A common problem with using text-to-speech (TTS) tools for YouTube videos is the artificial and monotone sound of the AI voices. This monotony might be distracting and make listeners lose interest quickly, potentially reducing viewer engagement and the number of views on your video.
To avoid this, it’s better to choose text-to-speech tools that offer more natural, human-like voices. We’ve evaluated many such tools and compiled five excellent text-to-speech tools with human-like voices that can enhance your YouTube videos and help avoid the pitfalls of AI monotony. Let’s dive in.
Genny by Lovo.ai
Genny by Lovo.ai is an outstanding AI tool designed for creating voiceovers for YouTube videos. Its user-friendly and soothing interface is equipped with numerous features that simplify the process of converting text to speech. This makes Genny accessible and easy to use, even for beginners.
Key Features of Lovo AI
Two TTS Modes
Genny provides two modes that can be used to generate audio from text: Simple Mode and Advanced Mode.
Simple Mode
The simple mode is designed for generating single-speaker voiceovers, meaning the entire text input will be narrated by one AI voice. When you enter text into the provided field, which can accommodate up to 5000 characters, the AI will create a voiceover from it. This character limit typically translates to a 5-minute voiceover at a standard pace. Adjusting the narration speed can either shorten or lengthen the duration of the voiceover.
Advanced Mode
This mode is like having a text-to-speech (TTS) tool and a video editor together. You can have each section, or text block, read by a different AI voice. This is great for long YouTube videos or short clips (YouTube Shorts) with various characters speaking different lines. It’s also good for animated videos. You can add as many text blocks as needed, with each holding up to 500 characters.
Video Resources
In Lovo Advanced Mode, you can either upload your own videos or select from videos available on Pixabay. Then, you can sync the scenes in your video with the matching parts of the voiceover created by Genny.
Subtitles
Genny doubles as a subtitle creator for YouTube videos. You can use the text in the text blocks as subtitles, create subtitles from the AI voiceovers, or manually type your subtitles.
AI Writer
Inside Genny, there’s an AI Writer that can assist you in scripting your YouTube video. Just provide details about your video’s topic, its purpose for your audience, your objectives, and who your audience is. You can also select the script’s tone and the video’s length.
The AI Writer doesn’t just generate the voiceover text; it also gives directions for the video. For instance, in a script for a YouTube video on how to excel in school, the AI Writer will guide you on where to insert transition slides.
Pro Voices
Genny offers over 100 AI voices. Among these, there are Pro voices, which are crafted to mimic human speech patterns and emotions. These voices are so realistic you might not want to record voiceovers yourself ever again.
NFT Voices
For those who bought voice NFTs from MetaMask or WalletConnect, you can upload these unique voices to Genny and use them to convert text to speech for YouTube videos.
Cloned Voices
Genny’s voice cloning feature is perfect for maintaining consistency in your YouTube videos. You can upload an audio clip of your voice or record directly in Genny. Genny then clones this voice, allowing you to save and use it for your videos. This cloned voice often surpasses the Pro voices in quality. You also have the option to customize the accent, tone, and expression level of the cloned voice, adding a human touch to your voiceover.
Manage Word Pronunciation
With Genny, you can ensure specific words, like names, are pronounced exactly how you want. Tell Genny the pronunciation you prefer, and it will apply this when converting text to speech.
PROS
- Genny's AI Writer is a great tool to overcome writer's block and spark creative ideas.
- You can try Genny's features, including creating up to 20 minutes of AI voiceovers, with a 14-day free trial.
- Genny offers up to 400GB of storage space for your projects.
- Compared to other text-to-speech (TTS) tools, Genny is more affordable.
- Collaboration is easy on Genny, as you can invite team members to join your workspace. This facilitates teamwork in YouTube video production.
CONS
- The Pro voices are exclusive to paying users.
- Echoes or reverberations in the original audio recording might compromise the quality of cloned voices.
Pricing Plan
- Basic: $24/month for 2 hours of voiceovers.
- Pro: $48/month for 5 hours of voiceovers.
- Pro+: $149/month for 20 hours of voiceovers.
If you want to find out more about Lovo, you can also read our full review.
WellSaid Labs
WellSaid Labs is a generative AI platform for creating voiceovers. It doesn’t offer advanced voiceover editing options, like the option to control the pitch, tone, or intensity of the AI avatar that is saying out loud the text you’ve typed or pasted, but it’s pretty straightforward.
Key Features of WellSaid Labs
“Human” AI Voices
WellSaid Labs has voices that are really human-like. Although they would have sounded better if they were more expressive, these voices are commendable. They have subtle nuances and inflections that differentiate them from the typical robotic monotone.
Voice Styles
WellSaid Labs offers a variety of voice styles, with two particularly notable ones: narration and conversational. The narration style is ideal for slower-paced YouTube videos focused on storytelling or providing information, while the conversational style is more fitting for educational or entertaining YouTube content.
Rendering Options
The rendering process in WellSaid Labs determines the number of audio clips produced from text. You can render by sentence (each sentence becomes a separate clip), by paragraph (each paragraph becomes a clip), or in a single take (all text is converted into one audio clip).
Pronunciation Customization
WellSaid Labs enables you to specify how particular words are pronounced. The AI avatar will attempt to pronounce these words according to your instructions.
PROS
- The free version allows you to create up to 50 audio clips within 7 days.
- The AI voices are sophisticated and ready for immediate use.
- WellSaid Labs is particularly effective for text to speech for YouTube videos for a US audience. This is because it has so many AI avatars with US accents.
- If you don't like a clip, you can delete it without it counting towards your total clip limit.
- The user studio interface at WellSaid Labs is designed to reorganize audio clips easily.
CONS
- WellSaid Labs lacks advanced editing capabilities, such as controlling the emotional tone of the AI avatar's voice.
- Considering its limited feature set, the tool is somewhat costly.
Pricing Plan
- Maker: $49/month for 5 projects.
- Creative: $99/month for 50 projects.
- Team: $199/month for 100 projects.
- Enterprise: For pricing, contact WellSaid Labs.
Typecast
Typecast is a text-to-speech AI tool that helps you convert text to speech for YouTube videos. Its website has a fun and creative design. You can try out all its features for free before deciding to subscribe.
Key Features of Typecast
Wide Variety of AI Characters
Typecast offers many AI characters. You can find characters that speak English with American or other accents and those that speak Korean, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and Chinese. There are also characters of different ages, including children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged, and elderly.
AI Voice Controls
The default AI voices in Typecast sound somewhat artificial, but you can adjust them. You have options to change their emotion and tone. For instance, to make a voice sound happy, there are two levels of happiness you can choose from.
Beyond presets, you can also use text prompts to guide how the AI character should sound. Type your instructions in the prompt field, and the AI will follow them.
Additionally, you control the voice’s speed, rhythm, pitch, and how it stresses words. You can even set how long the AI pauses and how much time it spends on each sentence.
These voice control features make the AI’s voice sound more natural and pleasant.
Voice Cloning
If you want to give your YouTube viewers the experience of hearing your voice in videos, Typecast can clone your voice. This cloning process takes a while, and you’ll get an email when it’s done. The clone’s quality depends on how good your original voice recording is.
AI Script Writer
Typecast includes an AI scriptwriting tool, which is powered by Chat-GPT. However, it’s more suitable for writing first drafts rather than final drafts for YouTube videos. This is because the content it writes is better suited for blogs and articles. However, it’s still a helpful tool for getting a jumpstart on scriptwriting.
Types of AI Characters
Typecast offers two kinds of AI characters: virtual humans and animated characters. For your YouTube videos, you can select either type. Whichever one you choose, it will lip-sync perfectly with every word of your script.
Caption Styles
If you’re planning to edit your YouTube video with Typecast, you’ll find its caption feature useful. Typecast creates captions directly from your script text and provides four different caption styles. Among these, the “fitted background” style looks best.
YouTube Video Metrics
You can link your Typecast account with your YouTube account. This connection lets you track your subscriber count and identify which of your videos are gaining the most popularity.
PROS
- Typecast gives you so much control over the voices of AI characters. This enables you to make the voices sound incredibly human-like, which can greatly enhance the quality of your YouTube videos.
- Typecast is affordable.
CONS
- In the free version of Typecast, the watermark soundtrack is automatically enabled and cannot be disabled. This makes trying out Typecast for free a bit cumbersome.
- The free version has limited features.
- Typecast may not be the best option for producing numerous lengthy videos due to the limited download time in each subscription plan.
- Suggested videos might show up
- There is a chance for getting banned or Disabled without any reason nor forewarning
- Any advertiser could put add-ons on your video, if it's third party claimed
Pricing Plan
- Basic: $8.99/month for 1 hour of download time.
- Pro: $32.99/month for 2 hours of download time.
- Monthly: $89.99 for 6 hours of download time.
Fliki
Fliki serves as both an AI voice generator and a video editor. However, you have the flexibility to use either just the AI text-to-speech feature or the video editing function, depending on your needs.
Key Features of Fliki
Ultra-realistic Voices
Fliki is one of the few text-to-speech tools for YouTube videos offering “human” voices that truly mimic human speech. These ultra-realistic AI voices capture the subtle nuances of human speech patterns. There are approximately 75 of these ultra-realistic voices available.
Standard Voices
On Fliki, standard voices don’t sound as human-like as the ultra-realistic ones, but you can adjust them with different voice styles like sad, happy, or terrified to make them sound less mechanical. Some of these standard voices are available for free.
PROS
- Fliki doesn't watermark audio clips generated for free plan. This makes the free version more useful.
- The ultra-realistic voices are, as advertised, outstanding.
CONS
- The ultra-realistic voices are available only to paid users, so you'll have to upgrade to a paid Fliki plan to use them.
- There's a limited degree of control over the AI voices. You can only adjust their volume and speed or pace of speaking, and that's it.
Pricing Plan
- Standard: $28/month for 3 hours of content.
- Premium: $88/month for 10 hours of content.
- Enterprise: Contact Fliki for pricing.
We have also written a detailed review about Fliki, which you can find here.
PlayHT
PlayHT is the only text-to-speech tool with human voices on this list that comes in three models: PlayHT 2.0, PlayHT 1.0, and Standard. The Standard Model of PlayHT has 900+ AI voices to choose from. However, if you need AI voices with an actual “human” feel, use PlayHT 2.0.
Key Features of PlayHT 2.0
Advanced Voice Controls
PlayHT 2.0 allows you to control the stability of the AI voice, which determines how flat or expressive the voice is. Also, you can control the similarity of the voice, which determines how unique it sounds, and its intensity, which determines how strong the voice sounds. Other controls do a good job, but the stability control adds that human feel to the AI voiceover. You can also control the speed of the voiceover and the emotion of the AI voice.
Paragraph-by-paragraph Editing
PlayHT 2.0 lets you edit the AI voiceover script paragraph by paragraph. This feature enables you to assign a different AI voice to each paragraph.
Voice Cloning
PlayHT 2.0. also allows you to clone your voice. There are two types of voice clones: instant and high-fidelity. The latter yields higher-quality results, but it’s available only to users on the Unlimited plan.
PROS
- PlayHT's pricing system is reasonable.
- With PlayHT 2.0, you can export a voiceover with several paragraphs either as one whole audio file or as separate files for each paragraph.
- The advanced voice controls do an excellent job.
CONS
- PlayHT 2.0. supports only English.
- All of its best features are available on only PlayHT 2.0.
Pricing Plan
- Creator: $39/month for 5.5 hours of content.
- Unlimited: $99/month for unlimited hours of content.
- Enterprise: Contact PlayHT for pricing.
Or to find out more about Play ht, check out our full review.
FAQs
Can you monetize YouTube videos with text to speech AI voices?
In YouTube’s monetization policies, there’s nothing that says videos with text-to-speech AI voices can’t be monetized. But, you must be allowed to use an AI voiceover for commercial purposes before any YouTube video made with that voiceover can be monetized.
Some TTS tools, like Typecast, might not let you use their AI voices for commercial purposes unless you’re on a paid plan. So, if you’re using a TTS tool for free, be sure that you have commercial rights to the AI voiceover.. Usually, if you’re paying for the TTS tool, you have the right to use any AI voiceover made with that tool for commercial purposes.
When you’re all set with the rights, the next step is to create content that stands out and brings something valuable to your audience. For example, a YouTube short with a voiceover done by an AI voice reading a post from Reddit probably can’t be monetized. But if you make a YouTube short about grooming and feeding your dog, with an AI voice explaining what you’re doing, that will likely be okay for monetization.
What is the best AI text to speech human voice?
There’s no single “best” AI text-to-speech voice that fits all purposes. How well an AI voice meets your needs depends on what you’re using it for. However, if you’re searching for top-notch voices for YouTube videos that require minimal to no tweaking to sound convincingly human, check out the Pro voices on Genny by Lovo.ai.
On the other hand, if you don’t mind putting in some work to fine-tune the voice, PlayHT 2.0 is a solid option. The initial quality of the AI voices here is decent. But if you adjust their intensity, stability, and emotion, you can turn them into something impressively realistic.
What text to speech do YouTubers use?
YouTubers often choose text-to-speech tools such as Eleven Labs, WellSaid Labs, and Genny by Lovo.ai for their videos. Each platform has unique advantages, but they all have exceptionally realistic AI voice actors. When picking the right text-to-speech tool for your YouTube content, there’s no strict set of rules to follow. It’s more about what works best for your needs.
How do YouTubers use the AI voice?
YouTubers use AI voices to make voiceovers for YouTube videos. Here’s how it works: you either type your script into the text-to-speech tool or upload the script file. The tool then turns this script into a voiceover.
You can download or export this voiceover and sync it with your YouTube video. If you’re using a text-to-speech website that also has video editing features, like Genny, Typecast, or Fliki, you can even add the AI voiceover directly to your video right there on the platform.
What is the best free AI voice for YouTube videos?
PlayHT, especially the 2.0 version, is a great option for free AI voices for YouTube videos. It lets you turn text (up to 12,500 characters) into voiceovers every month for free. However, if you’re using the free version, you need to credit PlayHT for the AI voiceover in your videos.
Genny also offers excellent free AI voices suitable for YouTube videos, but its free trial lasts only for 14 days. Once this trial period is over, you won’t be able to use Genny without paying. Therefore, if you want to convert text to speech for YouTube videos for free every month, you should go with PlayHT.
Which Tool Converts Text to Speech for YouTube Videos Best?
From this roundup, Genny by Lovo.ai is the top choice for turning text into speech for YouTube videos. With its impressive features and affordable price, Genny is tough to top. While you can explore other options, you’ll likely find that Genny provides a superior and higher-quality user experience.
