ElevenLabs has been the default name in text-to-speech for years. But the landscape has changed. Inworld TTS-1.5 now outranks ElevenLabs on independent benchmarks at a fraction of the cost.
If you're building voice agents, real-time translation, or any application where TTS quality and latency matter, here's how the two stack up.
Quick comparison: Inworld vs Eleven Labs
- *Inworld TTS-1 Max holds the #1 ranking. TTS-1.5 improves on TTS-1 with 30% greater expressiveness and 40% lower word error rates. Independent benchmarks for TTS-1.5 are pending.
- ElevenLabs does not publish P90 latency for their highest-quality model, but this is estimated at more than 500ms based on internal testing.
Quality: What the benchmarks say
Independent benchmarks from
Artificial Analysis, which runs large-scale blind evaluations of TTS models, rank Inworld ahead of ElevenLabs on naturalness and realism.
The Artificial Analysis TTS Leaderboard ranks models based on blind comparisons by thousands of real users. Voters pick which output sounds more natural and human-like without knowing which model produced it.
Inworld TTS-1 Max holds the #1 position with an ELO of 1,160. ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 sits at #7 with an ELO of 1,108.
TTS-1.5 builds on that foundation and extends the lead:
- 30% more expressive output
- 40% reduction in word error rate
- Fewer hallucinations, cutoffs, and artifacts
Cost: The math
Inworld costs >20x less than ElevenLabs. At $10 per million characters versus $206, the savings compound quickly as you scale. What costs $20,600 per month on ElevenLabs runs $1,000 on Inworld.
For the cost of one month on ElevenLabs at scale, you get nearly two years on Inworld.
TTS-1.5 Mini is even cheaper at $5 per million characters for latency-sensitive applications where you can trade some quality for speed.
Latency: Apples to apples
Latency claims in TTS are often misleading. Some vendors publish inference time (how long the model takes to process). Others publish time-to-first-byte. Few publish P90 end-to-end latency, which is what actually matters for real-time applications.
Inworld TTS-1.5:
- Max model: <250ms P90 time-to-first-audio
- Mini model: <130ms P90 time-to-first-audio
- 4x faster than the previous generation
ElevenLabs:
- Multilingual v2: >500ms P90 time-to-first-audio*
- Flash v2.5: 75ms inference time (not end-to-end)
- Flash models have reduced audio quality compared to Multilingual v2
Inworld publishes real-world P90 latency. ElevenLabs doesn't for their best model.
Where ElevenLabs performs well
ElevenLabs still has some advantages worth noting:
More languages. ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 supports 29 languages. Their newer v3 model supports 74. Inworld TTS-1.5 currently supports 15, with Hindi, Arabic and Hebrew recently added, and many more to come.
Larger ecosystem. ElevenLabs models have been around longer and there are more integrations, documentation, and community resources.
If you're building a globally distributed consumer app where language breadth is more important than quality, latency or cost, ElevenLabs may be a safe choice.
Deployment options
Inworld TTS-1.5:
- Cloud API with global availability
- Full on-premise deployment with zero latency penalty
- Custom enterprise solutions
- EU and India data residency options
ElevenLabs:
- Cloud API
- Private VPC deployment via AWS Marketplace and SageMaker
- EU and India data residency options
- No true on-premise hardware deployment
Inworld offers full on-premise deployment. ElevenLabs doesn't; their private deployment is limited to AWS infrastructure.
When to choose Inworld TTS-1.5
Choose Inworld if:
- You want the highest-quality voice output available
- You need verifiable low latency for real-time applications
- You're building at scale and cost matters
- You want full on-premise deployment options
When to choose ElevenLabs
- ElevenLabs might be the better fit if you need support for languages Inworld doesn't cover yet.
Getting started with Inworld TTS-1.5
Ready to test the difference yourself?
- Try the TTS Playground: Hear TTS-1.5 in action with your own text or clone with a voice sample
- Read the documentation: API reference, SDKs, and integration guides
- Leverage integration partners: TTS-1.5 is available via Layercode, LiveKit, NLX, Pipecat, Stream Vision Agents, Ultravox, Vapi, and Voximplant.
- Contact enterprise sales: Volume pricing, on-premise options, custom voice development.
Benchmark data from Artificial Analysis TTS Leaderboard as of Jan 21st, 2026. ElevenLabs specifications from their public documentation.
Frequently asked questions
Is Inworld better than ElevenLabs for realtime voice agents?
For most voice agent use cases, yes. Inworld TTS-1.5-Max ranks #1 on the Artificial Analysis TTS Leaderboard, ahead of ElevenLabs Multilingual v2 at #7. It also delivers sub-250ms P90 latency, fast enough for natural back-and-forth conversation without awkward pauses. At $10 per million characters versus ElevenLabs' $206 per million characters, Inworld costs >20x less. If you're building conversational AI where quality, latency, and cost all matter, Inworld is the stronger choice.
Which TTS API is fastest in real time?
Inworld TTS-1.5 Mini delivers <130ms P90 time-to-first-audio. The Max model comes in at <250ms P90. Both figures represent end-to-end latency, which includes network and application overhead.
ElevenLabs claims 75ms latency for their Flash model, but that number is inference-only and excludes network and application overhead. Their Flash model also sacrifices audio quality compared to Multilingual v2. ElevenLabs does not publish P90 latency for Multilingual v2, but this is estimated at more than 500ms based on internal testing.
For real-time applications, published end-to-end latency determines whether users experience natural conversation flow, while cherry-picked inference numbers obscure actual performance.
Does ElevenLabs support on-prem deployment?
ElevenLabs offers partial private deployment through AWS Marketplace and Amazon SageMaker, which allows enterprise customers to run models within their own AWS infrastructure. They also offer EU and India data residency with a zero-retention option.
However, ElevenLabs does not support true on-premise hardware deployment. If you need to run TTS on your own servers outside of AWS, ElevenLabs can't accommodate that.
Inworld TTS-1.5 supports full on-premise deployment with no latency penalty, giving enterprises complete control over their infrastructure and data.
Is ElevenLabs worth the price?
It depends on your priorities. ElevenLabs has an average price of $206 per million characters for their Multilingual v2 model. Inworld TTS-1.5 Max charges $10, a >20x difference.
ElevenLabs supports more languages (29 for Multilingual v2, 74 for v3) compared to Inworld's 15. If you need broad language coverage and cost isn't a constraint, ElevenLabs may be a good fit.
If you're optimizing for quality, latency, or budget, Inworld delivers better benchmark scores at a fraction of the price. For most production applications, the quality-to-cost ratio favors Inworld.