ElevenLabs Music API: 3, 40 or 147 minutes included, $0.15 a minute

ElevenLabs prices its Music API at $0.15 per generated minute and bundles minutes into paid plans: 3 on Starter, 40 on Creator and 147 on Pro, up to 1,993 on Business. A three-minute track costs $0.45 at that rate. Sume's Music Router charges a fixed $0.125 per generation whatever the length, so the gap grows with track length, though it favours ElevenLabs on very short cues.

The price table

Figures below come from the ElevenLabs API pricing page, read on 2026-10-04. The page also states a five-minute limit per generation and commercial licensing on Starter and above.

Per-track arithmetic

At $0.15 a minute, a 30-second cue is $0.075, a two-minute track is $0.30, and a five-minute track is $0.75. Sume's Music Router charges the same fixed price for every model it routes, and its docs say length is steered in the prompt, with duration rejected. So a 30-second request and a 2-minute request both cost $0.125 on Sume, but the 30-second cue is cheaper on ElevenLabs by $0.05.

What the comparison leaves out

Included plan minutes lower the effective ElevenLabs rate. Creator at $22 for 40 minutes is $0.55 a minute if you use only the allowance, which is far above the listed $0.15 per minute API rate, so model the subscription fee and how many of the included minutes you will really use. Sume bills per accepted generation, with no subscription line in the Music docs. Those docs describe Music as full-length songs up to a few minutes and do not state a maximum length, so check a long track before budgeting a 5-minute row.

Length is also less controllable on Sume: you cannot send a duration, and a stage that needs an exact length trims afterwards. The Timeline 1.0 soundtrack and timeline audio split cover that at $0.01 per audio job plus the render.

How to decide

Count tracks, not minutes, if your tracks are long. Count minutes if your tracks are cues under a minute. Mixed libraries often split: short stings on a minute-priced vendor, full beds on a flat-priced one. Whatever you pick, keep the price you read and the date next to the budget, because both vendors change rates and plan sizes.