Music · Head-to-head
ElevenLabs vs Masterchannel
ElevenLabs vs Masterchannel: pricing, features, and which to pick in 2026.
The verdict
Pick ElevenLabs if…
- →budget is the constraint
- →overall capability matters more than price (AI Score 9.2 vs 7)
- →you want our editor's pick for this category
- →your primary use case is creators, publishers, and developers who need realistic tts or cloning, and teams that want claude or claude code to manage elevenlabs agents over hosted oauth.
Pick Masterchannel if…
- →your primary use case is independent artists and small labels who want release-ready masters without per-track studio rates, plus studios and distributors reselling mastering under their own brand.
Side-by-side specs
| Spec | ElevenLabs | Masterchannel |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Music | Music |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Headline pricing | Free $0 (10k credits) + Starter $6/mo (30k) + Creator $22/mo (121k, first month $11) + Pro $99/mo (600k) + Scale $299/mo (1.8M) + Business $990/mo (6M) + Enterprise custom. Credits are shared across products. Annual is 10 months prepaid. | Paid plans (EUR ~€180–€948/yr); reviews cite ~$15–$20/mo annual — check website for current pricing |
| Free tier | 10,000 credits per month, non-commercial, no rollover. Shared across products. elevenlabs.io/pricing 28 Aug 2026. | A limited free preview may be available, but core use requires a paid plan. Check the website to confirm. |
| AI Score | 9.2/10 | 7/10 |
| Best for | Creators, publishers, and developers who need realistic TTS or cloning, and teams that want Claude or Claude Code to manage ElevenLabs agents over hosted OAuth. | Independent artists and small labels who want release-ready masters without per-track studio rates, plus studios and distributors reselling mastering under their own brand. |
| Editor's pick | ✓ Yes | — |
| Use cases | content-creation media development | media content-creation |
| Date added | 2026-04-30 | 2026-06-27 |
Pros and cons
ElevenLabs
Music · freemium
Pros
- ✓Still the realistic-voice default for TTS and short-sample cloning
- ✓Hosted MCP with OAuth in Claude and Claude Code, so agents can be managed in the assistant you already use
- ✓Shared credit pool is at least honest: one budget across speech, music, and dubbing
- ✓Commercial license starts at Starter ($6/mo)
Cons
- ×Credits are shared, so music or dubbing will eat the TTS budget faster than the headline number suggests
- ×Free is non-commercial and does not roll over unused credits
- ×MCP is documented for Claude and Claude Code today — other assistant logos on the marketing page are not a ship claim
- ×Starter is $6/mo now, not the $5 we previously published
Masterchannel
Music · paid
Pros
- ✓Licensed AI clone of a named Grammy-winning mastering engineer — a genuinely distinct angle, not generic auto-loudness
- ✓Very high-resolution output (up to 192kHz/64-bit float) for producers who need it
- ✓Masters each track individually rather than forcing one fixed chain
- ✓White-label tier lets studios and distributors resell mastering under their own brand
Cons
- ×No free, fully usable tier — meaningful use is subscription-only
- ×The headline Wez Clarke AI is locked behind a higher-priced plan, not the entry tier
- ×Pricing is muddled: EUR site tiers vs USD monthly figures in reviews make it hard to know what you'll actually pay
- ×Narrow scope — it masters mixes only; it won't generate, mix, or separate audio
Related comparisons
Updated 2026-08-28. Spec data sourced from official product pages and tracked in our public directory at /tools.