---
id: "2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-09-28"
date_precision: day
category: model-release
importance: 4
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 11
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/

# ElevenLabs launches Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, #1 on Artificial Analysis TTS arena

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)

## What happened

ElevenLabs 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.
v4 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".
Turbo is aimed at ElevenAgents and other live uses. Model files: `data/models/elevenlabs-v4.md`.

Caveats: 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.

## Why it matters

ElevenLabs 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.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 151 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 90 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): 181 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 120 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [ElevenLabs blog: Eleven v4](https://elevenlabs.io/blog/eleven-v4) (elevenlabs.io, official)
2. [Eleven v4 landing page](https://elevenlabs.io/v4) (elevenlabs.io, official)
3. [Docs: Eleven v4](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/overview/capabilities/text-to-speech/eleven-v4) (elevenlabs.io, docs)
4. [Docs: Models](https://elevenlabs.io/docs/models) (elevenlabs.io, docs)
5. [API pricing](https://elevenlabs.io/pricing/api) (elevenlabs.io, docs)
6. [ElevenLabs on X: launch](https://x.com/ElevenLabs/status/2104572127617994917) (x.com, official)
7. [ElevenLabs on X: launch pricing](https://x.com/ElevenLabs/status/2104572138347004161) (x.com, official)
8. [RuntimeWire: ElevenLabs ships v4 voice models](https://runtimewire.com/article/elevenlabs-eleven-v4-turbo-launch) (runtimewire.com, press)
9. [Artificial Analysis on X: Eleven v4 takes #1](https://x.com/ArtificialAnlys/status/2104578736687653293) (x.com, discussion)
10. [Artificial Analysis TTS leaderboard](https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-speech/leaderboard) (artificialanalysis.ai, discussion)
11. [YouTube (ElevenLabs): Introducing Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th_tXR2QQ6U) (youtube.com, video)

## Changes

- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2026-09-11: [ElevenLabs releases Music v2.5](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-11-elevenlabs-music-v2-5/index.md)
- 2026-02-04: [ElevenLabs raises $500M Series D at $11B valuation (Sequoia)](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-02-04-elevenlabs-series-d/index.md)
- Models: [Eleven v4 / Eleven v4 Turbo](https://postcutoff.com/m/elevenlabs-v4/) (`elevenlabs-v4`), [Eleven v3](https://postcutoff.com/m/elevenlabs-v3/) (`elevenlabs-v3`)
- Archived: 3 videos, listed in https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/index.json