Can You Use AI Voices Commercially?

✓ Docs-verified · Sep 1, 2026◌ Not audio-tested△ What we could not verify

Published September 2, 2026 · Every clause quoted below was read from the vendor’s own terms on September 1, 2026 and carries that check date, except where a page was unreachable and the earlier verification date is given instead. This guide reports what the documents say. It is not legal advice, and your jurisdiction and contracts may impose more than any vendor’s terms do.

The short answer

Usually yes on a paid plan, often no on a free one — and that is only half the question. “May I sell this?” and “Do I own this?” are different questions with different answers, and several vendors answer one, neither, or contradict themselves.

Four vendors grant commercial use explicitly. ElevenLabs by tier, Murf AI in a quotable sentence, OpenAI through an outright assignment of output rights, and Azure for paid-tier prebuilt neural output.

Four grant it, and two never address it at all. Azure joins the explicit grants with a paid-tier clause in the Product Terms. Amazon Polly and Google Cloud leave commercial use unmentioned, so there your rights are inferred from the ownership clause rather than granted for the product — and for both, ownership is stated plainly.

And three have a documentation problem you should know about before shipping: Speechify’s own pages give three different answers, Cartesia prohibits commercial use by default and names the enabling tier only on a pricing card, and Resemble AI’s contract never states that you own generated audio at all.

Basis: official vendor terms only, checked September 1, 2026 — no accounts created, no legal advice given (how we verify).

The three questions people conflate

Most disputes in this area come from treating one answer as if it settled all three. It does not.

May I use the output commercially? A permission. It can be granted, withheld, or simply never mentioned.
Do I own the output? A property question. A permission to sell something is not title to it, and several vendors grant the first while remaining silent on the second.
May I resell the voice itself, or use the output to train a model? Almost universally no, even where the first two are yes. Murf states both prohibitions explicitly; Resemble’s only mention of “output” anywhere in its contract is a restriction of this kind.

A vendor can answer “yes” to the first and leave the second blank, which is the most common shape in this market. If your client contract requires you to warrant that you own delivered audio, question two is the one that matters, and it is the one fewest vendors answer.

What each vendor actually says

Commercial use and ownership across ten providers — verified September 1, 2026
Provider	May you use it commercially?	Do you own it?
ElevenLabs	Yes on paid, no on free — stated by tier in Terms 1(c). Attribution required on free	Addressed in its terms; see the review
Murf AI	Yes — Terms 5.1, with two restrictions in the same clause	Not stated. Clause 3.1 covers what you submit, not what the service returns
OpenAI	Yes — by outright assignment	Yes, expressly assigned (verified August 11, 2026; pages unreachable September 1)
Amazon Polly	Never addressed. The word “commercial” appears zero times on its pricing page and FAQ	Yes — Service Terms 50.2, a numbered clause
Google Cloud	Never addressed as a permission — but ownership is settled, below	Yes — Cloud Terms §5.1 read with the definition of Customer Data
Azure Speech	Yes, on paid tiers — an express, speech-specific grant in the Product Terms	Governed by general Microsoft product terms covering many services
Speechify	Contested. Terms 4.4 excludes all but Voice Over Studio; the API card advertises it; the Studio free card denies it	Not stated in any numbered clause
Cartesia	Prohibited by default, permitted by a subscription tier the contract never names	Not claimed by Cartesia — but §7.1 declines to warrant that you own it
MiniMax	Not conditioned on tier; addressed alongside ownership in one clause	Yes internationally; conditional on local law on the mainland platform
Resemble AI	No grant for hosted output. Its open-source models carry an express commercial grant	Not stated. The only occurrence of “output” in the contract is a restriction

On this page

The vendors that grant it

ElevenLabs answers by tier, in one clause. Terms of Service clause 1(c), last updated March 31, 2026, verbatim: “(i) if you access or use our Services free of charge (such a user, a ‘Free User’), you may only use the Services for non-commercial purposes; (ii) if you access or use our Services through a paid subscription plan (such a user, a ‘Paid User’), you may use the Services for commercial purposes, but in either case, your access and use of the Services and any Output must still comply with the Prohibited Use Policy.” That Prohibited Use Policy now displays “Last Updated 17 August 2026”, and because clause 1(c) incorporates it, its version date is material.

Murf AI gives the most quotable grant in the market — and it does not end where most quotations end. Clause 5.1, in a document dated December 19, 2024, begins: “You can use Murf created voices for commercial purposes. You can also make available to third parties who intend to use Murf created voices for commercial purposes.” It continues: “You however agree that Commercial Rights (defined below) are not resell rights and you cannot resell or offer to resell Murf’s offerings (including the library of voices available on Murf Studio) to any third-party. You further agree not to use Murf created voices for training any AI model or to synthesize Murf created voices in any way or for any purpose.” Both restrictions are material, and both are routinely dropped when this clause is quoted elsewhere.

OpenAI reaches the same result by a stronger route: assignment. Its services agreement, clause 4.1: “As between Customer and OpenAI, to the extent permitted by applicable law, Customer: (a) retains all ownership rights in Input; and (b) owns all Output. OpenAI hereby assigns to Customer all OpenAI’s right, title, and interest, if any, in and to Output.” If you own the output outright, the commercial question answers itself. That clause was verified August 11, 2026 — OpenAI’s policy pages returned an access error when we attempted to re-read them on September 1, so it is dated to when we actually read it.

The vendors that never mention it

Two of the ten — Amazon Polly and Google Cloud — do not address commercial use of synthesized audio anywhere we could find. Azure sat in this section until September 2, 2026; it does not belong here, and the correction is set out above.

Amazon Polly does not use the word. We searched its pricing page and FAQ: “commercial” occurs zero times on both. What exists instead is an ownership clause, and it is a good one — Service Terms 50.2: “The output that you generate using AI Services is Your Content. Due to the nature of machine learning, output may not be unique across customers and the Services may generate the same or similar results across customers.” Read the second sentence too: you own it, and you are not promised it is unique to you.

Google Cloud contains no clause permitting or prohibiting commercial use of synthesized audio, and its general grant in §1.1 permits use of the Services. Ownership, however, is settled — and this page said it was unresolved until September 2, 2026. Cloud Terms §5.1 states: “As between the parties, Customer retains all Intellectual Property Rights in Customer Data and Customer Applications, and Google retains all Intellectual Property Rights in the Services and Software.” The step we had treated as missing is supplied by the definition, which covers not only what you send but “data that Customer or End Users derive from that data through their use of the Services”. Generated audio is derived from your input through your use of the Services, so it is Customer Data, and §5.1 gives you the rights in it.

Azure Speech does have an express, speech-specific grant, and this page said otherwise until September 2, 2026. Microsoft’s Product Terms state, verbatim: “TTS Service output use rights: For Customers of the paid tier TTS Service only, Customer may use the audio output of prebuilt neural voices generated using the TTS Service, including for commercial purposes.” Note the two limits inside it: it covers the paid tier only, so free F0 output sits outside the permission, and it covers prebuilt neural voices. The clause is genuinely hard to find — the Product Terms document runs to over 20MB and defeats ordinary tooling — which is why we missed it, not a reason we were entitled to.

What silence actually means: not “no”, and not “yes”. It means your rights come from general platform terms and the ownership position, rather than from a permission written for this product. For Amazon that is a strong position because ownership is stated plainly. For Google it is weaker, because ownership is itself unresolved for this service.

The vendors that contradict themselves

Speechify publishes three different answers. Its governing Terms clause 4.4 states: “The Services, with the exception of Speechify Voice Over Studio, are not intended for your commercial use.” Its API pricing card lists “Commercial use” as a feature of the free plan. Its Studio free plan card says “No commercial usage rights” — while clause 4.4 grants Voice Over Studio commercial use without distinguishing free from paid. All three were live on the same day. A pricing-card bullet is not a licence clause, and the Terms of Service govern in a dispute.

Cartesia prohibits by default and names the exception nowhere in the contract. Terms clause 4.1: “We hereby permit you to use the Services for your personal, non-commercial use only (unless commercial use is expressly permitted by your subscription tier)…” The parenthesis carries the whole permission, and the contract never says which tier qualifies. The only official statement connecting it to a price is a feature bullet — “Commercial use license” — on the $5 Pro card. No page defines that licence’s scope, whether it survives cancellation, or what happens to work produced while subscribed.

Resemble AI grants nothing for hosted output and something generous for open-source output. Its Terms contain no commercial-use grant; the restrictions that exist concern sublicensing, service-bureau use and building a competing product. But its open-source models carry an express grant, quoted from its own FAQ: “You can use them in commercial products, self-host, modify the weights, and ship to production — no royalties, no revenue share, no usage caps.” Same company, two entirely different licensing positions depending on which route you take. As of September 2, 2026 only one of those routes still exists: Resemble AI states it does not sell “text-to-speech, voice cloning, speech-to-speech conversion, or voice design as commercial products”, so the hosted position is now a matter of record for existing customers rather than a choice available to you. The open-source grant stands (full review).

The free-tier trap

This is the single most common way people get this wrong, and it costs nothing to avoid.

Several vendors grant commercial use on paid plans and withhold it on free ones. ElevenLabs states it outright — free users “may only use the Services for non-commercial purposes” — and additionally requires attribution: published free-tier content “must attribute it to ElevenLabs by including ‘elevenlabs.io’ or ‘11.ai’ in the title”. Cartesia’s free plan carries no commercial licence at all; the bullet appears only from $5 Pro.

Rights verified for one tier do not extend to another. If you evaluated a provider on its free plan and then published the audio you made during evaluation, check whether that specific output was licensed for it. The free tier comparison sets out the position for all ten.

The ownership silence

Four of the ten providers never state, in any numbered clause, that you own the audio you generate: Murf AI, Speechify, Cartesia and Resemble AI. That is worth stating plainly because it is invisible unless you go looking.

Murf grants ownership of “the content and information that you submit to the Services” — your input — in clause 3.1. We searched the full Terms and found no clause assigning ownership of generated output.

Speechify’s API terms classify output as “Customer Content” but defer that definition to “Business Terms” at its main terms page, where the phrase does not appear at all. The definitions its contract relies on are not, as far as we can find, published. Its only ownership statement is undated marketing copy in a pricing FAQ.

Cartesia disclaims ownership in clause 5.3 — it does not claim your outputs — then states in clause 7.1, in capitals in the original: “THE CARTESIA ENTITIES DO NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT YOU ARE THE LEGAL OWNER OF ANY OUTPUT…” Not claiming your output and confirming it is yours are different things.

Resemble AI’s contract mentions “output” exactly once, and it is a prohibition on using output to train competing products. Clause 2(b) separately defines “Resemble AI Materials” to include “audio, video … as well as all derivative works thereof” as “owned by us”, granting only a “revocable, limited-purpose right to access and use”. Whether generated audio falls inside that definition is not stated either way, and we do not fill the silence.

What this means for you: if a client contract asks you to warrant that you own delivered audio, the providers that answer clearly are Amazon Polly (Service Terms 50.2), OpenAI (an express assignment) and MiniMax on its international platform. Everywhere else you are relying on a permission rather than title.

Before you ship commercial audio

Identify the exact product and tier you generated on. Speechify sells three separately-licensed products; rights on one do not transfer to another.
Read the clause, not the pricing card. Three vendors here have pricing pages that say something their terms do not.
Check the document’s date. ElevenLabs’ Prohibited Use Policy changed on August 17, 2026; Cartesia’s terms are dated June 14, 2024; Murf’s are dated December 19, 2024.
Separate permission from ownership and confirm which one your contract with your client requires.
Check the resale and training restrictions, which survive even generous grants.
If you cloned a voice, check consent separately. A commercial grant over output says nothing about whether you had the right to clone the speaker. The cloning comparison covers what each provider actually requires.
Where the terms are silent, get it in writing before you rely on an inference.

Frequently asked questions

Is this legal advice?

No. This guide reports what vendor documents say, with quotations and dates, so you can read the clauses yourself. Your jurisdiction, your client contracts and the rights in the source material may all impose obligations no vendor term addresses.

Can I use AI voices in a YouTube video I monetize?

That is commercial use. On a paid ElevenLabs or Murf plan the terms permit it; on ElevenLabs’ free plan they do not, and attribution is required for anything published from it. For Amazon Polly and Google Cloud the terms never address it, so your position rests on the ownership clause — which both state plainly. Azure grants it expressly on paid tiers.

Do I own the audio I generate?

It depends entirely on the vendor. Amazon Polly states it in a numbered clause and OpenAI assigns it expressly. Four providers — Murf, Speechify, Cartesia and Resemble — never state it at all, and one of those four goes further and declines to warrant it.

Can I resell the voices themselves?

Essentially never. Murf prohibits it explicitly in the same clause that grants commercial use, and Cartesia’s terms restrict sublicensing and service-bureau use. Selling work made with a voice is not the same as selling the voice.

Can I use AI voice output to train my own model?

Generally prohibited. Murf forbids it in clause 5.1; Resemble’s single mention of “output” anywhere in its contract is a prohibition of exactly this kind.

What if the vendor never mentions commercial use?

Silence is not permission and not prohibition. Your rights come from the general platform terms and the ownership position. That is a strong place to stand with Amazon Polly, where ownership is explicit, and a weaker one with Google Cloud, where ownership itself is unresolved for this service.

Does a paid plan always grant commercial rights?

No. Speechify’s governing clause excludes everything except Voice Over Studio regardless of payment, and Cartesia grants it only on tiers its contract never names.

Is there a route with no licensing ambiguity at all?

The clearest is self-hosting an openly licensed model. Resemble AI publishes MIT-licensed speech models with an express commercial grant and no usage caps, which settles permission and ownership together — at the cost of running the models yourself, and with the consent obligation for any cloned voice resting entirely on you.

Sources and what we could not verify

Every clause on this page was read from the vendor’s own terms on September 1, 2026, except OpenAI’s services agreement, which is dated to its August 11, 2026 verification because the policy pages were unreachable on the later date. Full quotations and per-provider context are in the ten individual reviews linked throughout. How we verify anything is described on the methodology page.

What we could not verify

Honesty about gaps beats a page that looks complete. Genuinely unresolved as of September 1, 2026:

OpenAI’s clauses could not be re-read on the check date. Its policy pages returned an access error; clause 4.1 is published above with its August 11, 2026 verification date.
Whether Google’s Generative AI ownership terms reach Cloud Text-to-Speech — now moot, September 2, 2026. Ownership does not depend on that section: §5.1 read with the definition of Customer Data covers derived data, which includes generated audio.
Azure’s speech-specific licensing position — now resolved, September 2, 2026. The Product Terms carry an express grant for paid-tier prebuilt neural output, quoted above. We had recorded this as unverifiable because the document defeats ordinary tooling; that was our limitation, not an absence in the terms.
Which Cartesia subscription tiers satisfy its clause 4.1, and what its commercial licence covers. The contract names no tier; only a pricing bullet does.
Speechify’s actual position. Three of its own documents give three different answers, and the definitions its API contract depends on are not published.
Whether generated audio falls inside Resemble’s definition of materials it owns. The contract neither includes nor excludes it expressly.
Whether ChatGPT voice output is restricted to non-commercial use. Reported in OpenAI’s service terms but not re-verifiable on the check date; treat the distinction between ChatGPT audio and API audio as one to confirm.

Change log

September 2, 2026 — First publication. All clauses read from official vendor terms on September 1, 2026 and dated accordingly; OpenAI’s clauses carry their August 11, 2026 verification date for the reason given above.

Published September 2, 2026 · Licensing terms change without notice and several of the documents quoted here were revised during 2026. This page is re-checked on the site’s standing schedule, and any change is recorded here with its date (corrections policy). Independence note: this page contains no affiliate links, and no vendor paid for placement or influenced the order — see how we make money and our editorial policy.