What ElevenLabs AI Dubbing Actually Costs
Hidden Costs: Credits, Overages, and Per-Language Charges
ElevenLabs Plan Comparison for Video Dubbing
GeckoDub vs. ElevenLabs: A Simpler Alternative for AI Dubbing
How to Choose the Right AI Dubbing Tool for Your Budget
You want to dub your videos into new languages using AI—but the moment you open ElevenLabs' pricing page, you're met with credits, model tiers, per-minute overages, and separate charges per output language. Figuring out what you'll actually pay is harder than it should be.
ElevenLabs builds excellent voice technology. But in 2026, their pricing structure has grown complex enough that creators and marketers routinely overshoot their budgets on dubbing projects. This guide breaks down exactly what ElevenLabs charges for AI dubbing, where the hidden costs live, and how alternatives like GeckoDub offer a more predictable path to multilingual video content.
ElevenLabs AI dubbing is billed per source audio minute, with costs varying based on your subscription tier and whether you use the standard automatic dubbing or the more advanced Dubbing Studio interface. The platform offers six paid plans ranging from $5/month to $1,320/month, plus a free tier and custom enterprise pricing.
Here's the plan structure as of early 2026:
The critical detail most people miss: dubbing credits are tracked separately from TTS credits. Your 100,000 character credits on the Creator plan don't translate directly into dubbing minutes—dubbing has its own quota pool.
The real expense of ElevenLabs AI dubbing isn't the base subscription—it's the compounding cost structure that catches users off guard. Three factors drive up your actual spend.
Every language you dub into is billed separately. A 10-minute video dubbed into Spanish, French, and German counts as 30 minutes of dubbing usage, not 10. For creators targeting multiple markets simultaneously, this multiplier effect can burn through your monthly allocation in a single project.
If you exceed your included dubbing minutes, ElevenLabs charges overages that range from $0.60/minute on the Creator plan down to $0.24/minute on Business. For perspective, a 20-minute video dubbed into three languages (60 minutes total) on the Creator plan would consume your entire 50-minute dubbing allocation and cost an additional $6 in overages—on top of the $22 monthly fee.
ElevenLabs uses a unified credit system across all features—TTS, speech-to-text, voice cloning, dubbing, and sound effects. Heavy use of one feature can indirectly limit your capacity for another. According to CSA Research, 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy products with information in their native language, which means most businesses need to localize into several languages at once. The per-language billing model makes this expensive fast.
Choosing the right ElevenLabs plan for dubbing depends on your volume and how many languages you need. Here's how the plans stack up specifically for video dubbing use cases:
For occasional dubbing (1-2 videos/month, 1 language): The Starter plan at $5/month gives you Dubbing Studio access, but with no overage option, you'll hit a hard ceiling quickly. The Creator plan at $22/month is the realistic starting point with ~50 included dubbing minutes.
For regular content creators (5-10 videos/month, 2-3 languages): The Pro plan at $99/month with ~250 dubbing minutes handles moderate volume. But a creator producing eight 5-minute videos in three languages would need 120 minutes—leaving a thin margin for experimentation or retakes.
For agencies and high-volume teams: Scale ($330/month) and Business ($1,320/month) offer better per-minute economics but require significant upfront commitment. The Flexprice pricing analysis notes that ElevenLabs' overage costs follow a tiered structure where higher-plan users pay progressively less per unit of extra usage.
Key limitations across all plans:
GeckoDub takes a fundamentally different approach to AI dubbing pricing—one designed specifically for video translation rather than adapted from a text-to-speech credit system.
Where ElevenLabs bundles dubbing into a broader audio platform with shared credits across features, GeckoDub focuses exclusively on video translation with clear, predictable pricing. The Creator Pro plan at €23/month (billed annually) includes 40 minutes of video translation with 15 minutes of lip-sync included—a feature ElevenLabs charges extra for or doesn't include in standard dubbing.
Direct comparison at the mid-tier level:
For creators and marketers who need video-specific localization—not a full audio production suite—GeckoDub delivers more focused value. You get lip-sync technology, animated subtitles, and bulk upload capabilities without paying for TTS, voice cloning, or conversational AI features you may never use.
Try GeckoDub free and see how your videos sound in 30+ languages with lip-sync included.
The best AI dubbing tool for your workflow depends on three factors: your monthly video volume, how many target languages you need, and whether you need lip-sync or audio-only dubbing.
Choose ElevenLabs if:
Choose GeckoDub if:
According to the ElevenLabs pricing page, dubbing is just one of many features sharing the same credit pool—which means your dubbing budget competes with every other audio task. For teams where video localization is the core use case, a purpose-built tool avoids that friction entirely.
Quick budget calculator: If you need to localize 5 short videos (3 minutes each) into 3 languages monthly, that's 45 minutes of dubbing. On ElevenLabs Creator ($22/month), you'd be close to your limit with no lip-sync. On GeckoDub's Creator Pro (€23/month yearly), you'd have the capacity plus lip-sync and animated subtitles included.
Upload your video today and have localized versions ready by tomorrow. Start your free trial to see how GeckoDub handles your content.