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Case Study: This Redditor Made $1,100 by Cloning His Voice and How You Can Too

Author

Samuel Ng
June 16, 2025

In this post, we are going to review a case study on how to create a source of passive income by cloning your voice.

A Reddit user recently shared their journey of earning over $1,100 in just 6 months by selling AI-generated voice clones. No special studio. No fancy gear. Just a quiet room, a decent mic, and some smart choices.

Let’s break down exactly how they did it so you can try the same.

Step 1: The Basic Idea

This user made money by uploading high-quality recordings of their own voice to the ElevenLabs Voice Library. Other people around the world like YouTubers, audiobook creators, and advertisers paid to use that AI-generated voice in their projects.

Each time someone used their voice, they earned cash based on the number of characters processed by the AI.

In total, they made about $1,100 USD from May to October.

Step 2: What They Needed to Get Started

Tools Used:

  • ElevenLabs account (Voice Cloning feature)

  • Audacity (free software) for audio cleanup

  • A decent microphone

  • Stripe account to get paid

  • A quiet room for recording

Costs:

  • ElevenLabs Creator Plan: $11 for the first month (discounted), then $22 per month. They later downgraded to the Starter Plan for just $5 a month.

  • Microphone: $30 to $50 for a USB mic, or $100 to $200 if you want higher quality.

  • Total starting cost: Around $50 to $100 USD.

Step 3: The Recording Process

They spent about 1 to 3 hours recording their voice. They read books, ads, and simple texts to give the AI plenty of material.

Pro tips they shared:

  • Use Audacity to remove unnecessary noise.

  • Remove long silences or awkward pauses.

  • Save files in WAV format for best quality.

Step 4: Upload and Set Up

Once the recordings were cleaned up, they uploaded the files to ElevenLabs.

Important setup details:

  • Verified they owned the voice (quick check by ElevenLabs).

  • Added helpful tags like "calm voice" or "narrator" to make their voice easy to find.

  • Set your price per 1,000 characters. You could set from $0.03 to $0.2 per 1,000 characters.

🖐️Lesson 1: The Earnings

Over six months, they earned about $1,100 USD without extra effort after uploading.

  • Most of the income came from their first voice because it got the better rate.

  • The second voice made less since the payment rate had dropped.

  • ElevenLabs paid them through Stripe in nine separate payments ranging from $2.30 to $70.

  • Total profit was high because their ongoing costs were low at only $5 per month for the ElevenLabs Starter Plan.

🖐️Lesson 2: Time vs. Money

To earn $1,000 with the lower rate of $0.03 per 1,000 characters, their voice needed to be used for around 33 million characters (about 555 hours of audio).

But thanks to their first voice being set at the old rate of $0.20 per 1,000 characters, they hit the $1,000 mark faster with around 5 million characters processed instead.

🖐️Lesson 3: Lessons Learned

Here’s what made the difference:

  • Quality recordings mattered most. Even a 1-hour file worked, but 2 to 3 hours is ideal for best results.

  • Early action paid off. They uploaded before the payout rates dropped.

  • Using the right tags and descriptions helped their voice get found in searches.

  • Low ongoing costs meant high profit. They spent less than $100 in total.

🖐️Lesson 4: Things to Watch Out For

  • New voices only earn $0.03 per 1,000 characters unless you get High Quality status.

  • Recording and editing your voice takes about 3 to 6 hours total.

  • There’s no guarantee your voice will become popular, so patience is needed.

  • You depend on ElevenLabs and their payout policies.

📖Question: Can You Do This Too?

Of course you can. Here’s what you’d need:

  1. A good USB mic

  2. Audacity software for editing (free)

  3. An ElevenLabs account (Creator Plan first month is $11)

  4. A quiet room and 1 to 3 hours of recording time

Final Thoughts

This Reddit user proved you don’t need a big budget or technical skills to make money with AI voice cloning. They took action early, shared their case study openly, and inspired others to try.

If you’ve got a decent voice, some quiet time, and curiosity, this could be a small but steady income stream for you too.

Just remember that patience is key. It may take a few months before the earnings start to grow.

Would you want to try this method to earn passive income online?

Want more simple AI income ideas like this? Stay tuned for the next newsletter!