So I decided to see if there’s any free or dirt cheap AI voiceover tool recently and well, well, I think I have found a really good tool.
Okay, first I’ll give you some background on what prompted me to scour the web for hours looking for a completely free (or cheaper than 11labs) yet good AI voiceover tool..
Well, it was in response to this question “I am going to use lots of AI voice over. Does anyone know any good AI voice service that is either free or cheaper than eleven labs? Some of my videos will be like 30-60 mins long, so I need to get the cheapest AI voice to cut on costs. Previously, I have used Elevenlabs, and found it to be great. However, the experiment I’m embarking on is too big and using elevenlabs would cost me a lot”
Hume AI review
Let me explain it further: A colleague had asked the above question in one of our work whatsapp groups…
And as you can see, the issue is not that Eleven Labs is bad- it’s that when you have lots of AI voiceovers to do, the costs can quickly pile up.
So that is what made me research and see if I could get a great AI Voiceover tool that is as good as ElevenLabs but free or cheaper..Again I think if you have been doing AI voiceovers for your YouTube channel, you’ll agree with me that ElevenLabs has so far the best voices..
Ladies and gentlemen, that is how I stumbled on Hume AI..
Trust me, this tool is as amazing as Eleven labs and I fully endorse it as perhaps the best cheaper alternative to Eleven Labs..forget about Tortoise TTS– it’s 100% free and quite good too but how many of us are Tech savvy enough to crack its installation?
Hume AI review
What is Hume AI?
Hume.ai is simply a voice AI tool that makes voiceovers that sound pretty realistic.
What makes Hume AI unique?
It uses a voice-specialized LLM called Octave (Omni-capable text cum voice engine) while other AI voiceover tools are basically based on traditional TTS models.
Meaning?
This awesome AI voice over app understands what the words you give it mean context wise, hence it predicts cadence, emotions, and more very accurately resulting in really awesome voiceovers.
In fact, Hume AI team has recently made EVI, a 3rd-generation speech language model that they are claiming enables you to make your audios even more expressive, realist, and emotional.
Put another way, you can fully personalize your audios- make them have the voice and personality you exactly want.
How does HumeAI work?
It’s really easy to use- just type in a brief prompt/script that is evocative and wait for it to work its magic.
Quick Tip: To get it read with the emotions you want, just instruct it.
You can, for example, add “sound sarcastic” to the prompt/command or even “whisper fearfully.”
In short, it is easy to get the best expressive AI voices for your podcast, audiobook, etc.
Who is Hume AI voiceover too for?
The tool is for creators like you who want ai voiceovers that sound most natural.
Use it to record the voice over for your next podcasts, audiobook, YouTube, Reels, Shorts, and more.
Now, if you are a developer, apply for and use Hume AI API if you want to use it in virtually any project where a good voiceover is vital.
Hume AI pricing
I know you might have gotten confused when you see pricing..well, well, the truth is most AI tools use a lot of hardware resources which the inventors have to pay for.
So while the free plan is good enough for personal projects, you only get 10,000 characters (or 10 minutes) of text to voice per month.
Thus, if you want to do more projects- and most creators will do bigger projects- you may want to go for:
Starter plan
Price: $3/month
Characters: 30,000 characters(per month)= 30 minutes
Number of projects: 20 projects
Creator plan
Price: $10/month
Characters: 100,000 characters(per month) = 100 minutes
Number of projects: 1000 projects
Additional characters: $0.20/1,000
Pro plan
Price: $50/month
Characters: 500,000 characters(per month) = 500 minutes
Number of projects: 3000 projects
Additional characters: $0.15/1,000
Recall that you get a full commercial license to use your audios commercially (monetize) with all three paid plans- no monetizing voiceovers made using the free plan
You can even go for bigger plans if you are a more intensive user(scale, business, enterprise).