ElevenLabs v4 after October 12: $0.08 per 1,000 characters vs Sume

After the October 12 promotion, ElevenLabs lists v4 at $0.08 per 1,000 characters and v4 Turbo at $0.04, according to its API pricing page read on 2026-10-02. Sume's text-to-speech SKU lists $0.0475 per 1,000 characters, so a 5,000-character script is $0.40 on v4 at list, $0.20 on v4 Turbo and $0.2375 on Sume.

The two are not the same product. This post is a budget table, not a quality verdict: price per character is only one input to a voiceover decision.

What is changing on October 12?

The ElevenLabs page shows v4 at $0.022 per 1,000 characters at 72% off until October 12 and says the regular price is $0.08. v4 Turbo is $0.011 under the same promotion, regular $0.04. The page also lists v3 at $0.08, v3 Conversational at $0.04, v2 Multilingual at $0.08 and Flash/Turbo at $0.04.

If your budget was built on the promotional $0.022, it will be 3.6 times too low from the 12th. Budget on the regular price now and treat the discount as a bonus.

How do the per-script numbers compare?

Sume's TTS rate card says the price is per transcript character after Sume's margin, that spaces and punctuation count, and that the maximum is 20,000 characters per request. The repo's catalog lists $0.0475 per 1,000 characters, with a one-cent minimum and a ceiling of $0.95 for a full 20,000-character request.

The pattern: Sume sits between ElevenLabs' two v4 tiers. It is cheaper than regular v4 and slightly dearer than Turbo. During the promotion, v4 at $0.022 undercuts everything in the table, which is why the date matters.

What else differs besides the rate?

Voices, languages and controls differ, and those are what you actually hear. Sume's TTS takes a transcript and returns an audio job in your workspace, next to your other generation jobs. I did not find voice cloning or ElevenLabs v4 voices in the Sume docs, so if you need either, price that on ElevenLabs. If you want narration billed from the same wallet as your video jobs, the Sume rate is the relevant one.

Also note how each is billed. ElevenLabs bills your account under its own plan. Sume reserves the estimated amount when the job is accepted and captures it on success; failed jobs release the reservation. See Usage for the reserved, captured and refunded statuses.

How do I check the live Sume rate before a big script?

Read the rate card, and size scripts under the 20,000-character limit. Longer narration should be split at paragraph boundaries into several jobs, each priced separately. The totals above hold because the rate is linear in characters.

Re-check both pages on the day you commit budget. Promotions end on dates, and the rate card is generated from the same constants the API bills on, so a changed number there is a changed bill.

Which number should I budget on today?

Budget on the regular price. If you ship before October 12 you will pay the promotional rate and come in under budget, which is the safe direction to be wrong in.

For a product with a fixed monthly script volume, convert the volume to characters and multiply by the rate. A tool that voices 500,000 characters a month is $40 on v4 at the regular price, $20 on v4 Turbo and $23.75 on Sume, all at published rates. The spread is real money at that scale, and voice quality is the thing the table cannot show.

If you compare engines, run the same 1,000-character passage through each and listen. Price per character only decides between voices you would already accept.