Short answer: Minutes are measured by the connection duration of the call, not just the spoken audio. Specifically, billing starts when you click “Call AI agent” and continues until you end the call or close the window; this is why the billed duration can be longer than the conversational portion. (help.elevenlabs.io)
Details that can affect how minutes are consumed:
Long silences: After 10 seconds of silence, the system downshifts and charges those silent periods at 5% of the usual per‑minute rate until speech is detected again. (elevenlabs.io)
Setup/prompt testing: Calls made during setup and prompt testing are billed at half cost. (elevenlabs.io, help.elevenlabs.io)
LLM fees: Language‑model usage is passed through separately (converted to credits) in addition to the per‑minute voice connection cost. (help.elevenlabs.io, elevenlabs.io)
If you use multimodal text+voice mode, text messages incur a per‑message charge (separate from the minute calculation). (elevenlabs.io)
So, “minutes included” primarily cover the live connection time of the call (with discounted billing during long silences), while any LLM usage and optional text messages are billed separately. (help.elevenlabs.io, elevenlabs.io)
Credits are the single currency. Each plan gives you a monthly credit allotment.
“Minutes included” for Agents are just your monthly credits expressed at the plan’s credits-per-minute rate. If you spend credits on other products, your available Agents minutes drop accordingly.
After you use up the included minutes, each additional Agents minute consumes a fixed number of credits per your plan (via usage-based billing on Creator and above).
Concrete numbers:
Creator plan includes 100,000 credits/month, which equals 250 Agents minutes because Agents on Creator cost 400 credits per minute; extra minutes are also billed at 400 credits/min (if usage-based billing is enabled). (elevenlabs.io, help.elevenlabs.io)
Notes:
Credits are shared across ElevenLabs products and defined here; they reset monthly and can roll over up to two months depending on plan. (help.elevenlabs.io)
If you go beyond your monthly credits on Creator+ and enable usage-based billing, you buy additional credits at a fixed $/1,000 credits and those credits then translate to more Agents minutes at the same plan rate. (help.elevenlabs.io)
LLM usage costs during calls are passed through separately and converted to additional credits on top of the per‑minute Agents metering. (help.elevenlabs.io, elevenlabs.io)
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