How to Choose the Best AI Voice Generator for Your Needs

If you've ever tried an AI voice generator, you've likely noticed the wide range of possibilities it offers for both individual creators and businesses — from realistic voiceovers to fully synthesized narrations. 

But with so many options available, finding the right solution isn’t just difficult — it’s overwhelming. With hundreds of platforms promising natural-sounding voices and advanced features, how do you choose the one that truly fits your needs?

This guide breaks down six main factors — voice quality, customization, scalability, ease of use, data security, and licensing — to help you choose the best AI voice generator for your needs.

Choosing the Best AI Voice Generator — 6 Factors That Matter 

1. Voice quality

Voice quality is, arguably, the single most important factor that impacts your audience’s experience. Whether you’re using an AI voice generator as a content creator or a business managing customer calls, it’s the voice quality that forms an impression of your brand. 

If you bet on high-quality text to speech software, you’ll boost your audience’s trust, help them stay focused, and make the content easier to understand (especially for second-language users).

Daniel Vasilevsky, the Director and Owner of Bright Force Electrical, told us that they’re currently looking for an AI voice generator they’d use primarily for customer service follow-ups. When he was testing different tools, the main thing he was looking for was a tone that sounded natural and engaging. 

“Many voice generators sound stiff or robotic, so I wanted something that felt real and conversational. I needed a tone that would make customers comfortable and assured like they were speaking to a real person rather than a machine,” he said.

Here is a tip from us — try to demo each voice generator before making the final decision. Run sample text through the tool and ask yourself:

• How clear is the sound?
• Is it easy to understand the pronunciation?
• Does it sound genuinely human, or is there something slightly “off” about it?

At ElevenLabs, you can test our text to speech generator right on our homepage — without signing up for a trial.

2. Voice customization options 

Customizing the voice is another important factor, closely linked (but not identical) to audio quality. It relates to aspects like the voice generator’s ability to adjust tone, pitch, speed, and emotions. These aspects matter because you’ll want to adjust them to the type of voice content you’re generating – or the audience you’re targeting. 

Loris Petro, Marketing Manager of Kratom Earth, uses an AI voice generator to produce audio for website tutorials and promotional posts. He told us that their main criterion when choosing the tool – aside from quality — was the range of language accents available. “Our customers come from all over, so I needed a tool that could speak to them in familiar tones, like a British or Australian accent, to make our content more relatable,” he said. 

Meanwhile, for Paul Posea, Outreach Specialist at Superside, the most important decision-making factor was their voice generator’s emotional nuance capability. 

“Our outreach is based on personalization, so it is crucial that clients feel like they're speaking with a real person rather than a robot. After all, it’s the ability to convey human inflection in one's voice that draws the audience in,” he told us.

“My most recent experiment with email-based cold outreach, where I used voice messages mimicking my voice, showed a 30% uptick in replies. The difference? It came across as more of a conversation than a sales presentation.”

When looking for a generator that fits your needs, ask yourself the following:

• How realistic does the voice need to sound? Does it require human-like intonation and emotions?
• Does it support my preferred language and accent? This question will particularly apply if you want to localize your content across different markets.
• Does it offer a variety of voices or, better yet, allow me to clone my voice?

To put this into perspective, consider two scenarios:

• A YouTube channel with strong personal branding – where the creator has always used their voice for voice-overs.
• A YouTube channel where the team or individual behind it isn’t widely recognized – possibly relying on AI-generated narration.

In the first case, the creator’s voice has become an integral part of the brand after years of recording voice-overs. Now, they want to scale production without having to record every script themselves or provide the same content across multiple languages. In contrast, the second channel focuses on making sure the AI-generated voices they use sound as natural and lifelike as possible. 

Both of these scenarios are easy to handle in ElevenLabs, where you can choose from a variety of licensed voices or provide a sample of your own to create life-like audio content.

3. Scalability 

“Scalability” can relate to different aspects of AI voice generators. For a call center, it may mean the ability to handle AI-powered conversations with a growing customer base without any latency caused by a sudden spike in call volume. For others, it’s more about the ability to produce podcast or video content quickly, without compromising on the speed of voice generation or the audio’s quality. 

However, some general questions can help you verify if a given AI voice generator can keep up with your needs:

• Looking into the future, how much will my needs or user demand change if my project proves successful? Can the tool I’m looking at keep up?
• Does the AI voice generator offer a free plan and – if I decided to upgrade – affordable tiers, so I can scale as needed?

For instance, ElevenLabs is not only a stable, scalable solution, but it also offers a variety of plans for all types of users. The free plan offers 10k credits, and then 30k credits under the affordable $5/month plan. It’s easy to scale up or down as needed.

 4. Ease of use 

The best AI voice generators are easy to use. It’s an important factor because it directly impacts your productivity and how likely you are to use the tool. A user-friendly interface lets you generate voices quickly without a steep learning curve. 

Not everyone using it will be super tech-savvy. So, the UI must be simple enough for content creators, marketers, and customer success teams to pick up easily. A complex interface can lead to errors or call for extensive training. 

Here are a couple of questions to ask:

• Can the tool integrate smoothly into my workflow or platform (e.g., via APIs, plugins, or SDKs)?
• Is it compatible with the systems or devices I plan to use?

At ElevenLabs we created an AI voice generator that’s beginner-friendly. The layout is minimalistic with all tools in the left-hand menu, and easy-to-adjust settings. You’ll mainly use three sliders to tweak the voice, then choose the one that sounds best. 

ElevenLabs can even suggest the most suitable model for your needs. Once you’re happy with the settings, paste your text and click “Generate speech” — and that’s it!

We also provide officially supported libraries that are updated with the latest features available in the REST API and those designed for use with ElevenLabs Conversational AI.

5. Data security 

An AI voice generator is without a doubt an exciting technology. However, some people use it for wrong things. We’ve seen cases where bad actors create convincing voice messages to manipulate individuals or businesses into transferring money or revealing sensitive information. That’s why strong security measures are essential to prevent such incidents. 

At ElevenLabs, safety is our top priority across all AI audio products, including text to speech software and voice generators. We use automated content moderation, human review, and safeguards against high-risk voice creation to stop misuse. Additionally, our proprietary voiceCAPTCHA ensures that only authorized users can clone voices. To promote transparency, we also offer AI detection tools to check if the content is AI-generated. 

6. Licensing

Don’t overlook licensing. It’s key when choosing the best AI voice generator because it determines how you can legally use the generated voices. Some tools are free to use but restrict commercial applications, so if you need voices for marketing or voiceovers, you’ll require a commercial license.

Always check the licensing agreement before committing to an AI voice generator to ensure it aligns with your needs. Here are a few aspects to pay attention to:

• Copyright and ownership – some providers retain ownership of generated audio, meaning, you might not have full rights to distribute or monetize it. Ensure the license allows unrestricted use.
• Usage restrictions – licenses may limit usage based on factors like distribution channels, audience size, or content type (e.g., audiobooks vs ads)
• Scalability & costs – licensing terms often affect pricing, with different tiers based on usage volume. Understanding the terms helps avoid unexpected costs.

It’s important to realize that some AI voices are modeled after real people, which can create legal risks if used without permission. At ElevenLabs, we partnered with industry legends to improve your reading experience. Iconic voices from television, film, and literature are now exclusively available in the ElevenReader App, ready to bring your favorite stories to life. 

Mdabu Obida, CEO at Null Station, told us how he used ElevenLabs several times for his company’s AI-generated video content.

“Our first major experiment, ‘Bengal in 1869’, was an AI-generated documentary we released in 2023. We used ElevenLabs, which was already unbeatable at that time”. Since then, Obida told us, it’s been Null Station’s go-to tool for voice.

In October 2024, they launched “Pioneers of Change | Steve Jobs”, where they recreated Steve Jobs' voice for a stage appearance announcing the iPhone 16. “To make this project a unique experience we had to recreate Steve Jobs's voice which was nearly impossible. But with the help of ElevenLabs, we made it happen,” Obida added.

Final thoughts 

As there are many AI voice generators available, the best and fastest way to check if it’s a fit is to try it out. ElevenLabs lets you test out text to speech, voice cloning, and even dubbing directly on the website. If you want to check how it would perform on a real-life project, you can sign up for a free plan, where you can generate 10 minutes of ultra-high-quality audio and create up to 15 minutes of conversational AI. These are certainly sufficient for you to see if ElevenLabs is a good match for your project.