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ElevenLabs vs Lazybird

Two fact sheets from our own research, side by side — pricing, platforms, API access and status re-checked by us rather than quoted from the vendors. ElevenLabs starts at $6, Lazybird at $4. Both have a free tier. Both ship a public API.

ElevenLabsSynthetic voices, cloning and dubbing sold by the creditLazybirdPaste a script, pick from 200+ voices across 100+ languages and download the voiceover; cloning on paid tiers

Side by side

FactElevenLabsLazybird
CategoryText-to-SpeechText-to-Speech
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starts at$6 month$4 month
Public APIYesYes
PlatformsWeb, API, iOS, AndroidWeb, API
CompanyElevenLabsLazybird Co Ltd
Launched2022—
Last verifiedSep 6, 2026Sep 6, 2026

What our research says

ElevenLabs

The quality bar for synthetic speech and the easiest voice API to start on, but the credit meter is the actual product and it empties faster than the plan names imply.

Pros

  • Output quality and language coverage remain ahead of most rivals
  • One account spans speech, dubbing, recognition, effects and agents
  • The first paid tier is $6, so testing commercially costs almost nothing

Cons

  • Credits rather than minutes, so cost per finished second shifts with model and settings
  • Commercial licence and instant cloning are both withheld from the free tier
  • Professional voice cloning starts only at Creator ($22)
  • Team seats do not appear until the $299 Scale plan

Lazybird

Lazybird undercuts the well-known TTS vendors by a wide margin — $49 a year for 200,000 credits with commercial rights and cloning is aggressive pricing. The long-document import that auto-splits into script blocks is a genuinely useful workflow touch for audiobooks and courses. The reason for caution is the voice catalogue, which is advertised with real celebrity and cartoon character names.

Pros

  • Entry paid tier is $49 a year with commercial rights and voice cloning included
  • Long document import that splits text into script blocks automatically
  • 200+ voices with 100+ language coverage
  • Public text-to-speech API for embedding the synthesis elsewhere
  • Free tier lets you audition every voice before paying

Cons

  • Free tier is listen-only — no downloads
  • Voice library leans on celebrity and character names of dubious provenance
  • Vietnamese governing law makes enforcement awkward for EU or US buyers
  • The Max tier is mentioned without published limits

Which one fits

Choose ElevenLabs if you need

  • Product teams adding narration or voice agents without training a model
  • Creators dubbing video into other languages with the speaker's timbre kept
  • Audiobook and podcast producers who need a licensable cloned voice

Choose Lazybird if you need

  • Course, tutorial and explainer narration on a small budget
  • Long-form audio where import-and-split saves real time
  • Developers who want cheap TTS behind an API

More comparisons

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