Make an AI voice greeting, read in eight voices or your own

A message they play on speaker

A written greeting gets skimmed between notifications. A voice message gets played, often on speaker. Grandpa hears it without hunting for his reading glasses, a six-year-old hears it before she can read, and a friend plays it on the drive to work without taking a hand off the wheel.

The catalogue has eight voices made with ElevenLabs Eleven v3: Ava, Noa, Daniel, Mira, Tomer, Lena, Ari and Yael. Each has a short sample, so you choose by ear rather than by name, and the three above read the same line, so you can compare them one after another. On Plus, Family or Pro there is a ninth option, your own voice: MiniMax Speech makes it from about 20 seconds of reading, and you pay for it once.

The price follows the length. A voice greeting is priced by the number of characters, so a two-line birthday wish costs little and a long retirement speech costs more. The text is free, the effects add nothing, the price is on the button before you press, and a recording that fails gives the credits back.

Daniel for the office card, your own voice for breakfast

Eleven v3, from ElevenLabs, works on every plan and has the settings: eight voices, an accent for English and a Stability slider. It is often the better choice even when you could use your own. A message six colleagues wrote together sounds odd read in one colleague's voice, while a neutral voice such as Daniel makes it from all of you. A six-year-old often listens better to a bright voice like Lena or Noa. And disliking your own recorded voice is a real reason, not vanity. The same eight voices speak in talking photo cards too.

Your own voice is made with MiniMax Speech, on Plus, Family and Pro. You read a short text shown on the screen, live in the browser, and tick a box confirming the voice is yours. It costs credits once; after that each greeting is priced by its length like any other. Accent and Stability do not apply to it, the Effect does.

An honest note: if you can record yourself today and like how it sounds, a voice memo from your phone is free and really you. Your own voice here earns its place when the words need writing, or when the greeting has to land at breakfast in their city while you are asleep after a night shift or somewhere over the sea on a plane.

Twenty seconds in a quiet room

You need four things. A paid plan: Plus, Family or Pro (on the free plan you see a short note and a See plans button instead). A microphone, which your phone or laptop already has. A browser that records, such as Chrome, Safari or Firefox. And a quiet room for twenty seconds, which in some households is the hardest part.

In the chat, tap "Record my own voice" when the agent asks whose voice should read the greeting; in Standard, open the voice picker and go to the Your own tab. Allow the microphone, press Start recording and read the passage on the screen calmly, as if telling it to someone. A recording under 8 seconds is turned away. Play it back, and if the dog barked through the middle, record again: nothing is charged yet.

Tick the box confirming the voice is yours and press Make my voice. The price is on that button and you pay it once; making the voice takes about a minute, and if it fails, the credits come back. Then play the short sample in your new voice. From then on the chat button reads "My own voice", and a new recording later simply replaces the old one.

Name first, short sentences: writing for the ear

A greeting that reads well can sound stiff out loud. Short sentences help: the voice breathes at commas and full stops, so a line that runs for three rows comes out as one long breath. Put the name first - "Happy birthday, Rosa" - so she knows it is hers from the opening words. Then one real detail - the cherry tree she planted - one wish and a short close.

Write the words the way you want them said. "Seventieth" leaves no doubt where "70th" might, and a nickname spelled the way the family says it is the one to use. For a birthday, two to five sentences - about half a minute - is plenty; the agent keeps its spoken drafts that short. A wedding toast or a retirement speech can run longer: in Standard the limit is 2,500 characters, a few minutes of speech. Pick the voice after the words: the samples let you hear which one suits them.

In your own voice the words matter even more. Your mother knows your voice, and she knows you have never once said "May your special day be filled with joy". Use the names you actually use - if the family calls Grandpa Deda, write Deda - and keep your habits: the way you open, the joke nobody else gets. Then read the text aloud once yourself; if it trips you up, it will sound stiff in the recorded voice too.

When it needs a face, a tune or a party

A voice greeting is words and a voice, with nothing to look at. If the face matters - Grandma saying it herself - make a talking photo card: the same voices, up to 15 seconds of speech, animated by Kling AI Avatar v2 (face and head) or OmniHuman 1.5 (the whole person). It costs more, because every second of speech is also animated.

If you want the words sung, the song generator uses Google Lyria 3.5: you approve the lyrics first, and the song comes back in English, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic or another language. If you want the sound of the party rather than one voice - glasses clinking, the family singing the end of Happy Birthday - make a video: Veo 3.1 and Kling 3.0 make that sound along with the picture, in one generation. And if the words will be read, not heard, a text greeting costs nothing.