Best Free AI Podcast Generators in 2026: Limits Compared
Short answer: Google's NotebookLM is the easiest free start for turning your own documents into a conversation, but Google does not publish a free episode count. For an audio file with a fixed monthly allowance, ElevenLabs gives 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of speech. Smallest AI is free to use and says its downloads carry no watermark, but you pay for the voice yourself.
Dupple data: Of the 8 AI audio and video tools we checked on their own pages on 10 October 2026, 4 publish a free allowance as a number. Three publish no number for their free allowance, and one publishes only a per-input character cap. For most of them, the free limit decides whether one real episode fits, not the price.
Two questions decide the choice: whether the free audio can go into a sponsored episode, and whether the free allowance covers one full episode. The table gives each vendor's published free figure, and the cards below explain what it means for a buyer.
Free plans at a glance
| Tool | What you put in | Free allowance, as published | Watermark on free output | Export | Cheapest paid plan (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NotebookLM (Google, now called Gemini Notebook) | Sources you add to a notebook | No count published; quota refreshes every 5 hours | Not mentioned for audio | Not stated | AI Plus $4.99/mo, AI Pro $19.99/mo |
| ElevenLabs | Script, outline or transcript with speaker turns | 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of speech | Not mentioned | MP3 | Starter $6/mo at list price |
| Wondercraft | Uploaded content (per its widget page) | 150 credits on the free plan | Creator plan says "No watermark"; free plan not stated | WAV download | Creator $25/mo, or $21/mo billed yearly |
| Smallest AI podcast generator | Text, up to about 1,000 characters per input box | Free to use; you pay Smallest for voice usage | "No watermarks" | WAV or MP3 | Pay as you go, no monthly fee |
| Async | Text, for text to speech | About 15 minutes of text to speech, once per account | Not stated | MP3 up to 160kbps, one file | Monthly prices not shown as numbers |
| Podcastfy (open source) | Websites, PDFs, images, YouTube videos, topics | No free tier stated | Not mentioned | Not stated in the README | Free software; model and voice providers bill you |
| AIVocal | Notes | Free trial with core features; no limit published | Not stated | Not stated | Not published on its home page |
| HeyGen (video) | Not stated on the pricing page | 3 videos a month, each up to 1 minute | Watermark removal on paid plans only | Video | Creator $29/mo, or $24/mo billed yearly |
"Not stated" means the vendor's own pages we read did not say. Prices are list prices in USD from each vendor's own page, checked on 10 October 2026.
Methodology: how we checked these tools
We read each vendor's own pricing, product and help pages on 10 October 2026, and quoted only what those pages state. We did not generate audio with any of these tools, so this page does not judge voice quality, speed or output length. Where a vendor gives no number, we say so rather than fill the gap with a review's figure. Third-party listings were used only to find vendor addresses, or to flag a claim we could not confirm on a vendor page.
We left out SuperPodcast.ai, ZenMic, Podgen and Murf, because their own pages gave no usable free-tier or price information that day. ListenHub's pricing page lists no free plan, although third-party listings say it has one. Fliki publishes a free allowance of 5 minutes a month with a watermark, but its pages show no USD prices and no podcast feature, so it is not in the list.
NotebookLM: the free start for your own documents
turning your own documents, notes and web pages into a conversation-style overview without writing a script.
Free plan: Google's usage page sets standard limits for users without a paid plan, but it does not say how many Audio Overviews that is. Quotas refresh every 5 hours until you reach a weekly limit, so the practical cap is a rolling one.
Paid: Google AI Plus is $4.99 a month and AI Pro is $19.99 a month on Google's subscriptions page. Google's plans page says AI Pro has more Audio Overviews than the free plan, but Google publishes no count for any plan, so this page quotes none.
Watch out: Google now calls the product Gemini Notebook on its own pages, so search for both names. The help page ties a visible watermark to users in India, South Korea and Vietnam, and says SynthID marks sit on Veo, Omni and Nano Banana outputs. It does not mention audio, and it does not state a download format.
Verdict: the best free start when your source is a document rather than a script. Plan around the rolling quota instead of a monthly count, and check the terms on your plan before you publish.
Sources: Google AI plans and Gemini Notebook usage limits.
ElevenLabs: the clearest free allowance, and an MP3 you can keep
a finished audio file from a script you already wrote, with speaker turns marked.
Free plan: 10,000 credits every month with no credit card, which ElevenLabs puts at about 10 minutes of text to speech. The free plan includes 3 Studio projects.
Paid: Starter is $6 a month at list price, according to the FAQ on the pricing page, and Creator is $22. ElevenLabs gives Starter about 30 minutes of speech a month.
Watch out: free output is not cleared for broad commercial use. The podcast generator page limits that clearance to paid plans, and the pricing page says the free plan has no commercial use. If an episode carries a sponsor, you need a paid plan first.
Verdict: the strongest pick when the free allowance matters most and the episode is for personal or test use. Move to Starter as soon as one episode runs past about 10 minutes. For voice tools beyond the free tier, see AI text to speech tools, and for cloning your own voice, see voice cloning tools.
Sources: ElevenLabs pricing and ElevenLabs AI podcast generator.
Wondercraft: 150 free credits, with no watermark from the $25 plan
a produced show with music and chapters, once a trial shows the tool is worth paying for.
Free plan: $0 with 150 credits. The pricing page does not convert credits into minutes, so we cannot say how much audio 150 credits buys.
Paid: Creator is $25 a month, or $21 a month billed yearly, with 1,000 credits and "No watermark and full commercial rights" in the page's own words. Pro is $45 a month.
Watch out: the free plan does not say whether its exports carry a watermark, and commercial rights are listed only from Creator up. The widget page says you can "Download up to WAV files".
Verdict: worth a test if you want WAV files and a produced episode. If the episode is for a client or a sponsor, budget for Creator from the start.
Sources: Wondercraft pricing and Wondercraft's free AI podcast generator.
Smallest AI: no watermark and WAV or MP3, but you pay for the voice
people who want an open, watermark-free file and already have an API account.
Free plan: the generator is free to use, but it needs your own Smallest AI API key. The page says downloads come in "high-quality WAV or compressed MP3 format, no watermarks", and the input box shows a counter of 1k characters, so a long script goes in parts.
Paid: the pricing page for Smallest's voice products is pay as you go, with no monthly fee and "Start with $10 in free credits". It lists text to speech at about $0.09 a minute. At that rate a 20-minute episode costs about $1.80 in voice usage, before any language model cost.
Watch out: the API key is the bill. The page says your keys are "stored locally in your browser and never sent to our servers", which helps privacy, but you manage the spend yourself. The FAQ says the audio is "yours to use however you want".
Verdict: the lowest-priced watermark-free file for one episode on this list, if you are comfortable with an API. It is not the right fit for someone who wants one login and a monthly allowance. For paid voice tools with published plans, see AI voice generators.
Sources: Smallest AI podcast generator and Smallest AI pricing.
Async: about 15 minutes of free text to speech, once
a short test of text to speech and its voice library before you commit to a plan.
Free plan: about 15 minutes of text to speech (12,000 characters), counted over the account's lifetime, not per month. The free plan also gives 10 AI credits, one export file, and MP3 audio up to 160kbps.
Paid: the pricing page lists two paid plans, Essentials and Pro, but does not show their monthly prices as numbers, so this page quotes none.
Watch out: the free allowance does not renew, and the page does not state a watermark on the free plan.
Verdict: useful for trying the voices, not a free plan to build a show on. Get the paid price from the live page before you budget. For other free voice tools and their limits, see free AI voice generators.
Sources: Async pricing.
Podcastfy: free to run, if you bring the model and voice keys
developers and technical teams who want a script-to-audio pipeline they control.
Free plan: the README states no free tier. Podcastfy is open-source software under the Apache 2.0 license. Its README lists websites, PDFs, images, YouTube videos and topics as inputs, and names OpenAI, Anthropic and Google among the language models, plus OpenAI, Google, ElevenLabs and Microsoft Edge for voice. It also supports local models.
Paid: the software costs nothing. The README does not give the price of the model or voice providers, so the bill depends on the providers you connect.
Watch out: the README points to a web app but gives no free-tier terms for it, and it does not state the output format.
Verdict: the only option here with no vendor allowance to run out of, and the most setup work. Skip it if you need a working web app today.
Sources: Podcastfy on GitHub.
HeyGen: three free videos a month, for video rather than audio
an avatar video version of a short episode, not an audio file.
Free plan: $0 with 3 videos a month, each up to 1 minute.
Paid: Creator is $29 a month, or $24 a month billed annually, and Pro is $49 a month. Watermark removal is available on paid plans.
Watch out: the free allowance cannot hold a full episode. The pricing page lists no podcast generator in any plan.
Verdict: a video tool. Use it only when the output is a video. For an audio show, the tools above do the job with less work.
Sources: HeyGen pricing.
AIVocal: free to start, with no limits published
a first look at the interface, if you want to see how the tool works before any spending.
Free plan: the home page calls the tool "a free online tool" and mentions a "free trial with core features". It publishes no minutes, episodes or characters.
Paid: the page points to paid plans for creators, teams and enterprises, with no prices on the page we read.
Watch out: the page does not state export formats, a watermark or commercial terms, so do not assume the output is cleared for publication.
Verdict: worth a look, but its free tier cannot be sized and its paid plans cannot be priced from the vendor's own page.
Sources: AIVocal.
What you will actually pay for one 20-minute episode
This is a computed scenario from the vendors' own figures, not a test of the tools.
- ElevenLabs: the free plan covers about 10 minutes of speech, so one 20-minute episode needs Starter, which the pricing page puts at about 30 minutes a month at list price.
- Smallest AI: about $1.80 in voice usage at the $0.09-a-minute rate, plus your language model bill.
- Wondercraft: the pages do not convert credits into minutes, so we cannot say whether the 150 free credits or Creator's 1,000 cover 20 minutes.
- NotebookLM: Google publishes no count, so the episode depends on how many quota windows you have.
- HeyGen: three one-minute free videos cannot hold a 20-minute episode. The first paid plan is Creator at $29 a month.
Commercial rights and watermarks
Free audio is the most common trap. ElevenLabs does not clear free-plan output for broad commercial use, and Wondercraft lists commercial rights from its Creator plan. Smallest AI says its audio is yours to use however you want. If a vendor does not state commercial rights, treat the audio as not cleared until the vendor confirms it in writing.
Watermarks are the other trap. Smallest AI says its downloads carry none, Wondercraft says Creator has none, and HeyGen removes its watermark only on paid plans. Google's help page mentions a visible watermark for users in India, South Korea and Vietnam, and SynthID watermarks on Veo, Omni and Nano Banana outputs. It says nothing about audio.
How to choose
- Episodes from your own documents: start with NotebookLM, and plan around the rolling quota.
- A monthly allowance you can count: ElevenLabs is the only free allowance on this list that the vendor converts into minutes on a monthly basis.
- A watermark-free WAV or MP3 for one episode: Smallest AI, if you accept the API bill.
- A developer pipeline: Podcastfy, with the model and voice keys you choose.
- A video version of a short piece: HeyGen.
- A full production suite with editing and publishing: see AI podcast tools, which covers paid production software rather than free generators.
- Hosting the finished episode: see podcast hosting.
Common mistakes
- Treating 10,000 credits as a large allowance. On ElevenLabs it is about 10 minutes of speech, so a full episode needs the Starter plan.
- Publishing free audio in a sponsored episode. Commercial rights decide that, not the price. Check the vendor's terms for the plan you use before the episode carries a sponsor.
- Forgetting the API bill on Smallest AI. A 20-minute episode costs about $1.80 in voice usage at its listed rate, and your language model key bills separately.
- Planning around a NotebookLM count that does not exist. Google does not publish one, so plan around the 5-hour refresh.
- Using HeyGen for an audio show. The free plan gives three videos of one minute each.
- Trusting third-party price lists. Several directories list prices for tools whose vendor pages show none. Use the vendor page.
FAQ
What is the best free AI podcast generator in 2026?
NotebookLM is the best free start for turning your own documents into a conversation, though Google publishes no free episode count. For a fixed, countable allowance, ElevenLabs gives 10,000 credits a month, about 10 minutes of speech, and its Starter plan is $6 a month at list price.
Is NotebookLM free for making podcasts?
Google's usage page sets standard limits for users without a paid plan, but it does not state how many Audio Overviews that is. Quotas refresh every 5 hours until you reach a weekly limit. On Google's subscriptions page, AI Plus is $4.99 a month and AI Pro is $19.99 a month.
Can I use free AI podcast audio commercially?
Check before you publish. ElevenLabs does not clear free-plan output for broad commercial use, and its podcast page limits that clearance to paid plans. Wondercraft lists full commercial rights from its Creator plan. Smallest AI says its audio is yours to use however you want. If a vendor does not say, ask before you publish a sponsored episode.
Do free AI podcast generators add a watermark?
Not on every tool. Smallest AI says its downloads carry no watermark. Wondercraft says Creator has none, and its free plan is not stated. HeyGen removes its watermark only on paid plans. Google's help page covers a visible watermark for users in India, South Korea and Vietnam, and SynthID marks on Veo, Omni and Nano Banana outputs. It does not mention audio.
How much does a free AI podcast cost?
A free plan can cost nothing for a short test. For a 20-minute episode, Smallest AI costs about $1.80 in voice usage at its listed rate, before a language model bill, and ElevenLabs' Starter plan covers about 30 minutes of speech a month. Figures are from each vendor's own pages, checked on 10 October 2026.
Which free option suits a developer?
Podcastfy, an Apache 2.0 open-source package, states no free tier. You pay the language model and voice providers you connect, and its README does not give their prices.
Bottom line
If you want one free start, use NotebookLM on your own documents and accept that Google publishes no count. If you need a file you can count, ElevenLabs has the clearest free allowance on this list, and its Starter plan is the first one to plan around for a full episode. Whichever tool you choose, a sponsored episode needs a plan with commercial rights. Check the vendor page on the day you publish.
Related: our guide to AI podcast tools covers the paid production suites, the best AI podcasts to listen to covers shows, free AI voice generators covers voice-only tools with their own free tiers, and AI text to speech tools compares the voices themselves. For hosting your finished episodes, see podcast hosting.
Some offers on this page may be paid placements or contain affiliate links.
Across our whole catalogue the median is $24 a month and 33% of tools advertise a free tier. Figures are the lowest recurring monthly price quoted in our own review of each tool, read on 2026-08-19. Full method and every category.
