ElevenLabs offers up to $5,500+ (33M characters, 12 months).
No equity, no fees. No referral needed; apply directly.
Stage fit: Pre-seed to Seed. Difficulty: easy.
ElevenLabs at a glance
- Max value
- Up to $5,500+ (33M characters, 12 months)
- Stage fit
- Pre-seed to Seed
- Takes equity
- No
- Who files it
- You (no code needed)
- Geography
- Worldwide; no country restriction stated (Aug 2025 post: "anywhere in the world")
- Referral needed
- No
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Review time
- Within one week (official)
- Credits expire
- 12 months (grant term), or earlier when the 33M characters are used up or 10,000 credits remain; the plan then converts automatically to the Free plan unless you pick a paid plan.
What ElevenLabs actually gives you
- Startup Grant33,000,000 text characters and 12 months of free platform access (Agents/Conversational AI, Text to Speech, Speech to Text and more); page heading says "Scale for 12 months"; ElevenLabs puts the value at "$5,500+"; also includes community access to founder events and startup supportStartups and small companies with fewer than 25 employees that have a business or monetization strategy and a long-term product
- VC partner routeFast-tracked access to "exclusive perks like ElevenLabs credits, access to events and product updates" for portfolio companies of VCs that have signed up as ElevenLabs VC partners. The credit amount for this route is not published on the official pagePortfolio companies of VCs that are ElevenLabs VC partners (optional route; not required for the standard grant)
Who qualifies
You likely qualify if
- Company has fewer than 25 employees at the time ElevenLabs receives the application
- Product has a business or monetization strategy and is one the company intends to take to market long term (no short-term or one-off projects or campaigns)
- Product is a new or early-stage product or business model powered by ElevenLabs AI voice (agents, text to speech, or speech to text)
- Application is submitted from a valid business email (not a personal address); the grant plan and credits are applied to the account you applied with
- One application per company; a founder with several companies may submit one per company
- Existing self-serve paying ElevenLabs customers can apply
- Any country: the Aug 2025 announcement says the program is open to startups "anywhere in the world" and the grants page lists no geographic restriction
You won't qualify if
- Agencies, consulting firms, and SMBs (non-startup small businesses)
- Existing ElevenLabs enterprise customers
- One-off projects and campaigns
- Products built for children aged 18 or under
- Companies that resell or exchange grant characters (grant is terminated immediately)
Geography. Worldwide; no country restriction stated (Aug 2025 post: "anywhere in the world")
How to apply to ElevenLabs Grants (Startup Grants)
- 01Create or sign in to an ElevenLabs account with your business email; the grant plan and credits are applied to the account you apply from
- 02Open https://elevenlabs.io/grants-application (the Apply buttons on the grants page lead here) and fill in the application: the startup you are building, your team and how you expect to grow (ElevenLabs does not sign NDAs for grant applications)
- 03Wait for the decision: ElevenLabs says it will let you know within one week; applications are reviewed on a rolling basis with no deadline
- 04If accepted, the grant plan and credits are applied to the account you applied with; ElevenLabs emails you automatically as you near the 33M cap
- 05Before the 12 months end (or when 10,000 credits remain), pick a paid plan or email sales@elevenlabs.io for a long-term plan; otherwise the account converts to the Free plan
Review time: Within one week (official); rolling review, no deadline. Apply at elevenlabs.io/grants-application.
What changed in 2025 and 2026
Aug 12, 2025: ElevenLabs extended Startup Grants from 3 months to 12 months, describing 33 million credits in total (about 680 hours of Conversational AI) and saying it had awarded over 4,000 grants by then. The original Nov 2023 program gave 11M characters per month for 3 months (also 33M in total) and required awarded companies to display an ElevenLabs Grants logo on their site; the live page no longer mentions that. In March 2026 a recipient (Living Forever AI, 16 Mar 2026) announced a 33M-credit, 12-month award with Scale-level benefits, showing awards continue on current terms. A Startup Grant Demo Day for 11 grant founders is scheduled for Oct 21, 2026.
Hold these alongside ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs credits and your AWS bill
The credits are spent on ElevenLabs' own platform and do not reduce an AWS bill. No ElevenLabs models were found in the Amazon Bedrock catalog. ElevenLabs does offer gated private deployment on AWS (Text to Speech and Scribe as standalone endpoints on Amazon SageMaker, Agents inside the customer's VPC); ElevenLabs says access is for authorized customers only, requires an NDA and goes through sales, so it is not part of the grant. The grant stacks with AWS Activate: use it for the voice layer (TTS, STT, voice agents) and Activate credits for the hosting, databases and Bedrock LLM calls behind it; the AWS-native alternatives are Amazon Polly and Amazon Nova Sonic.
ElevenLabs startup credits, answered
How much does ElevenLabs give startups?
ElevenLabs offers up to $5,500+ (33M characters, 12 months). There are 2 tiers: Startup Grant: 33,000,000 text characters and 12 months of free platform access (Agents/Conversational AI, Text to Speech, Speech to Text and more); VC partner route: Fast-tracked access to "exclusive perks like ElevenLabs credits, access to events and product updates" for portfolio companies of VCs that have signed up as ElevenLabs VC partners.
Does ElevenLabs take equity?
No. ElevenLabs Grants (Startup Grants) is a credits program, not an investment; you keep 100% of your company. No referral needed; apply directly.
Who qualifies for ElevenLabs Grants (Startup Grants)?
Stage fit: Pre-seed to Seed (any company under 25 employees; no funding requirement). You usually qualify if: company has fewer than 25 employees at the time ElevenLabs receives the application; product has a business or monetization strategy and is one the company intends to take to market long term (no short-term or one-off projects or campaigns); product is a new or early-stage product or business model powered by ElevenLabs AI voice (agents, text to speech, or speech to text). You will not qualify if: agencies, consulting firms, and SMBs (non-startup small businesses); existing ElevenLabs enterprise customers.
How long does ElevenLabs take to approve credits?
Within one week (official); rolling review, no deadline. Difficulty: easy, a short form, no referral for the base tier.
When do ElevenLabs credits expire?
12 months (grant term), or earlier when the 33M characters are used up or 10,000 credits remain; the plan then converts automatically to the Free plan unless you pick a paid plan. The official page does not state whether the 12 months run from approval or activation.
Can I combine ElevenLabs credits with AWS credits?
The credits are spent on ElevenLabs' own platform and do not reduce an AWS bill. No ElevenLabs models were found in the Amazon Bedrock catalog. On AWS, CloudRoute matches you for free with a vetted partner who can file MAP, POC or IW funding when the workload qualifies and AWS approves it. The ElevenLabs application you submit yourself.
