The ElevenLabs Terms of Service is the master contract for the ElevenLabs platform. It applies to the website, the APIs and the apps, it is supplemented by service-specific terms for each product family, and it is read together with the Prohibited Use Policy. A separate version applies to residents of the European Economic Area, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and it adds a statutory right of withdrawal for the first 14 days of a Recurring Subscription.[1][2] This article follows the contract rather than the price list. The plan economics are in ElevenLabs plans, credits and seats, and the overview is ElevenLabs licensing.
Eligibility and who may use the services commercially
Age and authority
The Prohibited Use Policy states that a user must be at least 18 to hold an ElevenLabs account, and that apps or experiences directed at people under 18 are prohibited unless ElevenLabs has assessed and approved them in writing.[3] A person who registers on behalf of an entity represents that they are authorised to bind it, and an entity is responsible for its employees’ and representatives’ use and for making sure they comply with the Terms.[1] Credentials are personal. The Terms bar sharing or permitting others to use an individual account’s credentials, and the Prohibited Use Policy repeats that credentials may not be shared except as expressly permitted.[1][3]
Free Users and Paid Users
The commercial boundary is drawn by payment. If a customer uses the Services free of charge, it may use them only for non-commercial purposes, and a customer on a paid subscription plan may use them for commercial purposes, in each case subject to the Prohibited Use Policy.[1] Non-commercial use must use a personal email address. If someone registers with a business entity’s email address, ElevenLabs may treat that entity as a controller of the account data and act at its direction.[1] That rule matters in organisations where staff sign up for the Free plan with a work email address: the account is then treated as an entity’s account while the licence remains non-commercial.
The Help Center gives the practical reading. All paid plans include a commercial licence, provided the customer holds the necessary intellectual property rights and follows the law, the Terms and the Prohibited Use Policy, and the free plan does not include one.[4] Content generated on a free plan, or without signing in, must be attributed to ElevenLabs by including “elevenlabs.io” or “11.ai” in the title, and music output is attributed by referencing “Eleven Music”.[4] A commercial licence to content generated during a paid subscription continues after the subscription ends. Audio generated outside a subscription always requires attribution, and the Help Center gives no guarantee of continued availability under the free tier.[5][4]
Beta Services
Beta Services are not “Services” under the Terms of Service. They are features designated as alpha, beta, pilot, preview or similar, made available “as is” for testing under a separate addendum.[6] The Help Center states that content generated using Beta Services cannot be used for any commercial purpose or in any production environment.[4] A software asset manager should keep a list of beta features that teams have switched on, because a paid subscription does not clear them for production use.
Ownership of input and output, and the licence back
Between the customer and ElevenLabs, the customer retains all rights in its Input and Output, except as the Terms provide.[1] In return the customer grants ElevenLabs a licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display its Content to provide the Services. Section 4 of the Terms describes that licence as perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide and sub-licensable through multiple tiers, and it extends to improving the Services and developing new services and products.[1] A second licence of the same kind covers User Voice Models, to the extent the customer owns rights in them, and ElevenLabs states that it will not commercialise the voice on a standalone basis without the customer’s permission.[1]
Two controls soften the breadth of that grant. First, the customer may opt out of ElevenLabs’ use of its Content for training at any time through the “Data use” menu in the “Terms and Privacy” section of the account, and the opt-out does not reach uses made before the request is processed.[1] Second, the licence to a voice is limited as just described. The customer must also hold the rights needed to grant the licence. It may not provide Input or create Output without them, and it warrants that its Content and User Voice Models do not violate anyone’s rights.[1]
Health data has its own rule. The Terms bar Input that includes protected health information as defined by HIPAA except as permitted by an executed Business Associate Agreement, and the Prohibited Use Policy separately bars submitting medical records, payment card or bank account numbers or government-issued ID numbers without prior written agreement.[1][3] The BAA is available only on Enterprise subscriptions, which is covered in ElevenLabs agents, API and enterprise terms.
The service licence
ElevenLabs grants the customer a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access and use the Services, conditional on compliance with the Terms.[1] Because the licence is non-transferable and non-sublicensable, a customer cannot pass its seats, credits or voices to another company on a corporate reorganisation without ElevenLabs’ consent. Prepaid Credits may not be transferred, sold, gifted, traded, sublicensed or assigned either.[1] The contract also deals with termination. Closing or terminating an account forfeits unused credits, and ElevenLabs may suspend or terminate access where Content is reasonably likely, in its sole determination, to violate the law or the Terms.[1]
Prohibited use
The Prohibited Use Policy has twelve sections, from minors, dangerous activities, deception, elections, hate, sexual content, privacy and platform integrity to lawful use, AI transparency, high-impact decisions and, in section 12, commercial and technical restrictions.[3] The restrictions most relevant to licensing are as follows.
| Restriction | Content | Policy section |
|---|---|---|
| Voice and likeness consent | No cloning, synthesising or impersonating the voice, identity or likeness of a living individual without explicit and informed consent or other valid authorisation | 3 |
| Political campaigning | Prohibited without ElevenLabs’ prior written consent; also no impersonation of candidates or officials without authorisation | 4 |
| Minors’ voices | No voice recordings of anyone under 18 to create or train a voice model | 1 |
| Provenance signals | No removal, alteration or concealment of ElevenLabs watermarks or metadata to disguise AI-generated content | 10 |
| High-risk AI classification | No use in a system classified as prohibited or high-risk under AI laws such as the EU Artificial Intelligence Act | 9 |
| Commercial and resale limits | No commercial use on a free plan; no scraping, reverse engineering, wrappers or proxies that give others access outside the applicable terms; no offering Services or Output to your own end users on terms more permissive than your own; no credit manipulation or multiple free accounts; no use to develop competing products | 12 |
| AI training | No use of Services or Output to develop, train, fine-tune or improve any AI model or service, or to include Output in a dataset for those purposes, unless the applicable terms expressly permit it | 12 |
| Government Entities | Prior written approval needed to use the Services, or to make them available to one | 12 |
The rows on voice consent, minors, political campaigning, resale, training and Government Entities are each cited to the policy.[3] The free-plan rule in the Terms and the training ban in the Policy are the two most likely to be tested in practice. A company that wants to fine-tune an internal model on synthetic speech generated through ElevenLabs needs an express permission in its applicable terms, because the default position is a prohibition.
Enforcement and the customer’s exposure
The customer indemnifies ElevenLabs and its officers, licensors, employees and agents against claims arising out of the customer’s use of the Services, its Content or Feedback, and its violation of the Terms or of others’ rights.[1] In the other direction, ElevenLabs’ total liability for any claim is limited to the greater of 100 US dollars and the amount paid in the 12 months before the claim.[1] After a 30-day informal process, disputes other than small claims and intellectual property disputes go to individual arbitration administered by JAMS, under New York law, with a class waiver and a 30-day opt-out.[1] A customer with material exposure should weigh the liability cap against its use case before relying on the public terms.
Data processing and retention
The Data Processing Addendum covers personal data in the Services. ElevenLabs updates its Subprocessor List at least 30 days before a new subprocessor is appointed, and the customer may object on data privacy or security grounds. Content for enterprise-level Services is deleted within 30 days after expiry or termination unless the customer agrees to longer retention, while for self-serve Services ElevenLabs may delete content after 180 days of inactivity.[7] Data location and Zero Retention Mode are enterprise options, described in the companion article.
Virtualization & partitioning
Not applicable to hosted services. The contractual equivalent is the account and workspace, which are personal to the customer and may not be shared.[1]
Cloud / BYOL
Everything is delivered from ElevenLabs’ cloud. SDKs and other software that ElevenLabs publishes carry open-source licences, which grant no right to use the Services.[8]
Programs
- Commercial licence. Included on all paid plans; continues for content made during a subscription.[4][5]
- Free-plan attribution. “elevenlabs.io” or “11.ai” in the title of published content.[4]
- Beta Services Addendum. Testing-only licence, not for commercial or production use.[6][4]
- Training opt-out. Account-level setting, prospective only.[1]
- Government Entity approval. Written approval from ElevenLabs for each Service and use.[3]
Out of scope
- Privacy Policy and cookie terms, which govern personal data rather than software use.
- Signed Order Forms and negotiated Enterprise agreements.
- Local consumer-protection rights outside the EEA, Switzerland and the UK.
- Copyright complaint procedures and the handling of third-party infringement claims.