Deepgram vs ElevenLabs — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
ElevenLabs starts at $6/mo. Deepgram uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
See price history: Deepgram · ElevenLabs
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Deepgram (Per Usage) — Deepgram bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
- ElevenLabs (Per Usage) — ElevenLabs bills purely on usage — Starter. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Voice AI infrastructure company — best-known for its speech-to-text and text-to-speech APIs used by voice agents and transcription tools. Usage-based pricing: STT starts at $0.0043/min (Nova-2), TTS starts at $0.015/1K characters. Pay-as-you-go with $200 free credit for new accounts. Enterprise custom for volume + private deployment. Powers voice agents at scale for customers like Vapi, Retell, and enterprise contact centers.
AI voice generation and speech synthesis platform, and the category-defining player in generative audio — voice cloning, multi-language dubbing, and text-to-speech that competitors benchmark against. Credit-based pricing from Free (10K credits) up to Business ($990/mo, 6M credits). Powers podcast creators, product teams building voice UX, and voice agent platforms. Best-in-class voice quality is the durable moat.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Deepgram monthly | Deepgram annual | ElevenLabs monthly | ElevenLabs annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | Pay-as-you-go / Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Entry paid | — / Starter | — | — | $6 | $5 |
| Mid tier 1 | — / Creator | — | — | $22 | $18.33 |
| Mid tier 2 | — / Pro | — | — | $99 | $82.5 |
| Pro / power | — / Scale | — | — | $299 | $249.17 |
| Teams | — / Business | — | — | $990 | $825 |
| Enterprise | Enterprise / — | Custom | Custom | — | — |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Deepgram is worth it if… developers building voice-first products that need low-latency speech APIs at scale. Nova-2 STT is the workhorse — best price/performance for real-time transcription.
ElevenLabs is worth it if… creators and product teams who want the highest-quality synthetic voices on the market — particularly for voice cloning, multilingual dubbing, and long-form narration. Free tier is enough to test but restricts commercial use; Starter ($6) unlocks it.
Bottom line: Similar positioning, closer to a preference call than a strategic one.
Choose Deepgram over ElevenLabs if…
Choose Deepgram if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, custom pricing).
- You match the profile Deepgram is built for: developers building voice-first products that need low-latency speech APIs at scale.
- You're building for contact centers.
Choose ElevenLabs if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, from $6/mo).
- You match the profile ElevenLabs is built for: creators and product teams who want the highest-quality synthetic voices on the market — particularly for voice cloning, multilingual dubbing, and long-form narration.
- You need a general-purpose voice agents & speech/audio option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Deepgram | ElevenLabs | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Entry price | Custom | $6/mo |
| Enterprise available | Yes | No |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Per Usage |
| Last verified | — | September 10, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 10, 2026. Tracked daily.