ElevenLabs turned synthetic speech from robotic text-to-speech into expressive, human-sounding audio. Its 2023 public beta went viral with creators, and the company has since grown into one of Europe's most valuable AI startups, selling voice technology to individual creators, developers and large enterprises. The company is headquartered in London, United Kingdom.
ElevenLabs makes money in two ways. First, self-serve subscriptions: creators, podcasters, authors and small businesses pay monthly plans (from a free tier up to Business plans) that include a quota of generated characters or minutes. Second, usage-based API and enterprise contracts: developers and large companies pay for text-to-speech, speech-to-text, dubbing and voice agent minutes, often under multi-year enterprise agreements. Enterprise voice agents for customer support, sales and telephony became the fastest-growing part of the business in 2025-2026. The Voice Library adds a marketplace layer in which voice actors license their cloned voices and receive payouts when others use them.