The ElevenLabs Alternative With 16× the Characters

We tested ElevenLabs and Lazybird side by side on November 7, 2026. For about the same money, Lazybird's paid plans include roughly 16 times the characters of the nearest ElevenLabs plan: 500,000 a month for $9 against 30,000 for $6, and 2 million for $19 against 121,000 for $22. Lazybird Free also saves up to 3 cloned voices, which ElevenLabs Free doesn't.

Lazybird vs ElevenLabs at a Glance

Lazybird logoLazybird
ElevenLabs logoElevenLabs
Free plan
10,000 characters a month
10,000 credits a month (1 per character)
Save cloned voices on Free
Yes, up to 3
No (needs Starter, $6/mo)
Cheapest commercial plan
$9/mo, 500,000 characters
$6/mo, 30,000 characters
Around $20 a month
$19/mo, 2,000,000 characters
$22/mo, 121,000 characters
Cheapest yearly commercial plan
$49/yr, 500,000 characters a month
$60/yr, 30,000 characters a month
Extra characters
$5 per million (Pro and Max)
API pay-per-use: $40–80 per million
Try Lazybird Free

Where Lazybird is better

Exactly Where Lazybird Beats ElevenLabs

Each point below comes from our own test of both products on November 7, 2026.

More characters for the money

ElevenLabs

Starter is $6 a month for 30,000 characters. Creator is $22 for 121,000.

Lazybird

Creator is $9 a month for 500,000 characters. Pro is $19 for 2,000,000, about 16× ElevenLabs Creator.

Voice cloning on the Free plan

ElevenLabs

You can record or upload a sample on Free, but saving it shows "Upgrade to use your cloned voice". Cloning starts with Starter at $6 a month.

Lazybird

Free saves up to 3 cloned voices from a 10–30 second recording, ready to use right away.

A cheaper yearly plan

ElevenLabs

Starter billed yearly costs $60 for 30,000 characters a month.

Lazybird

Creator billed yearly costs $49 for 500,000 characters a month, with commercial rights.

Low-cost extra characters in the studio and the API

ElevenLabs

API pay-per-use is listed at $0.04–0.08 per 1,000 characters: $40–80 per million.

Lazybird

Pro and Max add characters at $5 per million, and the API spends the same credits as the studio.

Where ElevenLabs Is Better, and Who Should Switch

ElevenLabs is better if you need:

  • The fastest generation. It returned our test script faster than Lazybird did.
  • A bigger suite. Dubbing, music, sound effects, a voice changer and conversational voice agents share one credit balance.
  • The largest voice library. Its community library is far bigger than ours.
  • The cheapest commercial license. Starter is $6 a month, if 30,000 characters a month is enough.

Lazybird is the better fit if you:

  • produce long scripts (YouTube videos, courses, audiobooks, ads) and keep running out of characters;
  • want to clone a voice before you pay;
  • use an API and pay per character.

Compare every plan on the pricing page, or read about the text-to-speech API.

How We Tested

On November 7, 2026 we used both products on their Free plans and copied prices from elevenlabs.io/pricing and elevenlabs.io/pricing/api that day. Prices are in US dollars with monthly billing unless noted, without ElevenLabs' first-month promotions.

Lazybird ElevenLabs
Test script 393 characters The same 393 characters
Voice Elyssia (official voice) Roger (Eleven v4)
Download on Free MP3, 48 kHz MP3, 44.1 kHz, 128 kbps
Saved a cloned voice on Free Yes No: "Upgrade to use your cloned voice"

ElevenLabs charges 1 credit per character for text to speech, so its credit counts compare directly with Lazybird's characters.

Try Lazybird Free

Customer reviews

Hear what people say about Lazybird

AndriaBauneeEnterprises reviewer avatar

AndriaBauneeEnterprises

Verified buyer

Verified
★★★★★

Voice cloning is AMAZING

“The program itself takes a few tries to get used to. I was really interested in the voice cloning. One five-minute audio of me reading a book and BAM! minutes later it was loaded. I played with the expressiveness and speed and I CAN'T BELIEVE IT SOUNDS JUST LIKE ME!!!!! You can do multiple clones, so I am going to make a recording for different genres. This is over the top exciting. THANK YOU!”
Voice cloningRead review
DSMagic reviewer avatar

DSMagic

Plus

Verified buyer

Verified
★★★★★

The best I've seen so far

“I've been using Googles studio and this is much better. I love it. The clone worked fantastic.”
Voice cloningRead review
Teoman38620 reviewer avatar

Teoman38620

Verified buyer

Verified
★★★★★

Makes creating podcasts easy

“Lazybird uses your scripts (dialogues) to create voiceovers. The voiceovers can be one or more persons, though I only created two-person podcasts, a host and a guest...”
Podcast creationRead review
Nueirat reviewer avatar

Nueirat

Verified buyer

Verified
★★★★★

Awesome: Effortless Script Handling

“I have tried several systems before, and I can confidently say this is the best for long scripts. I even used it for a long audio script that lasts around 75 minutes.The great thing is that you just need to bring the text and paste it in the first section; the system will take all the script, no matter how long, and just past it, and it will divide it into sections. There's no need to copy one paragraph or sentence at a time...”
Long scriptsRead review
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Frequently Asked Questions

Start free

Try Lazybird with 10,000 free characters a month

Clone up to 3 voices, use the full studio and download your audio.

Create a free accountSee pricing