{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4","date":"2026-09-28","date_precision":"day","short_title":"ElevenLabs launches Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, #1 on Artificial Analysis TTS arena","deck":null,"takeaway":null,"category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"ElevenLabs blog: Eleven v4","url":"https://elevenlabs.io/blog/eleven-v4","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"elevenlabs.io"},{"n":2,"title":"Eleven v4 landing page","url":"https://elevenlabs.io/v4","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"elevenlabs.io"},{"n":3,"title":"Docs: Eleven v4","url":"https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/capabilities/text-to-speech/eleven-v4","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"elevenlabs.io"},{"n":4,"title":"Docs: Models","url":"https://elevenlabs.io/docs/models","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"elevenlabs.io"},{"n":5,"title":"API pricing","url":"https://elevenlabs.io/pricing/api","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"elevenlabs.io"},{"n":6,"title":"ElevenLabs on X: launch","url":"https://x.com/ElevenLabs/status/2104572127617994917","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"x.com"},{"n":7,"title":"ElevenLabs on X: launch pricing","url":"https://x.com/ElevenLabs/status/2104572138347004161","type":"official","group":"primary","domain":"x.com"},{"n":8,"title":"RuntimeWire: ElevenLabs ships v4 voice models","url":"https://runtimewire.com/article/elevenlabs-eleven-v4-turbo-launch","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"runtimewire.com"},{"n":9,"title":"Artificial Analysis on X: Eleven v4 takes #1","url":"https://x.com/ArtificialAnlys/status/2104578736687653293","type":"discussion","group":"reactions","domain":"x.com"},{"n":10,"title":"Artificial Analysis TTS leaderboard","url":"https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-speech/leaderboard","type":"discussion","group":"reactions","domain":"artificialanalysis.ai"},{"n":11,"title":"YouTube (ElevenLabs): Introducing Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th_tXR2QQ6U","type":"video","group":"reactions","domain":"youtube.com"}],"official":7,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["ElevenLabs"],"title":"ElevenLabs launches Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, #1 on Artificial Analysis TTS arena","summary":"On 2026-09-28 ElevenLabs released Eleven v4 (eleven_v4), a text-to-speech model on an entirely new architecture that performs scripts with context-aware emotion, and Eleven v4 Turbo (eleven_v4_turbo, ~100 ms median inference latency) for voice agents. v4 took #1 on the Artificial Analysis TTS arena (Elo ~1315-1319), supports 90+ languages, clones voices from ~10 s of audio and launched with a 72% API discount.","key_facts":["Model ids: eleven_v4 (10,000 chars/request) and eleven_v4_turbo; 90+ languages incl. new Cantonese, Mongolian, Odia","List price $0.08 / 1K chars (v4), $0.04 / 1K (v4 Turbo); launch promo 72% off until 2026-10-12: $22 / $11 per 1M chars","v4 Turbo: ~100 ms median inference latency, ~150 ms median time to first speech (ElevenLabs cites Cartesia Sonic 3.6 at 262 ms, GPT-4o mini TTS at 814 ms)","Artificial Analysis: #1 Provider Voice TTS Arena (Elo ~1315-1319, ahead of Sonic 3.6 1275 and Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS 1267), #1 Pronunciation Robustness, #2 Controlled Voice","Preferred by ~75% (65-81%) of listeners in ElevenLabs' blind head-to-head tests vs Cartesia, Inworld, Google, xAI, OpenAI TTS","Instant Voice Clones from ~10 s of audio; Professional Voice Clones supported again; inline tags for emotion, pacing, reactions, SFX and style; IPA pronunciation control","Available in ElevenAgents, ElevenCreative and ElevenAPI (incl. free tier); free for Creator+ plans in ElevenCreative for two weeks (up to 2x monthly credits)","No SSML and no Style/Speed sliders (Stability + Similarity only)"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["text-to-speech","voice","audio","voice-agents","voice-cloning"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nElevenLabs released Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo on 2026-09-28. The blog, YouTube launch video (07:01 PT) and X announcement came out the same day.\nv4 replaces Eleven v3 (June 2025 alpha, GA February 2026) as the flagship. ElevenLabs says it is built on \"an entirely new architecture that reads a script the way a voice actor would\".\nTurbo is aimed at ElevenAgents and other live uses. Model files: `data/models/elevenlabs-v4.md`.\n\nCaveats: the blind-test preference and latency comparisons come from ElevenLabs. The docs still recommend 1-2 minutes of audio for Instant Voice Clones, while the marketing says 10 seconds.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nElevenLabs had fallen behind Cartesia, Google and others on the Artificial Analysis arena with v3 (Elo ~1169). v4 puts it back at #1, and Turbo brings expressive, tag-directed speech to sub-200 ms voice agents at a launch price well below v3.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-09-11-elevenlabs-music-v2-5","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-11-elevenlabs-music-v2-5/","date":"2026-09-11","date_precision":"day","short_title":"ElevenLabs releases Music v2.5","deck":null,"takeaway":"ElevenLabs released Music v2.5 (music_v2_5) on 2026-09-11, its most advanced text-to-music model.","category":"media-generation","category_label":"Media generation","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":4,"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["ElevenLabs"]},{"id":"2026-02-04-elevenlabs-series-d","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-02-04-elevenlabs-series-d/","date":"2026-02-04","date_precision":"day","short_title":"ElevenLabs raises $500M Series D at $11B valuation (Sequoia)","deck":null,"takeaway":"ElevenLabs raised $500M in a Sequoia-led Series D at an $11B valuation on 2026-02-04, more than triple its valuation a year earlier, after ending 2025 above $330M ARR.","category":"business","category_label":"Business","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":4,"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-01","orgs":["ElevenLabs"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[{"id":"elevenlabs-introducing-eleven-v4","title":"Introducing Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo","url":"https://postcutoff.com/v/elevenlabs-introducing-eleven-v4/"},{"id":"elevenlabs-v4-for-developers","title":"Introducing V4 and V4 Turbo for developers","url":"https://postcutoff.com/v/elevenlabs-v4-for-developers/"},{"id":"elevenlabs-introducing-eleven-v4-turbo-in-elevenagents","title":"Introducing Eleven v4 Turbo in ElevenAgents","url":"https://postcutoff.com/v/elevenlabs-introducing-eleven-v4-turbo-in-elevenagents/"}],"models":[{"id":"elevenlabs-v4","name":"Eleven v4 / Eleven v4 Turbo","url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/elevenlabs-v4/"},{"id":"elevenlabs-v3","name":"Eleven v3","url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/elevenlabs-v3/"}],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":151,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":90,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":181,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":120,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":"https://postcutoff.com/s/elevenlabs-eleven-v4-eleven"}