Resources // Voice & Multimodal AI
ElevenLabs Startup Grants program
Offer 12 months free
Suits for Non-VC-backedVC-backed
Updated Jun 2026
The offer
- 12 months of free Scale-tier access to ElevenLabs' voice-AI platform
- 33,000,000 characters (ElevenLabs frames this as "over 680 hours of Agents usage... a $4,000+ value")
- Full suite: text-to-speech, voice cloning/design, dubbing, sound effects, conversational agents, speech-to-text, music
Who qualifies
- Startups/small companies worldwide, < 25 employees, for-profit, with a live/monetized product using voice AI (business email required)
- One application per company; cannot have previously received a grant; no products aimed at children (≤18); agencies/consultancies and existing enterprise customers not eligible
- Grant condition: display the "ElevenLabs Grants" badge and link for ~12 months
Community Insights
ElevenLabs is widely rated top-tier for natural, long-form TTS and voice cloning. In head-to-heads, only Google came close on sustained two-speaker dialogue, and the grant (12 months, 33M characters, ~$4k value) is a real boost for startups that qualify. The frictions: grant communications can stall (“in queue” for weeks), the voice library takes curation to find good pairs, and the big one, post-grant pricing is steep (≈$330/$1,320/month plans after the grace period) for usage-based needs, plus ongoing ethics/consent scrutiny around voice cloning. Good for prototyping premium audio; model the post-grant economics early.
Best Practices (from community tips)
- Align the application with ElevenLabs’ vision (storytelling/accessibility/media), with a live deployed product, credible deck and clear use case. Approvals can come within ~a week when it fits.
- Treat the grant as R&D runway. Validate your audio pipeline and voice selection before committing to a paid plan.
- Optimize prompting (numbers as words, drop hyphens/ellipses/stage-directions, use contractions) and curate voice pairs carefully.
- Forecast post-grant cost. If you would exceed ~$300-$1,300/month, plan a hybrid (ElevenLabs for premium output, cheaper/OSS TTS for bulk).