Best for
Best for developers who need accurate transcription, speech insights or voice agents behind a pay-as-you-go API.
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
AI Voice & Speech Comparison
AssemblyAI vs. ElevenLabs
At a glance
At a glance
Best for
Best for realistic long-form narration, dubbing and voice cloning.
- Freelancers
- Small and mid-sized
- Enterprise
Cataleo does not name a winner. Both statements come from the vendors themselves.
Full Comparison
| Criterion | AssemblyAI | ElevenLabs |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From $0.15 / hour of audio Pay-as-you-go, no subscription tiers. Pre-recorded speech-to-text is $0.15 / hour on Universal-2 and $0.21 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro; streaming is $0.15 / hour on Universal-Streaming and $0.45 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime; the Voice Agent API is $4.50 / hour, billed per second of connected conversation. Add-ons such as speaker diarization ($0.02 / hour) and medical mode ($0.15 / hour) are charged on top. | Free tier; Starter from ~$5 / month Commercial rights start with the paid Starter tier. API from around $300 per million characters at low volume. |
| Free trial | $50 in free credits, no credit card required, covering up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription | Free tier, restricted |
| Commercial use | Yes, usage-based | From the paid Starter tier |
| Output | Transcripts, structured speech insights and live voice agent conversations | Realistic narration, voice cloning from a sample of around one minute, 70+ languages, dubbing |
| API | Yes, REST APIs and SDKs | Yes |
| Voice cloning | No, the platform covers speech recognition and voice agents rather than voice creation | Yes, from a sample of around one minute |
| Real-time use | Yes, streaming speech-to-text and a Voice Agent API, alongside batch transcription of pre-recorded files | Yes. Eleven Flash v2.5 is built for real-time use at around 75 ms latency, Eleven v3 Conversational runs at around 280 ms, Scribe v2 Realtime transcribes at around 150 ms, and the ElevenAgents platform runs live voice agents over phone, chat and messaging channels |
| Languages | 99 languages for pre-recorded audio on Universal-2, 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro; six on Universal-Streaming Multilingual and 18 on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime; translation across 100+ languages | 70+ languages on Eleven v3 and Eleven v3 Conversational, 32 on Flash v2.5 and 29 on Multilingual v2; speech to text with Scribe v2 covers 90+ |
| Speech-to-speech and dubbing | Yes, the Voice Agent API runs speech-to-speech conversations by orchestrating speech-to-text, an LLM and text-to-speech at one all-inclusive rate | Yes, speech-to-speech and dubbing |
| Editing and controls | Speaker identification, diarization, custom formatting, key phrase extraction and guardrails for PII redaction, profanity filtering and content moderation | Stability set to Creative, Natural or Robust, speed from 0.7x to 1.2x, audio tags such as [whispers] or [excited] to direct delivery, a seed value for repeatable output, and pronunciation set through IPA, phoneme tags or an uploaded pronunciation dictionary |
| Consent and trust | SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS and a HIPAA BAA included at no premium; EU region available at identical US pricing for GDPR | Professional voice cloning is gated behind technological verification of the speaker, cloning of celebrity and other high-risk voices is blocked, and an AI Speech Classifier tells whether a clip was made with ElevenLabs |
| MCP-ready | Yes | Yes |
| Deployment | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based | Cloud (SaaS), Browser-based |
| Support | Not stated | Email helpdesk, Community forum |
| Onboarding | Documentation and knowledge base | Documentation and knowledge base |
| Company size | Small and mid-sized, Enterprise | more entries Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise |
| Integrations | Not stated | Twilio, Genesys Cloud, Five9, Vonage, LiveKit, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, ServiceNow, Jira, Slack, Telegram, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Cal.com, Calendly |
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Adds a column to the table, from the tools in this category.
Row where the values differ The small markers point at the lower number, the longer list or the stated feature. They describe the data, they are not a verdict.
The short version
Key Differences
- Starting price AssemblyAI From $0.15 / hour of audio ElevenLabs Free tier; Starter from ~$5 / month
- Free trial AssemblyAI $50 in free credits, no credit card required, covering up to 185 hours of pre-recorded or 333 hours of streaming transcription ElevenLabs Free tier, restricted
- Company size AssemblyAI Small and mid-sized, Enterprise ElevenLabs Freelancers, Small and mid-sized, Enterprise
- Commercial use AssemblyAI Yes, usage-based ElevenLabs From the paid Starter tier
- Output AssemblyAI Transcripts, structured speech insights and live voice agent conversations ElevenLabs Realistic narration, voice cloning from a sample of around one minute, 70+ languages, dubbing
Every line is one datapoint from the table above, picked automatically. Nothing here is written text.
The trade-offs
Strengths and Limitations
AssemblyAI
Strengths
- Pay-as-you-go with no subscription and $50 in free credits to start
- 99 languages for pre-recorded transcription on Universal-2
- Compliance certifications and an EU region at no price premium
- Official MCP server exposes transcription and transcript search to AI agents
Limitations
- A developer API, not a ready-made studio or editor
- No voice cloning or voice creation
- Speech Understanding add-ons are billed on top of the base rate, so cost stacks per request
- Streaming is billed for as long as the connection stays open, not for the audio sent, and multichannel files are billed per channel
- Universal-3.5 Pro covers 18 languages against 99 on the older Universal-2
ElevenLabs
Strengths
- Most realistic voice and cloning
- 70+ languages on the v3 models
- Speech-to-speech and dubbing
- Strong API
Limitations
- Commercial use only from the paid Starter tier
- API pricey at high volume
- Credits are shared across every product and roll over for at most two months
Plans
Pricing
AssemblyAI
- Pay-as-you-go From $0.15 / hour No subscription. Pre-recorded transcription $0.15 / hour on Universal-2 and $0.21 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro, streaming $0.15 / hour on Universal-Streaming and $0.45 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro Realtime, Voice Agent API $4.50 / hour. Add-ons are billed on top: speaker diarization $0.02 / hour, medical mode $0.15 / hour, keyterms prompting $0.05 / hour on Universal-3.5 Pro and included on Universal-2. Free accounts get 5 new streams per minute, pay-as-you-go accounts 100.
- Custom Not stated Contact sales for custom rate limits, higher concurrency and volume discounts. HIPAA BAA, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance at no premium, and an EU region at identical US pricing.
ElevenLabs
- Free $0 Restricted, no commercial rights.
- Starter ~$5 Per month. Commercial rights start here.
- API From ~$300 Per million characters at low volume.
What users say
Review Scores · opens after launch
AssemblyAI
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
ElevenLabs
- Ease of use
- Not rated yet
- User interface
- Not rated yet
- Onboarding
- Not rated yet
- Support and service
- Not rated yet
- Value for money
- Not rated yet
- Features
- Not rated yet
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this tool. Every review is checked for fairness before it appears, and the vendor cannot have one removed.
Where this comes from
Where this comes from
AssemblyAI https://www.assemblyai.com · checked against the official source on 2026-08-30
ElevenLabs https://elevenlabs.io · checked against the official source on 2026-08-21
This table lists factual criteria taken from information the vendors publish themselves. For how we put it together, see the methodology.