How far free goes
For voice and audio the question is not “can I” but “can I use what I made”. Three walls: commercial licence, download rights, and quota units.
Speech synthesis. ElevenLabs is the naturalness benchmark; free gives 10,000 credits a month (roughly 10,000 characters of text-to-speech) but no commercial licence and no rollover. Murf’s free plan gives 10 projects and 10 minutes, but audio cannot be downloaded. Speechify Free is for listening: 10 robotic voices, up to 1.5x speed, 5 saved files; natural voices, 5x speed and offline downloads are Premium.
AI presenters. HeyGen gives 3 one-minute videos a month, 1080p, watermarked, no card.
Dictation and transcription. Wispr Flow free: 2,000 words a week on desktop, 1,000 on iPhone, no limit on Android. Otter free: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per meeting. Fireflies free: unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries.
Music. Suno free: 50 credits a day, reset daily, no commercial use. Udio free: 10 daily plus 100 monthly credits. AirMusic: almost all features, MP3/WAV downloads, kept 7 days in the cloud, no commercial licence.
When to pay
- Commercial use is the hardest wall and cheap to clear: ElevenLabs Starter US$6/month includes a commercial licence; Suno Pro and Udio Standard US$10/month; Murf Creator US$29/month to download.
- To remove the HeyGen watermark: Creator US$29/month.
- For natural voices: Speechify Premium US$29/month (trial needs a card and auto-charges).
- For meetings over 30 minutes: Otter Pro US$16.99/month, or Fireflies free.
Common pitfalls
- “Free to download” is not “free to use commercially” (AirMusic, ElevenLabs free).
- Quota units differ (credits, daily points, weekly words, monthly minutes); check the tool page before estimating.
- Check Chinese transcription support first: Fathom does not support Chinese; test Otter with a short mixed Chinese-English clip.
Quick answers
Can I put ElevenLabs free audio in a monetised video? No, the free plan has no commercial licence.
Cheapest way to get a commercial voice licence? ElevenLabs Starter at US$6/month in our records.
Each tool page lists current limits and the date we last checked them; see the audio category page.
