ElevenLabs releases Music v2.5 with free and Pro tiers
ElevenLabs has released Music v2.5 for its ElevenMusic product, making it available through the app and the API while the older v2 stays accessible. The company says generated songs now sound fuller and more natural, and points to a blind test with 47,885 comparison pairs in which listeners preferred v2.5 most of the time, especially for R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop, Rock, and orchestral music. Users keep the rights to tracks they generate. The free tier gives five lossless downloads per day and requires attribution for commercial use; the Pro tier raises that to 400 lossless downloads per month, and commercial use is allowed depending on industry and purpose. ElevenLabs blocks downloads of tracks based on other artists' songs and does not allow imitating existing musicians. On training data, the company says it trained its existing Music models on "licensed stems and music" without detailing what that data is or where it came from. ElevenLabs recently signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group, but says that deal covers future, separate products only and does not apply to Music v2.5. The article contrasts this with competitor Suno, which was sued for training on copyrighted content without rights holders' consent; Suno also released new models the same week, though the article does not name or describe them.
Key facts
- ElevenLabs released Music v2.5 for ElevenMusic, available via both the app and the API, with v2 still accessible.
- A blind test with 47,885 comparison pairs found listeners preferred v2.5 most of the time, especially for R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop, Rock, and orchestral music.
- Free tier: five lossless downloads per day with attribution required for commercial use. Pro tier: 400 lossless downloads per month.
- Downloads of tracks based on other artists' songs are blocked, and imitating existing musicians isn't allowed.
- ElevenLabs' Universal Music Group licensing deal applies only to future products, not Music v2.5; the company says it trained on "licensed stems and music" without further detail, distinguishing itself from Suno, which faces a lawsuit over training on copyrighted content without consent.
Why it matters
Generative music is moving from novelty to a product with real usage limits and a licensing story, which is what separates a demo from something people can actually build on. ElevenLabs is pairing a claimed quality jump, backed by a 47,885-pair blind test, with concrete free and Pro terms rather than vague promises, and it is doing so while pointedly framing its training data as licensed, a contrast it draws directly against Suno's ongoing copyright lawsuit.
Who it affects
Musicians and producers who use ElevenMusic to generate tracks, developers building on the API, and rights holders watching how AI music companies source their training data and license deals such as ElevenLabs' agreement with Universal Music Group.
How to use it
Music v2.5 is available now through the ElevenMusic app and the ElevenLabs API. The free tier allows five lossless downloads per day, with commercial use permitted depending on industry and purpose but requiring attribution. The Pro tier raises the download cap to 400 lossless tracks per month. Users retain rights to what they generate, but downloading tracks that are based on other artists' songs is blocked, and imitating existing musicians is not allowed.
How solid is it
The quality claim rests on a blind test with 47,885 comparison pairs in which listeners favored v2.5 over the prior model, particularly in R&B, Soul, Hip-Hop, Rock, and orchestral music; the article does not name the exact baseline version tested against. On training data, ElevenLabs' description, "licensed stems and music," is not broken down further, so the claim of clean sourcing cannot be independently checked from what is stated.
Risks and caveats
The article gives no dollar prices for either tier, no breakdown of which industries or purposes qualify as allowed commercial use, and no detail on what the licensed training data actually consists of. The Universal Music Group deal explicitly does not cover Music v2.5, only unspecified future products, so it should not be read as validating this release's data sourcing. Suno's newly released models are mentioned but not named or described, so no direct comparison is possible from this source.
“licensed stems and music”
— ElevenLabs, describing the training data behind its Music models