On October 21, 2026, HeyGen made HeyGen Voice Turbo free until November 30 and set its paid price at $4 per million characters. Turbo, a faster tier of HeyGen's in-house text-to-speech model, now ranks first on the Artificial Analysis Controlled Voice leaderboard (Elo 1,202). For a creator, that is about 4 cents for a 10-minute voiceover, against 36 cents on Eleven v4 Turbo and 72 cents on Eleven v4.
The ranking comes with a catch that most of the launch coverage skips: it measures cloned voices, not the stock voices most people pick from a menu, and Turbo cannot use HeyGen's best clones. Below we price it against the voices creators already use, explain what the number one spot does and does not prove, and show how to try it in a browser without writing code.
What changed on October 21
HeyGen Voice is the speech model HeyGen built for its own avatar videos. It debuted in first place on the same leaderboard on October 9 as a gated preview, and the following week both models reached OpenRouter, with Turbo at $15 per million characters list ($7.50 on a launch promo that ends October 31). On October 21 HeyGen cut Turbo to $4 on its own platform, added a free tier, and Turbo overtook the full model in the rankings. Turbo is the same voices with a shorter generation step, which returns audio sooner, and in blind tests it ranks just ahead of the full model. HeyGen's post puts it plainly: "The #1-ranked text-to-speech model on Artificial Analysis now costs nothing to use through November 30."
There are three tiers, all through HeyGen's developer platform:
- Turbo Free: $0 until November 30, 2026. Public voices and instant clones, best-effort speed, no uptime guarantee. When free capacity is full, a request fails and you try again later.
- Turbo: $4 per million characters, priority speed, public voices and instant clones.
- HeyGen Voice (the full model): $15 per million characters, standard speed, and the only tier that speaks professional clones.
An instant clone is made from one recording, and HeyGen's docs say "The first 3 minutes are used." Creating instant voices is free during the preview. A professional clone needs 1-10 recordings of the same speaker, 20+ minutes in total, and a paid clone slot. There is also a speech-to-speech mode that re-reads a recording you upload in an instant voice, which is handy for fixing a flubbed line in your own voice. Everything comes back as a WAV file.
What a 10-minute voiceover costs on each top voice
Text-to-speech is billed by the character. A narrator speaks about 150 words a minute and English averages about 6 characters a word with spaces, so a 10-minute YouTube narration is roughly 9,000 characters. Here is that job at the list prices shown on the Artificial Analysis leaderboards, with Elo from the Controlled Voice board where the model appears there.
| Voice model | Controlled Voice Elo | Price per 1M characters | 10-minute voiceover |
|---|---|---|---|
| HeyGen Voice Turbo | 1,202 (1st) | $4 (free to Nov 30) | $0.04 |
| HeyGen Voice | 1,195 (2nd) | $15 at HeyGen ($30 listed by Artificial Analysis) | $0.14 |
| Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS-Plus | 1,184 (3rd) | $19.30 | $0.17 |
| Eleven v4 Turbo | 1,156 (4th) | $40 | $0.36 |
| Eleven v4 | 1,156 (5th) | $80 | $0.72 |
| Cartesia Sonic 3.6 | 1,151 (6th) | $49 | $0.44 |
| Voxtral 3 TTS | Not in the top 10 | $13 | $0.12 |
ElevenLabs rates are its API list prices; most creators pay ElevenLabs through a monthly plan instead, so treat the column as the raw rate before plan bundles. The HeyGen Voice price differs between sources: HeyGen's post says $15, and Artificial Analysis shows $30, which OrcaRouter's write-up says is a conversion of HeyGen's credit pricing. Turbo is $4 in both.
Over a month the gap stops being pocket change. Eight 10-minute narrations is about 72,000 characters: roughly 29 cents on Turbo once the free period ends, $2.88 on Eleven v4 Turbo and $5.76 on Eleven v4. Until November 30 the Turbo line is zero. For comparison, Mistral's new voice is $0.12 a video, which we priced in our Voxtral 3 breakdown two days ago, and Turbo undercuts it by a factor of three.
What the number one ranking actually measures
Artificial Analysis runs two voice boards. On the Controlled Voice board, OrcaRouter explains, "every entrant synthesises the same eight cloned reference voices, four US and four UK," and blind listeners pick the better take. That is 8 voices (4 US, 4 UK), and the test measures how well a model copies a voice it was handed. The Provider Voice board compares each company's own stock voices, and HeyGen is not on it. That board is still led by Eleven v4 Turbo at 1,335 and Eleven v4 at 1,329.
Three more things to keep in mind before you trust the headline:
- The lead is small. Turbo sits 46 Elo points above Eleven v4 Turbo. On the standard Elo formula that means listeners preferred Turbo in roughly 57% of head-to-head votes, not a landslide. OrcaRouter notes a margin of plus or minus 19 points on 1,685 votes, and Turbo versus the full HeyGen Voice (7 points) is a coin flip.
- The clones in the test are not the best HeyGen clones. Turbo only speaks public voices and instant clones; professional clones need the full model at $15. If you have spent 20 minutes recording a professional clone, Turbo will not use it.
- Only two languages are scored. OrcaRouter found Turbo on the English and German boards and absent from the Japanese, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Arabic and Hindi tabs, though HeyGen documents 42 base language codes. If you narrate in Spanish, the ranking says nothing about you.
For a creator who wants a narrator that sounds like them, the cloned-voice test is the more useful of the two boards. For one who just picks a voice from a list, it is not the right test at all.
How to try it without writing code
HeyGen aimed this release at developers, so the free tier lives behind an API key. There are two browser routes that need no terminal.
- The paid Turbo, on fal. Open the HeyGen Voice Turbo page on fal and sign in. The Playground tab has a text box and a voice menu. Paste a paragraph of your script, pick a voice, press run and download the WAV. fal charges $0.004 per 1,000 characters, the same $4 per million, so a full 10-minute script costs about 4 cents of fal credit.
- The free tier and your own voice, on HeyGen. Sign in to HeyGen's developer platform and create an API key on the API keys page; HeyGen says no credit card is needed. The model's page on the same platform has a playground where you can hear the public voices. Making an instant clone of your own voice for Turbo (HeyGen uses the first 3 minutes of one recording) also runs through this platform.
- Run a fair test. Paste the same 150-word paragraph into Turbo and into whatever you use today (ElevenLabs, Gemini, Voxtral). Listen on headphones for three things: names and numbers read correctly, breaths in natural places, and no metallic edge on long vowels.
- Drop the WAV into your editor. The file goes straight into CapCut, Premiere or DaVinci Resolve like any voiceover recording.
Two limits are worth knowing before you build a weekly workflow on the free tier. It has no uptime guarantee and returns an error when capacity is full, so do not leave a deadline narration to the last hour. And the free offer ends on November 30; HeyGen says it will notify users before the offer changes, but after that date the paid Turbo rate applies.
HeyGen Voice Turbo vs ElevenLabs: which to pick
- Pick Turbo if you narrate in English, use a stock voice or an instant clone, and produce a lot of voiceover. At $4 per million characters it is the cheapest voice near the top of either board, and it is free for the next five weeks.
- Stay on ElevenLabs if you rely on a stock voice you already like (Eleven v4 Turbo leads the stock-voice board), need directed delivery, or narrate in a language the arena does not score for HeyGen. Our Eleven v4 Turbo price analysis covers that side.
- Use the full HeyGen Voice only if you have a professional clone. At $15 it is still well under Eleven v4 Turbo's $40.
- Already make HeyGen avatar videos? The voice model is HeyGen's own, the same family that speaks for its avatars, so this mainly matters when you need narration outside the HeyGen editor. Our HeyGen Video 1 pricing guide covers the video side.
Frequently asked questions
Is HeyGen Voice Turbo really free?
Yes, through November 30, 2026, as the heygen-voice-1-turbo-free model on HeyGen's developer platform. It needs a HeyGen account and an API key but no credit card. It runs on shared capacity with no uptime guarantee, and requests fail when that capacity is full. The paid Turbo tier costs $4 per million characters.
Is HeyGen Voice Turbo better than ElevenLabs?
On the Artificial Analysis Controlled Voice board, which tests cloned voices, Turbo scores 1,202 against 1,156 for Eleven v4 Turbo and Eleven v4, so listeners preferred it in roughly 57% of matchups. On the Provider Voice board, which tests stock voices, HeyGen is not listed and Eleven v4 Turbo leads at 1,335. Which is better depends on whether you clone a voice or pick one from a menu.
Can I clone my own voice with HeyGen Voice Turbo?
Yes, as an instant clone made from one recording, of which HeyGen uses the first 3 minutes. Instant voice creation is free during the preview. Professional clones, trained on 20+ minutes of audio, only work on the full HeyGen Voice model at $15 per million characters.
How much does a YouTube voiceover cost with HeyGen Voice Turbo?
A 10-minute narration is about 9,000 characters, which is about 4 cents at $4 per million characters, and nothing until November 30. The same script costs about 36 cents on Eleven v4 Turbo and 72 cents on Eleven v4 at API list prices.
Do I need to code to use HeyGen Voice Turbo?
No. fal's model page has a browser playground where you type text, pick a voice and download a WAV, billed at $0.004 per 1,000 characters. The free tier and voice cloning run through HeyGen's developer platform, which needs an API key that you create on a web page.
What languages does HeyGen Voice Turbo support?
HeyGen documents 42 base language codes, but the Artificial Analysis arena only scores Turbo in English and German so far. Test it on your own language before you switch a non-English channel.
