Speech, image and audio
Text to speech, speech to text, images and music with AI
AI media APIs turn text into speech, images or music, or speech into text, from your own code. Use them for voice-overs, accessibility, illustrations or audio in an app. Free plans usually give a monthly allowance of characters, credits or images; check the licence of what you generate before you publish it.
ElevenLabs API
ElevenLabs offers realistic AI voices: turn text into speech in many languages and voices, clone a voice, transcribe speech to text, create sound effects and dub audio into other languages, through its REST API and SDKs. Audio ...
Pollinations.ai
Pollinations.ai is an open source AI service that generates text and images from a simple URL: request text.pollinations.ai/ to get an answer as plain text, or image.pollinations.ai/prompt/ to get a ...
Compare the AI speech, image and audio APIs
| Service | API key | Formats | Free use |
|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs API | Not needed | JSON | Free plan with 10,000 credits per month (about 10 minutes of speech), for non-commercial use only and with attribution to ElevenLabs; paid plans for commercial use. |
| Pollinations.ai | Not needed | – | Free, works without a key or sign-up; registering gives higher limits. |
Questions
Which free AI speech, image and audio APIs work without an API key?
ElevenLabs API and Pollinations.ai work without a key, according to their documentation. Most keyless services ask you to keep the number of requests reasonable, and some ask for a User-Agent that names your app.
Are these AI speech, image and audio APIs really free?
The services here can be used without paying, at least on a free plan or free tier, often with limits such as a number of requests per day or non-commercial use only. The table above quotes what each service says about its free use; check the provider's own terms before you rely on it.
How up to date is this list?
The address of every service is checked about once a week, and services that stop working or stop being free are removed. This list last changed on November 1st, 2026.