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TravnikovDev/ten-minutes-of-your-voice-on-elevenlabs-is-worth-about-a-quarter-not-a-typo-ab.md

Created December 9, 2025 12:06
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LinkedIn Post - 2025-12-09 07:06
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ten-minutes-of-your-voice-on-elevenlabs-is-worth-about-a-quarter-not-a-typo-ab.md

Ten minutes of your voice on ElevenLabs is worth about a quarter. Not a typo. About 27 cents. 🎤

I tripped over ElevenLabs’ Payouts while looking for their API pricing and had my research agent pull the receipts. Here’s the deal without the sugar.

ElevenLabs pays roughly 3 cents per 1,000 characters when paid users generate audio with your shared voice. That 10-minute script is about 9,000 characters, so you pocket a hair over a quarter. To hit $1,000 in a month, you need north of 30 million characters. That’s a firehose. Weekly-ish payouts through Stripe, around a $10 minimum, and free-tier usage doesn’t pay you a cent.

Yes, you can set custom rates. Cool in theory, but if your price goes up and your discoverability goes down, you still lose. Their Agents product pays per minute, capped around a cent a minute. Same story - volume or bust.

Who actually wins here? The voices that surface on page one. This is app-store economics: a few get the feast, most get crumbs. ElevenLabs flaunts claims of top earners making a few thousand a month. I haven’t seen third-party proof. Treat it like a casino jackpot, not a salary.

Modern alternatives if you want AI-era, set-it-and-forget-it income:

  • Kits.ai - music-focused. You get paid when others download tracks made with your verified model. Twice a month via Stripe. Rates aren’t itemized publicly.
  • LOVO Marketplace - historically a 50 percent revenue share on licenses. Heads up: they’ve been named in a lawsuit about unauthorized cloning, so read the terms with both eyes.
  • Replica Studios - more old-school. Upfront fee plus renewals for licensing your AI clone. Not royalties, but it can be “do the session once, collect later.”

The fine print that actually matters: platforms can change rates, “notice periods” can keep your voice online longer than you’d like, and misuse is a reputational headache. Also, expect ID checks and taxes like any normal online payout.

My take: list your voice if it’s unique, niche, or you already have reach. Treat it like ad revenue - nice surprise money, not rent money. If you want real upside, negotiate direct deals with teams building agents or IVR systems and ask for a slice of usage. 💸

Anybody here actually clearing triple digits monthly from a voice model? What worked - pricing, niche, or just being early?

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