ElevenLabs is the TTS name most people know, but it's not the only voice. Here's the honest picture: we only assert prices we verified on a vendor's own page. The wider TTS market (Play.ht, Speechify, LOVO) is a moving target with conflicting public figures and even shutdown reports, so we won't invent those numbers.

Entry priceBest for
MurfFree ~10 min; $29/mo ($19 annual)Narrated video + voiceover studio
ElevenLabsFree; $6/mo ($5 annual)Raw audio engine + API

Prices verified from each vendor's page, checked 2026-09-03. Murf's minute allowance varies by source, so it's marked approximate.

Murf — best for narrated video

Murf is where you go when the voice has to come wrapped in a finished visual piece. You sit in an editor and end up with a narrated video or presentation, not a lone audio file. Its free tier is a preview only, so it's a studio for professional voiceover and e-learning, not for a long-running audio-first show.

Why we don't rank the rest

The honest answer on the wider field: several widely-cited alternatives (Play.ht, Speechify, LOVO) have prices and even availability that differ across public sources, and one has been reported shut down. Rather than quote a number we can't verify against a live page, we leave them out of the table. When we list a price, it's one we pulled from the vendor's own pricing page the day we wrote this.

The verdict

For a podcast or any audio-first product, stay on ElevenLabs — cheapest to start and the benchmark for realism. For narrated video and voiceover production, choose Murf.

Heads-up: the TTS market moves fast and some programs change or disappear. We re-verify prices monthly; when we can't confirm a figure against a live vendor page, we say so rather than guess.

Sources

  1. Murf, official pricing page: murf.ai/pricing
  2. ElevenLabs, official pricing page: elevenlabs.io/pricing

This comparison reflects feature sets and prices as of the last verification (2026-09-03). Prices change; confirm on the vendor page before buying.