ElevenLabs vs Murf vs TTSMaker — Which Free Voice Can You Actually Monetize?
A voiceover can sound perfect and still be unusable — not because of quality, but because of the licence attached to it. These three free voice tiers look similar on a pricing page. In practice, one cannot be used commercially at all, one cannot even be downloaded, and one is the only free voice here that can go straight into a monetised video.
| Tool | Free tier | Can you download it? | Commercial use on free? | First commercial plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs | 10,000 credits a month (~10 minutes) | Yes — but published content must credit ElevenLabs in the title | No | Starter — $6/mo ($5/mo billed annually, 30,000 credits) |
| Murf | 10 minutes of voice generation (no renewal period stated) | No — no downloads on the free plan | No | Creator — $19/mo billed annually ($29/mo billed monthly, 24 hours a year) |
| TTSMaker | 20,000 characters a week | Yes | Yes — licence in Terms of Service §6 | The free plan itself — no paid plan needed for the licence |
ElevenLabs is the voice most creators know, and its free plan is a testing tier, not a publishing tier. The Help Centre states it plainly: the free plan "does not include a commercial license and cannot be used for any commercial purpose". Anything you publish from the free plan must also credit ElevenLabs by putting "elevenlabs.io" or "11.ai" in the title. The first plan with a commercial licence is Starter at $6 a month billed monthly ($5 billed annually), with 30,000 credits.
Murf draws the line one step further back. Its free plan gives you 10 minutes of voice generation to listen to in the browser — and no file to take away. Murf's pricing page lists no downloads and no commercial rights on the free plan; both start at Creator, $19 a month billed annually ($29 billed monthly), with 24 hours of voice generation a year. Murf's own marketing page does carry a generic sentence about "full commercial usage rights" for audio made with its converter, without stating which plans it covers — the pricing table, not that sentence, is what this comparison relies on. Note also that sources disagree on whether the free 10 minutes renews or is a one-off total, and Murf's own page does not state a period, so this page claims neither.
TTSMaker is the exception, and the exception is written into its terms rather than its marketing. Its Terms of Service (§6) grant a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual and irrevocable licence to use, modify, reproduce, distribute and display audio generated through the service for personal and commercial purposes, with no additional licence fee. The free plan allows 20,000 characters a week, and the pricing FAQ confirms the voices may be used in YouTube and other videos. Two limits to know: the licence does not guarantee exclusive copyright ownership in an output, so this page claims a licence to use the audio commercially — not ownership of it — and the practical workflow is to download straight away, since the FAQ allows re-downloads only within 24 hours.
The verdict: free voices and monetised videos — only one passes
Free and monetised? Only TTSMaker. ElevenLabs free is for testing your script and hearing the voice; the moment the video earns money, you need Starter. Murf free is for auditioning voices with your own script; you cannot export anything from it at all, so there is nothing to publish. If your budget is truly $0 and the video is monetised, TTSMaker's free plan is the only one of the three whose licence covers you — within its 20,000-character weekly limit, and with the download done promptly.
Before you publish: for ElevenLabs, rights follow the moment of creation — audio made on the free plan stays under the free plan's rules even if you upgrade later, so generate the keeper take on the plan whose licence covers it. For every tool here, re-check the vendor's own terms page on the day you publish.