I wish ElevenLabs didn't require a subscription to test voice cloning but I might try it out this month and see if it's cool enough to continue. It could be a really fun way to get my 7yo exposed to stuff like this.
Yeah, Eleven is very expensive (not for a hobby project like this -- but at scale). I think we'll see a lot of commoditization of TTS services in the next 6-12 months - but Eleven seems to be in the lead for now.
Lots of discussion on TTS services & costs here: https://twitter.com/wagieeacc/status/1727091991635464370
I'll also check out some of the other services described in sibling comments.