ElevenAPI quickstart

By the end of this guide you will have a working script that sends a text string to the ElevenLabs API and plays the returned audio through your speakers. You will learn how to authenticate with an API key, install the SDK, and make your first text-to-speech request.

For guides covering other capabilities — streaming, voice cloning, speech-to-text — see the Tutorials section.

Create an API key in the dashboard here, which you’ll use to securely access the API.

Store the key as a managed secret and pass it to the SDKs either as a environment variable via an .env file, or directly in your app’s configuration depending on your preference.

.env

ELEVENLABS_API_KEY=<your_api_key_here>

We'll also use the dotenv library to load our API key from an environment variable.

pip install elevenlabs
pip install python-dotenv

npm install @elevenlabs/elevenlabs-js
npm install dotenv

Install the ElevenLabs CLI. Homebrew (macOS) and Scoop (Windows) are recommended.

Homebrew (macOS)

brew install elevenlabs/tap/elevenlabs

Scoop (Windows)

scoop bucket add elevenlabs https://github.com/elevenlabs/scoop-bucket
scoop install elevenlabs

npm

npm install -g @elevenlabs/cli

curl

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/elevenlabs/cli/releases/latest/download/elevenlabs-cli-installer.sh | sh

Then authenticate — this opens your browser to authorize the CLI:

elevenlabs auth login

Create a new file named example.py or example.mts, depending on your language of choice and add the following code:

from dotenv import load_dotenv
from elevenlabs.client import ElevenLabs
from elevenlabs.play import play
import os

load_dotenv()

elevenlabs = ElevenLabs(
  api_key=os.getenv("ELEVENLABS_API_KEY"),
)

audio = elevenlabs.text_to_speech.convert(
    text="The first move is what sets everything in motion.",
    voice_id="JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb",  # "George" - browse voices at elevenlabs.io/app/voice-library
    model_id="eleven_v4",
    output_format="mp3_44100_128",
)

play(audio)

import { ElevenLabsClient, play } from "@elevenlabs/elevenlabs-js";
import "dotenv/config";

const elevenlabs = new ElevenLabsClient();
const audio = await elevenlabs.textToSpeech.convert(
	"JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb", // "George" - browse voices at elevenlabs.io/app/voice-library
	{
		text: "The first move is what sets everything in motion.",
		modelId: "eleven_v4",
		outputFormat: "mp3_44100_128",
	},
);

await play(audio);

Then run it:

python example.py

npx tsx example.mts

You should hear the audio play through your speakers.

Generate speech and save it to an MP3 file:

elevenlabs text-to-speech convert \
  --voice-id JBFqnCBsd6RMkjVDRZzb \
  --model-id eleven_v4 \
  --text "The first move is what sets everything in motion." \
  --output-format mp3_44100_128 \
  --output audio.mp3

Open audio.mp3 to hear the result.

Reduce latency by streaming audio as it generates rather than waiting for the complete file

Explore 10,000+ voices and swap the example voice ID for one that fits your use case

Create a custom voice from a short audio recording