ElevenLabs vs Speechify: a voice studio vs a reading app
By Jean Luc Poitier, SEO and growth marketing strategist · 11Reviews · Updated September 27, 2026
Speechify is mainly a reading app: it reads PDFs, web pages, and books aloud, and Premium costs $29 a month on monthly billing. It also sells Speechify Studio for voiceovers and a developer API. ElevenLabs is a platform for making audio, with voiceovers, voice cloning, dubbing, voice agents, and an API, from a free plan to $6 a month for commercial use. Its answer to Speechify's reader is a separate app, ElevenReader, at $11 a month.
If you mostly want to listen to your reading, Speechify has the stronger reputation: its unprompted Trustpilot reviews average 4.5 against ElevenLabs' 1.52. If you publish audio, ElevenLabs is the better fit for professional voice cloning, 70+ languages, and self-serve voice agents. Speechify Studio gives you more voiceover hours per dollar if you can pay for a year up front, and its API costs less per character.
ElevenLabs vs Speechify at a glance
| Compared on | ElevenLabs | Speechify |
|---|---|---|
| What it mainly is | A platform for making audio: text to speech, cloning, dubbing, agents, API. ElevenReader is its listening app | A text-to-speech reading app, plus Speechify Studio for voiceovers and a separate API |
| Reading app pricing | ElevenReader: free plan with 10 hours a month; Ultra $11/mo or $99/yr | Free plan (10 robotic voices, up to 1.5x); Premium $29/mo, yearly billing advertised at 60% off |
| Voiceover pricing | Free $0 (10,000 credits, ~10 min); Starter $6/mo; Creator $22/mo ($11 first month); Pro $99/mo | Studio Free $0 (600 credits); Studio Starter $100/yr; Studio Creator $300/yr |
| Audio included on paid voiceover plans | Starter ~30 min/mo; Creator ~120 min/mo; Pro ~600 min/mo | Starter 86,400 credits/yr, Creator 345,600 (1 credit per second of voiceover, so 24 and 96 hours a year) |
| Free plan commercial use | No (non-commercial, with attribution) | No (Studio Free has no commercial rights and no voice cloning) |
| Voice cloning | Instant cloning from Starter ($6); professional cloning from Creator ($22) | From Studio Starter; Speechify says a 20-second recording is enough |
| Languages | 70+ (74 on the Eleven v3 model) | 60+ (Speechify's figure) |
| Voice agents | Self-serve on every plan, with published per-minute rates | Enterprise only; no published rate |
| Developer API | Draws on the same credit plans; Pro at $99/mo includes 600,000 credits | Separate plans: free 500K characters/mo; $10, $99 (13.5M characters), $499 (78M) |
| Trustpilot overall | 3.0 (1,163 reviews) | 4.7 (7,087 reviews) |
| Trustpilot unprompted (recent sample) | 1.52 (29 reviews) | 4.5 (44 reviews) |
| Trustpilot invited (recent sample) | 4.95 (21 reviews) | 4.83 (6 reviews, too few to compare) |
| Reading app ratings | ElevenReader: App Store 4.7 (10,409 US ratings); Google Play 4.5 (67.7K reviews) | App Store 4.7 (524,647 US ratings); Google Play 4.1 (281K reviews); Chrome 4.6 (22.7K ratings) |
Figures checked against each company's published pages and review-platform listings as of 2026-09-27. “Not published” means the company does not publish that figure.
Trustpilot samples are the 50 most recent reviews of each company, pulled September 27, 2026 and split by Trustpilot's own invited or unprompted label (ElevenLabs: August to September 2026; Speechify: September 19 to 27, 2026). App Store figures are US ratings from Apple's listing on the same date. Minute estimates for ElevenLabs assume about 1 credit per character, as its pricing page does.
Listening to your reading: Speechify Premium vs ElevenReader
This is what most Speechify customers pay for, and it's where Speechify is strongest. Premium at $29 a month adds 1,000+ natural voices, 60+ languages, speeds up to 5x, scan and listen, AI summaries, cloud-drive imports, voice typing, and AI podcasts. The recent reviews we pulled come mostly from students and people who read for work. Some mention ADHD, trouble concentrating, or being legally blind.
“It’s easy to use, practical, and especially useful when dealing with long documents or preparing assignments.”Eva, Trustpilot, September 2026
ElevenLabs' main product isn't a reader, so compare Speechify with ElevenReader, the listening app ElevenLabs publishes. Its free plan includes 10 hours of listening a month with 1,000+ voices and speeds up to 4x, and Ultra costs $11 a month or $99 a year for unlimited listening to your own files (capped at 24 hours of audio a day), plus 20 hours a month from a catalog of 200,000+ audiobooks. It rates 4.5 on Google Play against Speechify's 4.1, and the two tie at 4.7 on the US App Store, where Speechify has about 50 times as many ratings. Our affiliate link goes to the ElevenLabs platform, not ElevenReader, which you download from the app stores.
Speechify can also win for long listening jobs. One ElevenLabs Trustpilot reviewer found the 5,000 characters on their plan far too few to turn a book into an MP3 and moved to Speechify:
“The voices were ok but sped up at points, and in the end i used Speechify, which was much better for what I needed.”Ross Adams, Trustpilot, September 2026
Making voiceovers: ElevenLabs vs Speechify Studio
For creators, the two price in different ways. Speechify Studio lists annual plans only on its pricing page: $100 a year for 86,400 credits and $300 a year for 345,600, at 1 credit per second of voiceover. That's 24 or 96 hours of audio a year, far more per dollar than ElevenLabs, whose $6 Starter plan covers about 30 minutes a month and whose $22 Creator plan about 120. ElevenLabs bills monthly, so you can try a paid tier for a month without a yearly commitment. Neither free plan allows commercial use.
Where ElevenLabs leads is quality and control, going by its reviewers. Voice realism and cloning are what its G2 and Capterra reviewers praise most often. Instant cloning starts on the $6 plan, and professional cloning, which ElevenLabs pitches for high-level realism and long-term use, starts at $22. Speech covers 70+ languages on its v3 model, against the 60+ Speechify cites.
“The voice cloning feature is also super impressive cause I cloned my own voice with just a few minutes of audio and it sounds exactly like me.”Kaleem A., G2, September 2026
The trade-off is cost. Running out of credits is the most common complaint in ElevenLabs' reviews, and heavy narrators will get more hours from a Speechify Studio annual plan.
ElevenLabs vs Speechify for developers and voice agents
On price per character, Speechify's API is cheaper. Its Pro plan at $99 a month includes 13.5M characters, with overage from $6 to $10 per million. ElevenLabs Pro, also $99, includes 600,000 credits, about 600,000 characters on its Multilingual v2 model and up to twice that on the Flash and Turbo models through the API.
ElevenLabs covers more without a sales call. Speechify's self-serve API offers English on its newest model and six other languages on the previous one, and its voice agents are an enterprise product with no published rate. ElevenLabs sells voice agents on every plan, free included, at published per-minute rates, and its reviewers describe the API as easy to integrate.
“The API is straightforward to integrate, and documentation is clear enough to get up and running quickly.”Verified G2 reviewer, financial services, August 2026
ElevenLabs vs Speechify reviews, compared like for like
Speechify has the better Trustpilot record, and we won't present it otherwise. Among the 50 most recent reviews of each company, unprompted reviewers give Speechify 4.5 (44 reviews) and ElevenLabs 1.52 (29 reviews). Overall, Speechify holds a 4.7 TrustScore across 7,087 reviews, against 3.0 across 1,163 for ElevenLabs. Speechify has only 6 invited reviews in the sample, too few to set against ElevenLabs' 21 (4.95).
More than half of Speechify's recent unprompted reviews thank a support agent by name, often after a billing mix-up or refund, so the score reflects its support team as much as the app. ElevenLabs' unprompted reviews center on credits running out, billing and subscriptions, and inconsistent voice output. On G2, where business users review, ElevenLabs' 96 most recent reviews average 4.4; Speechify's G2 listings are too small to compare.
Where Speechify wins
- A much stronger Trustpilot record: 4.5 from unprompted reviewers (44 reviews) against 1.52 for ElevenLabs (29), and 4.7 overall across 7,087 reviews
- A mature reading app built around students and readers with dyslexia or ADHD, with scan and listen, AI summaries, and voice typing in one subscription
- More voiceover audio per dollar on Studio's annual plans: 24 hours a year for $100
- A cheaper API per character: $99 a month includes 13.5M characters
- Support that reviewers praise by name, with billing mistakes often refunded
- A far larger user base: 524,647 US App Store ratings and 281K Google Play reviews
Who should pick ElevenLabs over Speechify
Pick ElevenLabs if the audio is the product: YouTube narration, audiobooks, ads, dubbing, a cloned voice, or a voice agent. Its free plan gives you about 10 minutes of audio a month to judge the voices before you pay, and paid plans start at $6 with a commercial license and instant cloning. If you only want your reading read to you, try Speechify's free plan and ElevenReader side by side.
Try ElevenLabs freeElevenLabs vs Speechify FAQ
Is ElevenLabs or Speechify cheaper?+
It depends on the job. To listen to your own reading, ElevenLabs' reader app ElevenReader costs $11 a month for Ultra, or $99 a year, against $29 a month for Speechify Premium on monthly billing (Speechify advertises 60% off on yearly billing). To make voiceovers, ElevenLabs starts at $6 a month, while Speechify Studio lists annual plans at $100 and $300 a year. Speechify Studio's annual plans include more audio per dollar: 24 hours a year on Starter against about 30 minutes a month on ElevenLabs Starter.
Is Speechify or ElevenLabs better for reading PDFs and books aloud?+
Speechify is the more established reading app, with 524,647 US App Store ratings averaging 4.7, scan-and-listen, AI summaries, and voice typing in Premium. ElevenLabs' main platform is built for making audio, so the fair comparison is ElevenReader: 4.7 on the US App Store (10,409 ratings) and 4.5 on Google Play (67.7K reviews), where Speechify has 4.1 (281K reviews). ElevenReader's free plan includes 10 hours of listening a month with its full voice library; Speechify's free plan has 10 voices it calls robotic sounding.
Which has more realistic voices?+
Both companies call their voices lifelike, and we haven't run a blind listening test. What we can point to is the review record: ElevenLabs' G2 and Capterra reviewers single out voice realism and cloning more than any other feature, and its 96 most recent G2 reviews average 4.4. Speechify's own pricing page describes its free-tier voices as robotic sounding; the natural voices come with Premium.
How do ElevenLabs and Speechify reviews compare?+
Speechify is well ahead on Trustpilot, and we say so plainly. Its unprompted reviews average 4.5 (44 reviews) against ElevenLabs' 1.52 (29 reviews), both pulled September 27, 2026, and its overall TrustScore is 4.7 across 7,087 reviews against ElevenLabs' 3.0 across 1,163. Speechify's invited sample (6 reviews, 4.83) is too small to compare with ElevenLabs' invited 4.95 (21 reviews).
Does Speechify have a free plan or free trial?+
Yes to both. The reader has a free plan (10 voices, up to 1.5x speed), and Speechify Studio has a free plan with 600 credits, no voice cloning, and no commercial rights. Premium has a free trial, and Speechify's terms say it converts to a paid plan at the current price unless you cancel before it ends. ElevenLabs' free plan gives 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of audio, for non-commercial use with attribution.