Eleven v3 Conversational on ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs Free API tier
The catch: No commercial use on the free plan, and anything you publish must credit ElevenLabs with 'elevenlabs.io' or '11.ai' in the title; your content trains their models unless you opt out, and free use can be blocked on shared or VPN IPs.
| Access | Free API tier |
|---|---|
| Free limits | The free tier column on the API pricing page includes 20,000 characters of this model family per month (all products share the 10,000-credit pool). Low-latency v3 (~280 ms). Served over the Text to Dialogue WebSocket (one voice per connection; Free plan allows 14 open sessions). |
| Modality | audio |
| Credit card | Not required |
| Commercial use | Not allowed |
| Trains on your data | Yes, on the free tier |
| Licence or terms | ElevenLabs Terms of Service (non-EEA), last updated 31 March 2026 |
| Context window | – |
| Model id | eleven_v3_conversational |
| Base URL | wss://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-dialogue/stream-input |
| Last checked | 8 Oct 2026 |
How to use Eleven v3 Conversational
It speaks the OpenAI API at wss://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-dialogue/stream-input, so the OpenAI SDK you already use works once you change the base URL and key.
# WebSocket only (Text to Dialogue). Send the three JSON lines in order; audio returns as base64 "audio" chunks.
npx wscat -H "xi-api-key: $ELEVENLABS_API_KEY" -c "wss://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-dialogue/stream-input?model_id=eleven_v3_conversational&output_format=mp3_44100_128"
{"voices":["JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb"]}
{"inputs":[{"text":"Hello there, this is a short test of real-time dialogue speech.","voice_id":"JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb"}]}
{"close_socket":true}I want to use the free AI model "Eleven v3 Conversational" from ElevenLabs (model id: eleven_v3_conversational) in my project. Please: 1. Check the provider docs and give me the exact steps to get a free API key. 2. Give me a minimal working example that reads the key from an environment variable. 3. Tell me the real free limits and any catch (commercial use, card, data use). Listed limits: 20K characters/month on Free (shared pool). 4. If the same provider has a more generous free option, mention it.
Before you ship on it
- No commercial use on the free plan, and anything you publish must credit ElevenLabs with 'elevenlabs.io' or '11.ai' in the title; your content trains their models unless you opt out, and free use can be blocked on shared or VPN IPs.
- Prompts on the free tier may be used to train models. Keep customer data off it.
- Help Center: 'The free plan does not include a commercial license and cannot be used for any commercial purpose.' Terms s.1(c): free users 'may only use the Services for non-commercial purposes' and must use a personal…
- Free tiers are shared capacity: treat the limits as a ceiling, not a promise, and keep a paid fallback.
Questions
Is Eleven v3 Conversational on ElevenLabs free?
Yes. ElevenLabs offers it as free api tier, with these limits: 20K characters/month on Free (shared pool). No credit card is needed.
Can I use Eleven v3 Conversational on ElevenLabs commercially?
No: the free access is for testing or non-commercial use. A paid plan is needed for production.
How do I start with Eleven v3 Conversational on ElevenLabs?
It speaks the OpenAI API at wss://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/text-to-dialogue/stream-input, so the OpenAI SDK you already use works once you change the base URL and key.
Source: elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/models, checked 8 Oct 2026.