“Bringing technology to life”
ElevenLabs is an AI platform for speech synthesis, voice cloning, speech-to-text, dubbing, sound effects, music, conversational agents, and audio APIs.
The company no longer positions itself solely as a voice tool, but as a platform with ElevenCreative, ElevenAgents, and ElevenAPI for creators, businesses, and developers.
ElevenLabs
Bringing technology to life
Location: USA ⓘ Eleven Labs Inc., 169 Madison Ave #2484, New York, NY 10016, United States. For Voice Data of persons in the EEA/UK/CH, the Privacy Policy additionally names: Eleven Labs Poland sp. z o.o., Lipska 27/22 Street, 03-908 Warsaw, Poland.
Creator Everything in Starter plus professional Voice Cloning and additional credits; suitable for creators with regular audio/voiceover needs.
Pro Everything in Creator plus higher audio quality and API-oriented audio output; suitable for professional production and developer workflows.
Scale Everything in Pro plus multiple workspace seats, team collaboration, and professional AI voices; suitable for teams and growing audio workflows.
Business Everything in Scale plus low latency for TTS, more professional AI voices, and more seats; suitable for companies with high production or integration needs. Other Enterprise Custom offer with tailored credits and seats, DPA/SLA commitments, BAA for HIPAA customers, custom SSO, higher concurrency, more voices, prioritized support, and additional enterprise features.
Pay-as-you-go / API / Startup Grants In addition to subscriptions, ElevenLabs also offers pay-as-you-go prepayment with or without a paid subscription; there is also API usage and a startup grant program for conversational AI integrations.
Target audience
ElevenLabs addresses three main groups: Creators, businesses, and developers. Officially, the company separates these target groups through ElevenCreative for content production, ElevenAgents for customer experience and conversational AI, and ElevenAPI for programmatic integration. Typical users include content creators, podcasters, publishers, e-learning providers, app developers, support teams, marketing departments, and larger companies with international audio or agent needs.
Outstanding features
The strongest differentiating features are the combination of very natural speech synthesis, multilingual voice cloning, speech-to-text, dubbing, sound effects, music generation, and conversational agents. For voice cloning, ElevenLabs offers both Instant Voice Cloning with short audio samples and Professional Voice Cloning with more extensive material for significantly more realistic results. In addition, there are API models for different latency/quality profiles, such as Flash for very fast TTS applications and v3 for especially expressive speech.
Key use cases
Typical use cases include voiceovers, audiobooks, podcasts, video localization, commercials, e-learning, game dialogue, IVR/voicebots, conversational agents, speech-to-text transcription, and embedding voice functions into proprietary products via API. The platform is suitable both for simple speaker workflows and for larger automation and support scenarios. Especially in the enterprise segment, it is relevant that ElevenLabs also addresses topics such as monitoring, teamwork, custom SSO, data residency, and zero retention.
Usage & notes
The Free plan is sufficient for testing and private use; for actual business use, at least Starter is generally required due to the terms. From a data protection perspective, ElevenLabs should be reviewed carefully because the Privacy Policy explicitly provides for transfers to the USA and also describes the use of personal data for the improvement or training of AI models. Positive aspects include a DPA, transfer mechanisms, an EU-related voice data controller structure in Poland, as well as optional enterprise features such as data residency and zero retention mode; however, the latter do not apply across all products and workflows by default. Especially for voice cloning, it is important that, according to the documentation, use is permitted only with the legal right and consent to use the voice.
| Target audience | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Private individuals | Suitable – for text-to-speech, voiceover, audio texts, creative audio content, sound effects, music, simple voice experiments, and content production. |
| Creators / Podcasters / YouTubers | Very suitable – strong for realistic AI voices, voiceovers, dubbing, audiobooks, social video, podcasts, sound effects, and multilingual content. ElevenLabs lists text to speech, speech to text, voice changer, sound effects, voice isolator, music, dubbing, and studio as core functions. (ElevenLabs) |
| Self-employed / Freelancers | Very suitable – especially for audio ads, courses, e-learning, promotional videos, voiceover, localization, dubbing, product demos, and client projects. |
| SMEs / Teams | Very suitable – for marketing, training, support, e-learning, telephone announcements, voicebots, multilingual content, and collaborative audio production. |
| Large enterprises | Very suitable – Enterprise offers customized DPA/SLA commitments, SSO, more seats/voices, increased concurrency limits, BAAs for HIPAA customers, and prioritized support. (ElevenLabs) |
| Developers / Product teams | Very suitable – ElevenLabs offers API and agent products for text-to-speech, speech-to-text, conversational AI, voice agents, dubbing, voice cloning, and real-time audio applications. The documentation lists subscription plans and pay-as-you-go as payment models for usage. (ElevenLabs) |
Hosting & Data
1) On-prem / local hosting
Meaning: The company operates the solution on its own hardware or within its own infrastructure. In the strictest sense, not only the application runs locally, but ideally the model as well.
2) Private cloud / data center
Meaning: The solution runs in a dedicated or more clearly separated cloud environment, often with a hosting provider or hyperscaler, but in a German data center or in a particularly controlled environment.
3) EU SaaS / managed
Meaning: The provider operates the solution itself as a service. The company uses the tool as a ready-made cloud service, ideally with EU data residency.
4) Hybrid
Meaning: One part of the processing remains internal / local / in a private cloud, while another part runs in an external cloud or EU SaaS.
5) AVV / DPA
Meaning: This is the data processing agreement or Data Processing Addendum. It governs that the provider processes personal data on behalf of the customer and is bound by the customer's instructions.
6) No training
Meaning: The provider does not use your prompts, uploads, attachments, chat histories, or outputs for training or improving the general model — ideally excluded by contract.
7) Open-source / transparency path
Meaning: There is a path toward greater technical transparency and sovereignty, for example through:
- open models
- documented components
- self-hostable parts
- traceable architecture
- export / switching options
| On-prem / local hosting | ❓ |
| Private cloud / data center | ⚠️ |
| EU SaaS / Managed | ⚠️ |
| Hybrid | ⚠️ |
| DPA / AVV | ✅ |
| No training on customer data | ⚠️ |
| Open source / transparency path | ⚠️ |
On-prem / local hosting: unclear
The website does not specify whether a true on-premise or locally self-hosted ElevenLabs installation on the user’s own hardware is supported. It is only documented that users can connect their own or self-hosted LLMs, but not that ElevenLabs itself can be run entirely on-premise.
Private Cloud / Data Center: Partially
The website describes isolated environments with data residency in specific jurisdictions, including the EU, as an enterprise feature. This suggests a compartmentalized environment. However, according to the website, processing may still take place outside the selected region unless specific configurations are used.
EU SaaS / Managed: Partially
A self-operated cloud service with EU data residency is documented, but only for enterprise customers in isolated environments. By default, data is stored in the U.S. For EU-compliant processing, the website lists additional conditions such as API usage and Zero Retention Mode.
Hybrid: Partially
The website describes connectable custom LLM servers and self-hosted LLMs, as well as isolated and non-isolated environments that can be used in parallel. This enables hybrid scenarios between the customer’s own infrastructure and ElevenLabs services, but it is not a generally described standard hybrid model for all products.
T&C / DPA: Covered
A DPA is published on the website. Among other things, it stipulates that ElevenLabs generally processes customer data only in accordance with documented instructions from the customer and imposes contractual obligations on subprocessors.
No Training: Partially
The website states that Enterprise data is not used for training by default and that any user can opt out of data use for training via “Terms and Privacy” > “Data use.” At the same time, data use without opting out or outside of Enterprise is not generally prohibited. Zero Retention Mode is also only available to certain Enterprise customers.
Open Source / Transparency Path: Partially
The website mentions hosted open-source models in the Agents Platform and documents the option to integrate custom or self-hosted LLMs. However, the website does not specify a comprehensive open-source or self-hosting path for the ElevenLabs solution as a whole.
Data Processing
For EU/EEA users, it is important to note that, according to the website, ElevenLabs uses U.S. hosting by default. As a more strictly controlled option, isolated EU environments with data residency are available for Enterprise customers. These initially limit storage to the EU but do not automatically guarantee that all processing remains within the EU. According to the documentation, an EU restriction on processing can be achieved in certain setups via API plus Zero Retention Mode, provided that no optional integrations involving processing outside the region are used. Subprocessors are mentioned in the DPA; a list of subprocessors is referenced on a separate compliance page.
Conclusion
For a European tool directory, ElevenLabs should not be classified as a standard SaaS offering that is fully GDPR-compliant. Positive aspects include the DPA, documented EU data residency, the training opt-out, and the SOC 2 disclosure. However, the default U.S. hosting and the explicit statement that processing may take place outside the region even with data residency are significant limitations. Consequently, the best use case documented on the website for the EU/EEA is more of an enterprise configuration with EU data residency and supplementary safeguards than the typical standard use.
Sources
- https://elevenlabs.io/privacy-policy
- https://elevenlabs.io/dpa
- https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/administration/data-residency
- https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-api/resources/zero-retention-mode
- https://elevenlabs.io/enterprise
- https://help.elevenlabs.io/hc/en-us/articles/29952728805393-Is-my-data-used-to-improve-ElevenLabs-AI-models
- https://elevenlabs.io/docs/conversational-ai/customization/llm/custom-llm
| On-prem / local hosting | ❓ |
| Private cloud / data center | ⚠️ |
| EU SaaS / Managed | ⚠️ |
| Hybrid | ⚠️ |
| DPA / AVV | ✅ |
| No training on customer data | ⚠️ |
| Open source / transparency path | ⚠️ |
On-prem / local hosting: unclear
The website does not specify whether a true on-premise or locally self-hosted ElevenLabs installation on the user’s own hardware is supported. It is only documented that users can connect their own or self-hosted LLMs, but not that ElevenLabs itself can be run entirely on-premise.
Private Cloud / Data Center: Partially
The website describes isolated environments with data residency in specific jurisdictions, including the EU, as an enterprise feature. This suggests a compartmentalized environment. However, according to the website, processing may still take place outside the selected region unless specific configurations are used.
EU SaaS / Managed: Partially
A self-operated cloud service with EU data residency is documented, but only for enterprise customers in isolated environments. By default, data is stored in the U.S. For EU-compliant processing, the website lists additional conditions such as API usage and Zero Retention Mode.
Hybrid: Partially
The website describes connectable custom LLM servers and self-hosted LLMs, as well as isolated and non-isolated environments that can be used in parallel. This enables hybrid scenarios between the customer’s own infrastructure and ElevenLabs services, but it is not a generally described standard hybrid model for all products.
T&C / DPA: Covered
A DPA is published on the website. Among other things, it stipulates that ElevenLabs generally processes customer data only in accordance with documented instructions from the customer and imposes contractual obligations on subprocessors.
No Training: Partially
The website states that Enterprise data is not used for training by default and that any user can opt out of data use for training via “Terms and Privacy” > “Data use.” At the same time, data use without opting out or outside of Enterprise is not generally prohibited. Zero Retention Mode is also only available to certain Enterprise customers.
Open Source / Transparency Path: Partially
The website mentions hosted open-source models in the Agents Platform and documents the option to integrate custom or self-hosted LLMs. However, the website does not specify a comprehensive open-source or self-hosting path for the ElevenLabs solution as a whole.
Data Processing
For EU/EEA users, it is important to note that, according to the website, ElevenLabs uses U.S. hosting by default. As a more strictly controlled option, isolated EU environments with data residency are available for Enterprise customers. These initially limit storage to the EU but do not automatically guarantee that all processing remains within the EU. According to the documentation, an EU restriction on processing can be achieved in certain setups via API plus Zero Retention Mode, provided that no optional integrations involving processing outside the region are used. Subprocessors are mentioned in the DPA; a list of subprocessors is referenced on a separate compliance page.
Conclusion
For a European tool directory, ElevenLabs should not be classified as a standard SaaS offering that is fully GDPR-compliant. Positive aspects include the DPA, documented EU data residency, the training opt-out, and the SOC 2 disclosure. However, the default U.S. hosting and the explicit statement that processing may take place outside the region even with data residency are significant limitations. Consequently, the best use case documented on the website for the EU/EEA is more of an enterprise configuration with EU data residency and supplementary safeguards than the typical standard use.
Sources
- https://elevenlabs.io/privacy-policy
- https://elevenlabs.io/dpa
- https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/administration/data-residency
- https://elevenlabs.io/docs/eleven-api/resources/zero-retention-mode
- https://elevenlabs.io/enterprise
- https://help.elevenlabs.io/hc/en-us/articles/29952728805393-Is-my-data-used-to-improve-ElevenLabs-AI-models
- https://elevenlabs.io/docs/conversational-ai/customization/llm/custom-llm
Strengths & weaknesses at a glance
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| – Very strong in text-to-speech and voice cloning. | – According to the Terms, free users may only use the service for non-commercial purposes; commercial use requires a paid plan. |
| – Broad platform offering instead of a single function: TTS, STT, dubbing, music, SFX, agents, APIs. | – Sensitive from a data protection perspective: The Privacy Policy explicitly states that all personal data is transferred to the USA for storage. |
| – Good scalability from individual users to enterprise. | – According to the Privacy Policy, ElevenLabs may also process personal data for research, development, training, and improvement of AI models. |
| – Officially designated security/compliance components such as SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 42001, PCI DSS Level 1, DPA, and Trust Center. | – Team features such as collaboration, multiple seats, custom SSO, or advanced governance only start with higher-tier plans. |
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GDPR-compliant usage possible?
For users in the EU/EEA, GDPR-compliant use is not guaranteed across the board for the standard SaaS offering, but under Enterprise terms, there is a documented path to reduced-risk use: ElevenLabs offers a DPA, EU data residency in isolated environments, and, optionally, an EU-restricted processing path via API with Zero Retention Mode. At the same time, the website itself notes that data is stored in the U.S. by default and that processing may take place outside the selected region despite the chosen data residency. Therefore, usage within the European region appears to be robustly documented only under certain conditions.
Positive
The website features a privacy policy, a DPA, documented EU data residency as an enterprise feature, Zero Retention Mode to reduce stored content, an opt-out option from model training via account settings, and a reference to SOC 2. The DPA also specifies that processing is permitted only in accordance with documented customer instructions.
Negative
The website also states that customer data is hosted or stored in the U.S. by default. Even with data residency, processing may take place outside the selected region—for example, by international affiliates and subprocessors, as well as for support and content moderation. EU data residency is available only to Enterprise customers. The website does not provide evidence of full EU/EEA standard operations without these restrictions.
Server Location
According to the website, customer data is hosted or stored in the U.S. by default. Additionally, ElevenLabs offers isolated data residency environments in the EU for Enterprise customers. The website lists a separate environment for the EU at 'eu.residency.elevenlabs.io'. At the same time, it is noted that processing may take place outside the selected region despite the chosen storage location; processing can be restricted to the EU only in certain configurations, such as with Zero Retention Mode and API usage.