.
- Do you need adjacent media tools? Dubbing, music and sound effects are ElevenLabs territory; narration and voice agents are Fish Audio territory.
- How often will you regenerate? The cheaper the re-render, the more editing your workflow can afford.
- Do you need the API in month one? With Fish Audio it arrives with the $99 Studio pack; with ElevenLabs it arrives with a paid plan.
Whichever way you lean, start with a paragraph you actually intend to publish. A demo sentence tells you very little about how a voice will behave across a chapter — or across a support conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fish Audio cheaper than ElevenLabs?
For raw characters the metering units differ: Fish Audio counts one credit for about 1,000 characters, while ElevenLabs charges roughly one credit per character on its multilingual models. Work the cost out for your own volume instead of comparing headline prices.
Does Fish Audio have a free plan like ElevenLabs?
No. fishaudio.lol has no free tier — generation starts with the $9 Starter pack. ElevenLabs publishes a $0 plan with 10,000 credits per month and no commercial licence.
Can I move an existing project from ElevenLabs to Fish Audio?
Yes. Keep your scripts as the source of truth, pick or clone a voice here, regenerate paragraph by paragraph, and keep the same script-to-audio relationship so later edits only re-render the lines that changed.
Which one should I use for a voice agent?
Both ship real-time APIs. Fish Audio includes API access in the $99 Studio pack, with the highest concurrency for real-time streams; ElevenLabs gates higher concurrency and 44.1 kHz PCM output behind its paid subscription tiers.
Are the voices in this comparison permanent?
No. Prices, credits and plan names change. Figures here were reviewed on 2026-09-27 from each vendor’s public pricing page, and you should re-check both pages before committing to a budget.