Best AI voice generators for beginners
These are different jobs. ElevenLabs turns text into a voice file. Speechify reads text so you can listen. Neither one finds listeners. ElevenLabs is first because the job on this page is a voice file. Speechify is second because it is for listening. ElevenLabs is the only affiliate Visit link here. That does not put it ahead of Speechify.
Checked October 2026.
1 · Free tier
ElevenLabs
- What it does
- Turns text into spoken audio, clones a voice, and can make sound effects and music. Everything draws from one credit pool.
- Who it is for
- People who need a voiceover and do not want to record one, and who will read the license.
- Free plan
- Free is $0 a month, with 10,000 credits a month. Commercial use of the audio is listed on the Starter plan, not on the free plan.
- Price we checked
- Starter is $6 a month for 30,000 credits. A first-month discount through October 18, 2026 showed Starter at $1 and Creator at $11. That discount is not the ongoing price. Creator is $22 a month. Pro is $99 a month.
- The catch
- Free audio is not licensed for commercial use. Credits are shared across voice, music, and dubbing, and free credits do not roll over. Say when a voice is synthetic, especially if it could be mistaken for a real person.
Affiliate link: we may earn a commission if you sign up, at no extra cost to you.
2 · Free tier
Speechify
- What it does
- Reads text aloud and offers a large set of text-to-speech voices on the paid plan.
- Who it is for
- People who want to listen to their own drafts or articles, more than people recording a podcast.
- Free plan
- The free plan says start for free: listen at up to 1.5x, 10 robotic voices, and text-to-speech features only.
- Price we checked
- Premium is $29 a month. The page says prices shown per month are billed monthly. A yearly option says it saves 60%. The $29 figure is the monthly price, not that yearly discount.
- The catch
- An annual price was not in the text we read, so the $29 figure is the monthly bill. This is a listening tool. It is not a license to clone someone else's voice.
Also read
Questions
- Will a voice generator get listeners?
- No. A voice file is not an audience.
- Can I publish ElevenLabs free audio?
- The pricing page lists a commercial license on Starter, not on the free plan. Read that before you publish a file, and say when a voice is synthetic if someone could mistake it for a real person.
- Is the $1 ElevenLabs price the real Starter price?
- No. The page called it a first-month discount through October 18, 2026. The Starter price beside it was $6 a month.
- Which Visit link is an affiliate link?
- ElevenLabs. Speechify's button goes to the official site. The order is the job, not the commission.