ElevenLabs v4 costs the same as v3 after Oct 12 (per 1M characters)

One million characters of ElevenLabs v4 costs $22 while the launch sale runs and $80 at list price once it ends on Oct 12, which is exactly the $80 that v3 costs. The same million characters on Sume TTS is $47.50. The ElevenLabs API pricing page (read 2026-10-04) shows v4 at $0.022 per 1K characters, marked 72% off a $0.08 list price.

So the sale is the only reason v4 is cheaper than v3 today. Budget against the list column if your job will still be running after the sale window.

The arithmetic

Per million characters you multiply the per-1K rate by 1,000. ElevenLabs v4 on sale is 1,000 x $0.022 = $22.00. At list it is 1,000 x $0.08 = $80.00. Sume's API pricing lists TTS at $0.0475 per 1,000 characters, so 1,000 x $0.0475 = $47.50.

Sume splits long text into jobs because the TTS job maximum in the API catalog is 20,000 characters; a job at that size reserves $0.95 (20 x $0.0475). One million characters is 50 such jobs, 50 x $0.95 = $47.50, which matches the per-1K math.

Which price to put in the budget

• Finishing before Oct 12: ElevenLabs v4 at $22 per million is the lowest of the rows above, and v4 Turbo at $11 is lower still.
• Finishing after Oct 12: v4 at $80 per million is 1.68x Sume ($80 / $47.50), and the same as v3.
• Recurring work: use the list column, since a sale is not a plan. A monthly 2M-character job is $160 at ElevenLabs list and $95 on Sume (2 x $47.50).

Steps to check your own job

• Count characters in the final script, including spaces and punctuation, since both vendors bill on that count.
• Pick the date you will actually generate. Before Oct 12 use the sale row; after it use the list row.
• Multiply characters / 1,000 by the per-1K rate for each engine, then add any retries you expect (a failed Sume job is refunded, so retries only cost the successful run).
• Generate a 500-character sample on each engine and compare the voice before you scale up; at $0.0475 per 1K a 500-character Sume sample reserves $0.02375.

A monthly budget example

A team that narrates 3 million characters a month pays 3,000 x $0.022 = $66 at the sale rate, 3,000 x $0.08 = $240 at ElevenLabs list and 3,000 x $0.0475 = $142.50 on Sume. Over twelve months at list rates that is $2,880 on ElevenLabs v4 against $1,710 on Sume, a $1,170 difference. The sale makes the first month look cheap; it does not change the twelve-month figure.

Caveats

These are per-character rates only. Voices, languages and quality differ between engines, and ElevenLabs bills inside plans that may include characters; this page compares the API per-character rates shown on the pricing page. Plan prices (Starter $6 to Business $990 a month) are separate from the per-character API rates.

On Sume a failed or cancelled generation is not billed: the amount is reserved at submit, then captured or refunded, as described in the billing docs. Check the vendor page again before you commit a large batch; prices move.