Fish Audio

What Fish Audio is

Fish Audio is an AI text-to-speech and voice cloning platform aimed at creators, developers, and teams who want expressive, emotionally controllable synthetic speech without the cost of hiring voice actors. Its headline pitch is a real-time voice model with low latency, scene-matched narration, and fine-grained emotion control suited to videos, audiobooks, explainers, and conversational voice agents. The platform pairs a browser-based studio with a developer API, so the same voices can power both manual production and automated pipelines. A defining trait is its open-model heritage: Fish Audio open-sources its underlying technology, including the Fish Speech and OpenAudio S1 and S2 models on GitHub, which has built a strong developer following and a large community voice library of more than two million voices.

Voice cloning is fast, with the vendor claiming usable clones from as little as 10 seconds of reference audio, and professional clone slots are available on paid tiers for higher-fidelity replicas. It supports 30-plus languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Arabic, and Spanish, though quality and credit cost vary by language and model. Billing runs on a credit system: each minute of premium generation consumes roughly 600 credits, monthly quotas reset per billing cycle, and the separate API is metered per UTF-8 byte. Trade-offs include a free tier that is strictly non-commercial, credit consumption that depends heavily on model choice, and a documentation-light onboarding compared with polished enterprise rivals. For budget-conscious users it remains one of the cheaper expressive-TTS options.

Where Fish Audio is the strongest pick

Fish Audio is strongest on affordable, expressive speech and fast voice cloning. The 10-second cloning workflow, the huge community voice library, and the open Fish Speech and OpenAudio models give it real appeal for developers and tinkerers. Emotion control and real-time low latency make it a fit for conversational voice agents and high-volume narration, while paid credit allowances scale generously relative to price compared with mainstream competitors.

Pricing

Free tier: The free plan gives 8,000 credits per month (roughly 7 minutes of generation), access to the public voice library, and basic voice cloning. It is restricted to personal, non-commercial use, so monetized content requires a paid plan. There is no API access on the free tier.

• Free: $0 (free forever). 8,000 monthly credits (about 7 minutes), 500 characters per generation, voice library access, basic voice cloning, personal non-commercial use only, no API access.
• Plus: $11/mo (monthly, or $132/year). 250,000 monthly credits (about 200 minutes), 15,000 characters per generation, API access, 10 private voice slots plus 1 professional clone, commercial rights.
• Pro: $75/mo (monthly, or $900/year). 2,000,000 monthly credits (about 1,620 minutes), 30,000 characters per generation, 3 team seats, unlimited voice slots, 5 professional clones, API access, commercial rights, 7-day money-back guarantee.
• Max: $749/mo (monthly, or $8,988/year). 25,000,000 monthly credits (about 6,250 minutes), 10 team seats, 15 professional clones, all Pro features.
• Enterprise: Custom (annual, contact sales). Zero data retention, on-premise deployment, SOC 2 compliance, custom volume.
• API (pay-as-you-go): about $15 per million UTF-8 bytes (usage-based). s2-pro model API access; non-Latin scripts cost more because they use 3 to 4 bytes per character.

Pricing verified June 2026 from the official site. Confirm current pricing before purchase.

Best for

Best for indie creators, podcasters, and developers who want expressive AI voiceover and quick voice clones at a low monthly cost, plus teams building voice agents that need a metered API. Its open models suit developers who want to self-host or experiment. It is less ideal for users who need turnkey enterprise support, since the free tier blocks commercial use and onboarding skews technical.

Key features

• Expressive, emotionally controllable real-time text-to-speech
• Fast voice cloning from about 10 seconds of reference audio
• Open-source models (Fish Speech, OpenAudio S1 and S2) on GitHub
• Community voice library with 2,000,000+ voices
• Low-latency REST API with SDKs for voice agents and apps
• 30+ language support including English, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic
• Professional clone slots and unlimited voice slots on higher tiers
• Credit-based usage with monthly resets and pay-as-you-go API

Pros

• Very affordable paid tiers compared with mainstream TTS rivals
• Strong open-model ecosystem developers can self-host or extend
• Fast, low-friction voice cloning from short audio samples
• Large community voice library and broad language coverage

Cons

• Free tier is personal/non-commercial only, so monetized work needs a paid plan
• Credit consumption varies widely by model, so headline minute counts can mislead
• Onboarding and documentation skew technical versus polished enterprise tools
• Multilingual API use costs more because non-Latin scripts use more bytes

Best-fit use cases

• AI voiceover for YouTube videos, explainers, and audiobooks
• Cloning a personal or brand voice for consistent narration
• Powering conversational voice agents through the low-latency API
• Localizing content across 30+ languages with synthetic speech

FAQ

Does Fish Audio have a free tier?

Yes. Fish Audio offers a free plan with 8,000 credits per month, which is roughly seven minutes of generation. It includes access to the community voice library and basic voice cloning, capped at 500 characters per generation. The free tier does not include API access and is limited to personal, non-commercial use, so any monetized or client-facing output requires a paid subscription. It is a reasonable way to test voice quality and the cloning workflow before committing to a plan.

How much does Fish Audio cost?

Fish Audio uses a credit-based subscription model. The Plus plan is $11 per month, or $132 billed annually, with 250,000 monthly credits and API access. The Pro plan is $75 per month, or $900 annually, with 2,000,000 credits, three team seats, and more clone slots. A Max plan at $749 per month covers heavy users, and Enterprise pricing is custom. The developer API is separate and pay-as-you-go, billed at roughly $15 per million UTF-8 bytes for the s2-pro model.

How does voice cloning work on Fish Audio?

Fish Audio can create a voice clone from as little as 10 seconds of reference audio, which makes setup fast compared with tools that require long recordings. You upload a sample, and the platform produces a reusable voice you can apply to new text. Paid plans add professional clone slots for higher-fidelity replicas, with one on Plus, five on Pro, and fifteen on Max. Always confirm you have the rights or consent to clone a given voice, since cloned-voice usage rights vary by jurisdiction and by the platform terms.

What languages does Fish Audio support?

Fish Audio supports more than 30 languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic, which makes it useful for localizing content for global audiences. Output quality and naturalness can vary by language and by the model you select. One practical note for API users: non-Latin scripts such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic use three to four bytes per character versus one byte for English, so multilingual generation consumes credits and costs more per word than English-only workflows.

Can I use Fish Audio for commercial projects?

Commercial use requires a paid plan. The free tier is restricted to personal, non-commercial projects, so publishing free-tier audio to a monetized channel, a sponsored podcast, or a client deliverable falls outside the terms. Paid plans, starting with Plus at $11 per month, include commercial rights. Because rights for cloned voices and for AI-generated content can depend on jurisdiction and on the source audio, verify your specific use against Fish Audio's current terms of service before publishing commercially.

How does Fish Audio compare to ElevenLabs?

Both deliver expressive, emotion-aware speech and fast voice cloning, but they target different buyers. Fish Audio is cheaper, with paid plans from $11 per month, and its open Fish Speech and OpenAudio models appeal to developers who want to self-host or experiment. ElevenLabs has a more polished studio, deeper documentation, and a larger enterprise track record. If budget and open models matter most, Fish Audio is compelling; if you need turnkey reliability and a mature ecosystem, ElevenLabs is the safer pick. Test both, since credit costs depend on model choice.