ElevenLabs plans: what 1,000 included characters cost vs Sume

ElevenLabs' API pricing page (read 2026-10-03) lists subscription plans with monthly character allowances alongside pay-as-you-go per-character prices. Dividing each plan's monthly price by its allowance gives the effective price per 1,000 characters if you use the whole allowance.

What each plan works out to

The plans on the page are Starter at $6 a month for 273,000 characters, Creator at $22 for 1,000,000, Pro at $99 for 4,500,000, Scale at $299 for 13,591,000 and Business at $990 for 45,000,000.

Against Sume's rate

Sume's TTS is $0.0475 per 1,000 characters, charged per request, so about 2.2 times the ElevenLabs effective plan price of roughly $0.022. The comparison is only fair if you use the full plan allowance, every month.

If you use less, the plan price per character rises. Using half of a Creator allowance (500,000 characters) makes the effective price $0.044 per 1,000, almost level with Sume. At 400,000 characters a month on Creator, the effective price is $0.055, above Sume's $0.0475. The break-even is about 463,000 characters a month: below that, paying per use on Sume costs less than the Creator plan.

Working out your break-even

Divide the monthly plan price by Sume's price per character to find the monthly volume at which the two cost the same. For Creator, $22 divided by $0.0000475 is about 463,000 characters. For Pro it is about 2.08 million.

This ignores voices, models and features, which differ across vendors, and it ignores that plan allowances may not roll over; check the plan terms before relying on the numbers. Run your own with this snippet.

sume_per_char = 0.0475 / 1000
plans = {'Starter': 6, 'Creator': 22, 'Pro': 99, 'Scale': 299, 'Business': 990}
for name, price in plans.items():
    breakeven = price / sume_per_char
    print(f'{name}: breakeven {breakeven:,.0f} characters a month')