ElevenLabs vs OpenAI API: pricing, quotas & features (2025)
Best-in-class AI text-to-speech + voice cloning + Conversational AI
vs. Frontier models: GPT-5, o-series reasoning, image, audio, embeddings
Data sourced from vendor documentation · Last updated May 2026
Summary
ElevenLabs and OpenAI API are both ai-api platforms, addressing the same core use case with different implementation philosophies and trade-offs. Both offer a free tier, making it easy to prototype without a credit card. ElevenLabs offers paid plans from $6/month; OpenAI API does not publish standard pricing. ElevenLabs has a broader documented feature set (13 vs 12 features). The right choice depends on your existing stack, team experience, and feature requirements. All pricing and quota data below is sourced from ElevenLabs and OpenAI API's official documentation — not generated by AI or estimated.
ElevenLabs vs OpenAI API: Comparativa de precios, cuotas y características (2025)
En esta comparativa analizamos ElevenLabs y OpenAI API lado a lado — incluyendo precios mensuales, límites del tier gratuito, características técnicas, cuotas de uso (almacenamiento, transferencia, usuarios activos mensuales) y los interfaces de desarrollo disponibles. Todos los datos proceden de la documentación oficial de cada proveedor, no de respuestas generadas por IA.
ElevenLabs es una plataforma de la categoría ai-api — Best-in-class AI text-to-speech + voice cloning + Conversational AI. Ofrece 7 tiers de precio: Free gratuito, Starter desde $6/mes, Creator desde $11/mes, Pro desde $99/mes. Su catálogo en Staxly documenta 13 características y 6 interfazes para desarrolladores.
OpenAI API pertenece a la categoría ai-api — Frontier models: GPT-5, o-series reasoning, image, audio, embeddings. Ofrece 4 tiers de precio: Free Tier (Trial) gratuito, Pay-as-you-go gratuito, Usage Tiers (1-5) gratuito, Enterprise (personalizado). Su catálogo documenta 12 características y 7 interfazes para desarrolladores.
A continuación encontrarás los tiers de precio completos de ambas plataformas, una matriz de cuotas del tier gratuito (transferencia, almacenamiento, MAU, llamadas a la API y otros límites), el listado completo de características y los interfaces (CLI, SDKs, REST, GraphQL, MCP) disponibles para integrar cada servicio.
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Pricing tiers
ElevenLabs
OpenAI API
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing free on ElevenLabs vs free-tier on OpenAI API.
| Metric | ElevenLabs | OpenAI API |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
ElevenLabs · 13 features
- Conversational AI — Voice agents with LLM orchestration + tools.
- Dubbing Studio — Auto-dub video to target languages with lip-sync.
- Projects — Long-form narration workflow — books, podcasts.
- Realtime Streaming — Low-latency TTS streaming via WebSocket.
- Scribe (STT) — High-accuracy speech-to-text with speaker diarization.
- Sound Effects — AI-generated SFX from text prompts.
- Text to Sound — Generate music + sound from text.
- Text-to-Speech — Studio-quality TTS across 29 languages with emotion control.
- Voice Changer — Transform one voice into another preserving delivery.
- Voice Cloning — Instant (short sample) + Professional (30 min +) voice cloning.
- Voice Design — Design voices from text descriptions.
- Voice Library — 3,000+ community voices. License per-voice.
- Voiceover Studio — Multi-character voiceover timeline.
OpenAI API · 12 features
- Assistants API — Stateful assistants with tools, threads, file search.
- Batch API — 50% discount for async processing within 24h.
- Chat Completions API — Classic /v1/chat/completions endpoint.
- Files API — Upload docs for retrieval, fine-tuning, batch.
- Fine-Tuning — Supervised + DPO fine-tuning for GPT-4o, GPT-4.1, GPT-4o-mini.
- Function Calling — JSON-schema tool calling; parallel calls supported.
- Moderation — Safety classifier API (free).
- Prompt Caching — Auto-cache repeated prefixes; 50% cheaper cached hits.
- Realtime API — WebSocket streaming voice + text with low latency.
- Responses API — Stateful conversational API.
- Structured Outputs — Enforced JSON schema compliance.
- Vision — Image input for GPT models.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | ElevenLabs | OpenAI API |
|---|---|---|
| SDK | elevenlabs (Node), elevenlabs (Python) | openai-dotnet, openai-go, openai-node, openai-python |
| REST | ElevenLabs REST API | OpenAI REST API |
| MCP | ElevenLabs MCP | OpenAI MCP |
| OTHER | WebSocket Streaming, Webhooks | Realtime API (WebSocket) |
Key takeaways
- Both ElevenLabs and OpenAI API offer a free tier — ElevenLabs ("Free") and OpenAI API ("Free Tier (Trial)") — with no credit card required to start.
- ElevenLabs's entry paid tier (Starter) costs $6/month; OpenAI API does not list public pricing.
- ElevenLabs has a broader documented feature set (13 features) vs. OpenAI API (12 features) in Staxly's catalog.
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