AI Tool Comparison
Async vs ElevenLabs
A side-by-side breakdown to help you pick the right tool for your workflow.
Async
Async (formerly Podcastle): a chat-based AI suite for recording, editing, and repurposing podcasts and video, still including one-click filler-word removal, audio leveling, and AI voice cloning.
ElevenLabs
Clone a voice or narrate anything with Eleven v3, the most natural-sounding TTS available. API pricing just dropped to pay-as-you-go with no subscription required.
Bottom Line
Last reviewed: August 2026
Async and ElevenLabs both compete in Audio, overlapping most directly on content Creation. ElevenLabs carries the higher rating (4.9 vs 4.4), but a gap that size rarely overrides a real workflow fit on its own.
Choose Async if…
Best for podcasters and video creators who want recording, editing, chat-directed repurposing, and publishing handled in one browser-based tool, and its edge is rebranded from Podcastle to Async, a chat-based video and audio suite that retains Magic Dust for one-click filler-word removal, audio leveling, and noise cleanup. A genuine time-saver for quick podcast editing, Descript still wins on detailed word-level control. Lean toward ElevenLabs instead if text-to-Dialogue generates full multi-speaker conversations in one API call matters more for your use case.
Choose ElevenLabs if…
Best for voice cloning and narration that needs to sound genuinely human, and its edge is text-to-Dialogue generates full multi-speaker conversations in one API call. The most natural-sounding TTS available, and the one to beat. Lean toward Async instead if rebranded from Podcastle to Async, a chat-based video and audio suite that retains Magic Dust for one-click filler-word removal, audio leveling, and noise cleanup matters more for your use case.
| Attribute | Async | ElevenLabs |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Audio | Audio |
| Pricing | freemium | freemium |
| Pricing Detail | Free / $14.99/mo Pro | Free (10K credits/mo) / $6/mo Starter / $22/mo Creator / $99/mo Pro / $990/mo Business / API pay-as-you-go from $0.05 per 1K chars |
| Rating |
Key Features
Async
- Browser-based remote recording capturing each participant locally
- Magic Dust: one-click filler word removal and audio leveling
- Background noise removal with voice isolation
- AI voice cloning for post-recording corrections
- Automated transcript with word-level editing
- Chat-directed video and audio repurposing across formats
- Direct publishing to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and RSS
ElevenLabs
- Lifelike text-to-speech
- Voice cloning
- Voice library
- Multiple languages
- Speech to speech
Pros
Async
- •Magic Dust makes a full hour of audio edit-ready in under a minute
- •No software install: entire workflow runs in the browser
- •Voice cloning for corrections is unique among podcast tools
ElevenLabs
- •Best-in-class voice realism
- •Incredible emotion and intonation
- •Easy to use API
- •Fast generation
Cons
Async
- Voice cloning accuracy degrades on complex sentence corrections
- Export quality on the free tier is capped at lower bitrates
- Not as powerful as Descript for detailed word-level editing
ElevenLabs
- Can get expensive for long-form audio
- Requires careful prompting for specific inflections
- Ethical concerns around cloning