Updated October 29, 2026 · Sonilo makes one of the two products compared here, so every claim about ElevenLabs links to ElevenLabs's own page.
The short answer
Pick ElevenLabs if voice is the core of the job (narration, text to speech, voice cloning, dubbing) or you want the lowest per minute API price for plain music. Pick Sonilo if you are putting music and sound effects on a finished video: it reads the cut, keeps or ducks the dialogue, takes directions per section, generates sound effects timed to the footage and can hand back the finished video. Sonilo has a free plan; commercial use starts on Pro at $14.99 a month.
01
Sonilo vs ElevenLabs at a glance
| Question | ElevenLabs | Sonilo |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Yes, Free and pay as you go. Free has no commercial licence, publishing needs an ElevenLabs credit, and Eleven Music does not download on Free. | Yes. Free costs $0 and comes with 2,000 credits every 2 weeks, enough for about 111 seconds of video to music. Results play in preview quality, music does not download, and Free is for personal, non commercial use. |
| Price | Starter $6 a month, Creator $22, Pro $99, Scale $299, Business $990. Through the API, music costs $0.15 a minute and sound effects $0.12 a minute. | Pro is $14.99 a month, or $143.88 a year ($11.99 a month); eligible new subscribers pay $5.99 for the first month of Pro Monthly. Premium is $29.99 a month, or $287.88 a year ($23.99 a month). Enterprise is priced per contract. |
| What you get | One credit balance across voice, speech, dubbing, music and sound effects. Eleven Music downloads are capped per month: 30 minutes on Starter, 250 on Creator, 500 on Pro. | Credits to generate original music and sound effects from your own video or a written prompt: 40,000 a month on Pro (about 37 minutes of video to music) and 100,000 on Premium (about 92 minutes). Paid plans download music and sound effects as M4A, WAV or MP3 and export the finished video as MP4. Extra credits can be bought at any time. |
| Music from a video | Yes, in Studio and through the API: up to 10 uploaded clips (600 seconds and 200MB combined) with a description and style tags, returning one audio file. | Yes: a video file (or a link, through the API), two versions per generation, optional directions per section, dialogue kept or ducked, and the finished video back with the music mixed in. |
| Sound effects | Generated from a text prompt; the docs list no video input, so you place each effect in your editor. | Generated from the video and timed to the footage (Foley, ambience, impacts, transitions), or from a text prompt up to 3 minutes long. |
| Licence and commercial scope | Every paid plan includes a commercial licence, except content made with beta services. Eleven Music on self serve plans covers online and offline commercial use except film, TV, radio and studio games, which need Enterprise Music; distributing music to streaming services is not allowed on Free or Starter. | Pro carries a general commercial licence: ads, branded and sponsored content, client work, monetized channels, apps, websites and indie games. Premium adds film, TV and broadcast. Enterprise use is reviewed per contract. Free is personal and non commercial, and a shared Free download must credit “Music by Sonilo”. |
| Rights after cancelling | Content generated during a paid subscription can be used commercially indefinitely; music stays under the plan it was made on. | Cancel at any time from the subscription page in your dashboard. The plan stays active until the end of the period you paid for, and audio generated on Pro or Premium keeps its commercial scope after you cancel. Export your files and license certificates before the plan ends. Payments are not refunded unless the law requires it. |
| Workflow | Generate voice, music or effects as separate audio, then mix them under the picture in your editor. | Upload the finished video. Sonilo reads its pacing, mood and cuts and composes an original track fitted to its length, two versions per generation, with an optional written direction. Sound effects can be generated from the same clip. |
| Limits | Monthly Eleven Music download minutes per plan; no music downloads on Free; film, TV, radio and studio games need Enterprise Music. | Each plan downloads and exports a set length of each video: 3 minutes on Free, 8 minutes on Pro and 30 minutes on Premium. Video to music and video to sound effects cost 18 credits per second of output, text to music 5 and text to sound effects 4, with a 15 second and 200 credit minimum per generation. Credits do not roll over. |
02
The API, endpoint by endpoint
Both APIs now take a video. ElevenLabs' POST /v1/music/video-to-music accepts up to 10 uploaded clips (600 seconds and 200MB combined) with an optional description and style tags, and returns one audio file. Sonilo's POST /v1/video-to-music accepts a video file or a video URL, takes timestamped directions for each section, can keep or duck the dialogue, and a sibling endpoint returns the finished video with the music mixed in. Sonilo also generates sound effects from the same video, while ElevenLabs documents sound effects from a text prompt only.
ElevenLabs is the cheaper and roomier option for plain music: it lists music at $0.15 per minute and accepts longer uploads. Sonilo costs $0.009 per second ($0.54 per minute) for video to music and caps a video at 6 minutes, and it is the better fit when the soundtrack has to follow a real edit inside your product.
| Question | ElevenLabs | Sonilo |
|---|---|---|
| Endpoint | POST /v1/music/video-to-music | POST /v1/video-to-music, plus /v1/video-to-video-music to get the finished video back |
| Video input | Multipart upload of 1 to 10 clips joined in order, 200MB and 600 seconds combined; the docs list no video URL field | One video file or a video_url, up to 300MB and 6 minutes |
| Creative direction | Description up to 1,000 characters and up to 10 style tags | Prompt, per timestamp segments, and prompt_influence to choose how much the video leads |
| Dialogue in the source | Not covered in the endpoint docs | preserve_speech keeps the dialogue; ducking dips the music under speech |
| Output | One audio file in the chosen format (MP3, PCM, Opus and others) | Streamed audio or an async task; M4A, WAV or MP3; optional variants, four stems, a ducked track, or the finished video |
| Sound effects from the video | POST /v1/sound-generation takes a text prompt; no video input documented | POST /v1/video-to-sfx times effects to the footage; /v1/video-to-sound returns music and effects together |
| Price | Music listed at $0.15 per minute on the API pricing page; video to music is not priced separately there | $0.009 per second ($0.54 per minute), pay as you go from a prepaid balance, 17 free trial calls |
| Provenance | Optional C2PA signing of the generated track | Inaudible provenance watermark on generated audio; music model trained on licensed catalogs, including Shutterstock |
| Commercial use | ElevenLabs says generated music is cleared for commercial use; its Music Terms list prohibited industries and tie pricing to plan and use case | Audio generated through the Sonilo API can be used commercially, in your own product and by your end users, including ads, client work and monetized channels. Film, TV, broadcast and streaming releases go to sales first. |
| For coding agents | Official API reference and an agent skills repository | OpenAPI spec at platform.sonilo.com/openapi.json, markdown docs, an MCP server, a CLI, and agent skills |
Endpoint details checked September 30, 2026 against each vendor's API docs. The Sonilo video to music docs and the OpenAPI spec have every parameter.
03
Sound effects quality: an open benchmark
On text to sound effects, Sonilo Sound Effects 1.0 was evaluated against ElevenLabs' v2 sound effects model on the Clotho and AudioCaps benchmarks with audio_eval, an open source toolkit, across 12 metrics per dataset: prompt adherence (CLAP), distributional similarity (Fréchet Distance, KL divergence) and perceptual quality (Audiobox Aesthetics). Sonilo led on 16 of the 24 combined metrics. These are automatic metrics, not listening tests; the full method and results are public on GitHub.
04
When ElevenLabs is the better pick
- Narration, text to speech, voice cloning or a voice agent is the main job.
- You want plain music by the minute at the lowest API price, or uploads longer than 6 minutes through the API.
- You already use ElevenLabs for voice and want one bill for every kind of audio.
05
When Sonilo is the better pick
- The video is cut and the music has to follow it, with the dialogue left clear.
- You need sound effects placed on the frames where things happen, not effects you drag into place.
- You want the finished video back, or directions for each section of the timeline.
- You publish for clients or on many channels and want a license certificate for each track.
Try it on the video to music or video to sound effects tool, or read the ElevenLabs alternatives page.
Sources
Sources
Every ElevenLabs fact on this page comes from ElevenLabs's own pages, read on October 29, 2026. Vendors change plans often, so check the linked page before you buy. Sonilo facts come from Sonilo pricing and the licensing overview.
FAQ
Sonilo vs ElevenLabs: questions people ask
ElevenLabs is a voice first platform (text to speech, voice cloning, dubbing) that also generates music and sound effects. Sonilo starts from your video: it composes music fitted to the edit, generates sound effects timed to the footage, keeps or ducks the dialogue and can return the finished video.
Yes. ElevenLabs makes music from a video in Studio and through POST /v1/music/video-to-music, which takes up to 10 uploaded clips (600 seconds and 200MB combined) with a description and style tags and returns one audio file. Sonilo also takes a video link, directions for each section and dialogue preservation or ducking, and can return the finished video.
Sonilo, when the effects have to land on the picture: it generates them from the video, timed to the footage. ElevenLabs generates sound effects from a text prompt, which you then place in your editor. On the open audio_eval text to sound effects benchmark, Sonilo led ElevenLabs on 16 of 24 metrics.
Through the API, ElevenLabs is cheaper for plain music: $0.15 a minute against Sonilo's $0.54 a minute for video to music. On subscriptions, ElevenLabs starts at $6 a month (Starter) and Sonilo Pro is $14.99 a month with commercial use. Both have a free tier that does not cover commercial use.
ElevenLabs paid plans include a commercial licence, and content made during a paid subscription can be used commercially indefinitely. Sonilo Pro and Premium include commercial use (Premium adds film, TV and broadcast), and audio generated on those plans keeps its commercial scope after you cancel. Free on both is non commercial.
Related
Keep reading
Try it on your video
Put music and sound effects on your own video
The Free plan is enough to hear Sonilo on a short clip. Commercial use starts on Pro at $14.99 a month.