Quick answer: Go to *status.elevenlabs.io** right now. If there's an active incident, you'll see it in 15 seconds.*
ElevenLabs isn't working. The voice didn't generate, the API returned an error, or the web interface just spun and gave up. Before you spend time debugging your integration or assuming it's a billing issue, check the status page.
One URL. Fifteen seconds. That's all it takes to know if it's them or you.
How to Check ElevenLabs Status (Official Page)
Go to status.elevenlabs.io.
This is ElevenLabs' real-time status dashboard. It tracks individual components separately, which matters:
- API — The programmatic interface that developers use to generate speech
- Web App (elevenlabs.io) — The browser-based interface
- Voice Library — Access to ElevenLabs' library of pre-made voices
- Projects / Dubbing — Their long-form content and dubbing features
This component-level breakdown is actually useful. A lot of ElevenLabs issues are API-specific while the web app stays up, or affect the dubbing pipeline without touching basic speech synthesis. The status page will tell you which part is affected.
Green = operational. Yellow = degraded. Red = major outage. If there's an active incident, you'll see a banner with a description and timestamped updates as they work through it.
Subscribing to Status Alerts
Don't want to manually check next time?
- Go to status.elevenlabs.io
- Click "Subscribe to Updates"
- Enter your email
- Choose which components to monitor (API users: watch the API component specifically)
You'll get notified the moment an incident is opened and again when it's resolved. If you're using ElevenLabs in a production context — podcast automation, video dubbing, SaaS integrations — this is worth the 30-second setup.
API Outages vs. Web App Outages
This distinction matters more for ElevenLabs than for some other AI tools.
API outages hit developers, third-party apps, and automated workflows. If you're integrating ElevenLabs into your own application or using it through a third-party platform like Podcastle, Descript, or Synthesia, an API incident will break your pipeline while the ElevenLabs web interface may work perfectly fine.
Web app issues hit users working directly on elevenlabs.io. Things like audio not playing back, project saves failing, or the voice editor not loading.
When you're troubleshooting, identify which component you're using first. Then check the relevant status row, not just the top-level summary.
Free Tier vs. Paid Tier Reliability
Worth being direct about this. ElevenLabs' free tier and paid tiers don't get identical service levels.
Free tier accounts can hit rate limits and throttling during high-traffic periods — not because ElevenLabs is "down," but because free accounts are deprioritized when the system is under load. If you're seeing slow or failed generations during peak hours, upgrading to a paid tier may solve the problem entirely.
For Creator tier and above, ElevenLabs delivers strong reliability. The API has maintained solid uptime, and paid accounts get priority access during demand spikes. If you're using ElevenLabs professionally — for content production, client work, or business applications — the paid tier is the right place to be for reliability reasons alone.
ElevenLabs publishes uptime history on their status page. Worth checking before drawing conclusions from a single bad experience.
Common ElevenLabs Error Types
"Audio generation failed" — Check the status page first. If the API shows operational, this could be a voice ID issue (trying to use a voice that's been deprecated or removed from your account) or a text processing error (very long inputs, special characters).
"Rate limit exceeded" — You've hit your API or character limits for the billing period. This isn't an outage — it's account throttling. Check your usage dashboard in the ElevenLabs console. Free accounts have strict monthly character limits; paid accounts have higher limits that vary by tier.
API returns 401 Unauthorized — Your API key is missing, expired, or wrong. Check the key in your integrations and verify it's still active in your ElevenLabs account settings.
API returns 500 or 503 — Server-side error. This one points toward an actual outage. Check the status page immediately.
Voice sounds garbled or cuts off — Not an outage. Usually a text input issue (formatting problems, very long inputs, some character encodings) or a voice model compatibility issue. Try the same text with a different voice to isolate.
What to Do While ElevenLabs Is Down
Short-term alternatives depend on your use case:
Murf AI is the most direct competitor and the easiest drop-in for professional voice work. Good voice variety, clean interface, and a free trial that's worth using in a pinch. It's what I'd reach for first if ElevenLabs went down mid-project.
Suno AI — worth clarifying here — is primarily a music generation platform, not a TTS replacement. It can handle some vocal narration cases but it's a different product for a different purpose. Don't reach for Suno if you need standard text-to-speech.
For developers specifically: Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services (TTS) and Google Cloud Text-to-Speech are both enterprise-grade alternatives with strong APIs and SLA-backed uptime. They're less natural-sounding than ElevenLabs for most voices, but they're the right choice if your production app needs a fallback with reliability guarantees.
Amazon Polly is another option in the same category — more robotic by default, but extremely reliable and easy to integrate.
Is ElevenLabs Reliable Enough for Production?
In my experience evaluating enterprise audio tools: yes, with caveats.
ElevenLabs has grown fast and their infrastructure has kept up reasonably well. They've had incidents — any cloud service does — but major platform-wide outages affecting paid users have been uncommon. Their status page history reflects an operation that takes uptime seriously.
The main caveats: the free tier is not production-grade (throttling during peak times is a real issue), and their API doesn't come with a formal SLA unless you're on an Enterprise agreement. For mission-critical workflows, know what you're signing up for.
For most content creators, podcast producers, and development shops building on ElevenLabs: the reliability is solid enough to depend on for non-mission-critical workflows, especially on paid tiers.
Note: TechSifted has an affiliate relationship with ElevenLabs. If you upgrade through our link, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend tools we've evaluated directly, and ElevenLabs' voice quality is genuinely best-in-class for most use cases.
For more on ElevenLabs' pricing and which tier makes sense for your use case, see the ElevenLabs review. And if you're evaluating whether ElevenLabs is the right tool for your workflow at all, the ElevenLabs vs. Murf AI comparison breaks down where each tool wins.
