I Tested ElevenLabs and HeyGen for AI Voice Cloning. Here's My Honest Take
One will give you a British accent. Let me spill the tea which one!
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That was about a year ago. Back then I did look into AI voice cloning as a way out, but the tools just weren't there yet. The voices sounded robotic, unnatural, and nothing like the real thing. So we shelved it.
I don't do the podcast anymore, but I now run a social media channel called AI Tool Playground where I create videos about AI tools for small businesses. And I need voice-overs. A lot of them. So I started paying close attention to how AI voice cloning has developed, and the improvement over the last year has been pretty remarkable. The voices have got much better, the tools have got easier to use, and one name keeps coming up as the one to beat: ElevenLabs.
But I also wanted to test HeyGen. They're building what looks like a proper one-stop shop for social media content production, and the idea of doing your voice cloning and your video editing all in one platform is pretty appealing. So I signed up, tested both, and here's what happened.
Most tools offer two tiers. The basic AI voice cloning option needs somewhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes of audio and gets you a realistic voice clone pretty fast. The more professional version requires a longer voice sample and usually a higher paid plan, but the output is noticeably better quality and more natural-sounding. ElevenLabs offers both tiers. HeyGen only has the basic version, which only works with an AI avatar and video alongside it.
One thing worth knowing before you start: some tools ask you to record a consent message and let you read a transcript to confirm you're cloning your own voice. Synthesia is particularly strict about this, possibly because they're based in Europe. ElevenLabs keeps it simpler and doesn't require a separate consent recording, which makes the whole process faster.
The whole thing from recording your voice sample to having a working AI voice clone ready to use takes about 5 minutes for the basic version. Which is frankly wild when you think about what the voice cloning technology is actually doing under the hood.
Both HeyGen and ElevenLabs fall into the quick-and-easy category, so let's get into what actually happened when I tested them.
So the requirements were pretty specific. The voice had to sound natural first, and ideally like me second. I didn't need anything fancy, just clean audio I can drop into a video. A HeyGen avatar would be a nice bonus if the quality is good enough to actually use in video creation, but it wasn't the main goal. Just the audio.
Here's what I scored each tool on:
Recording process - how easy is it to set up, and how long does it take?
Voice quality - does it sound natural or robotic?
Accuracy - does it actually sound like me? (spoiler: one of them decided I was British)
Ease of use for my assistant - once the AI voice clone is set up, can someone else generate audio without me being involved?
Avatar quality - is the AI avatar good enough to use, or just a gimmick?
Pricing - what do you actually need to spend to get a custom voice clone for content creation?
Right. Let's get into it.
There are two ways to clone your voice in HeyGen. The quick way is to go straight to AI Studio, click on Voice, and create an instant voice clone from an audio sample. But I went the more involved route and created a full Digital Twin avatar, which records your voice as part of the process. You record a video of yourself talking into the camera for a few minutes, upload it, and HeyGen generates both your AI avatar and your cloned voice together. It takes a few minutes to process but it's straightforward enough.
The avatar itself looks decent. One thing that caught me off guard though: the background from your recording stays in the video unless you actively delete it. So if you recorded yourself in your kitchen, congratulations, your AI avatar lives in your kitchen now. You have to manually remove it, which is not exactly obvious when you first set it up.
Then there was the accent situation.
HeyGen decided I was British. I am not British. My cloned voice came out sounding like it was about to offer someone a cup of tea and comment on the weather. Not ideal for a German AI tools channel.
To be fair, HeyGen does have a fix for this. If you click on your avatar and select "improve voice", you can describe exactly what you want and it generates three alternative versions of your cloned voice. I requested a non-British voice, and honestly, the results were impressive. The tool understood my instructions well and the alternatives sounded noticeably better. Really cool feature.
But then the script generation stopped working entirely. Every time I tried to generate audio with the updated voice, I got an error. So I never actually got to hear my AI clone having a proper go at some fruity language, which is a real shame. Emma Lili cursing in a perfectly neutral accent would have been the content of the year.
One more thing worth knowing: HeyGen's voice cloning is actually powered by ElevenLabs under the hood. So in a way, you're already getting ElevenLabs voice quality inside HeyGen, just with a few extra steps and a surprise British accent thrown in.
You need at least the Starter plan to access voice cloning, and to unlock the 2 minute professional voice clone you need the Creator plan. For my test I used the basic instant voice clone, which only needs 30 seconds of audio. No script to read off, no consent recording to upload separately, just hit record, say whatever you want for 30 seconds, and that's it. A few seconds later your AI voice clone is ready to use.
From there you can add your cloned voice to pretty much anything. Videos, voiceovers, projects inside ElevenLabs, or you can even set it up as a voice agent that answers your calls in your voice. Which is either incredibly useful or mildly terrifying depending on how you look at it.
So how does it actually sound? If you don't know my voice, you'd probably not notice anything off. But if you do know me, you'll catch it. There's a slight robotic edge to it, a little too smooth, a little too consistent. It doesn't quite have the natural variation of a real human voice.
Here's the thing though: we are so close. I genuinely think for most social media content, the quality is already there. The question is whether the Creator plan gets you enough to make it worthwhile for regular content production, and I'm not fully convinced it does yet for the price. The Starter plan gives you the basic clone but the output quality takes a noticeable step up on Creator.
But honestly, don't take my word for it. Have a listen in the video and judge for yourself.
Here's how the two tools stack up across the categories I tested.
Recording process: HeyGen 5/5 | ElevenLabs 5/5
Both tools are genuinely easy to set up. You record a few seconds of audio, either directly in the tool or by uploading an existing file, and you're done. No complicated setup, no long recording sessions required.
Voice quality: HeyGen 3/5 | ElevenLabs 3/5
Honestly, they're pretty even here. Neither sounds fully human yet, at least not on the lower plans. The speech flow isn't 100% natural and there's a slight robotic quality to both. But they sound similar to each other, and both are closer than you'd expect.
Accuracy: HeyGen 3/5 | ElevenLabs 3/5
Neither clone sounds exactly like me. The tone is a bit off on both, and they both speak faster than I naturally do. ElevenLabs is close but not quite there. HeyGen gave me a British accent, which is a whole story covered above.
Ease of use for assistant: HeyGen 5/5 | ElevenLabs 5/5
Once the voice is set up, anyone can use it to generate audio. My virtual assistant can produce voiceovers without me being involved at all. Both tools handle this well.
Avatar quality: HeyGen 2/5 | ElevenLabs N/A
The HeyGen avatar is a nice idea but it's more of a gimmick for now. The lip sync doesn't look quite right and it wouldn't pass as natural in a social media video just yet. ElevenLabs doesn't do avatars, so this category doesn't apply.
Pricing: HeyGen 2/5 | ElevenLabs 5/5
ElevenLabs has a $5 Starter plan which is genuinely good value, and depending on how much you generate it could last you the whole month. HeyGen's Creator plan starts at $29 a month, and given that the avatar isn't really usable yet and the voice cloning ran into problems, it's hard to justify that cost if all you need is audio for content creation.
> Overall winner: ElevenLabs. Cleaner process, better pricing, and no surprise British accents.
On HeyGen avatars and makeup
One thing nobody warns you about: HeyGen will style your avatar based on how you looked in your recording video. I ended up with a very dramatic cat eye situation that I would not personally choose to wear every day. If you care about how your avatar looks, think about that before you hit record.
Generate your audio in batches
This is the most useful tip I can give you. Instead of starting a new project for every single video, copy all your scripts into one session and generate them together. You use far fewer credits this way and it's much faster. You can always edit and split the audio afterwards.
Clean audio makes a real difference
Both tools will produce a better voice clone from a clean recording. Record somewhere quiet, no background noise, no music playing, no one talking in the next room. It takes two extra minutes to set up properly and it's worth it.
