How to Make an Onboarding Voiceover with ElevenLabs

Most “AI onboarding voiceover” posts skip the two facts that actually decide the file. First: a thirty-to-sixty second welcome is not a sales close, and it is not a talking-head handbook you never booked. Second: a free-tier preview is not a track you assign on Day 1. This guide is the working path for the spoken welcome — script, voice, generate, pace, download, drop it on the LMS or the first-login video — using the one voice desk we send for this brief: ElevenLabs.

When a stock ElevenLabs voice is enough — and when you want a face or a lesson

Use ElevenLabs when the open is a short, realistic welcome you will regenerate. A Day-1 checklist under a silent screen tour. A first-login clip that names one task and one Help path. A product welcome that has to stay current when the signup step changes. The economic case is the recut: edit the sentence, generate again, replace the clip. You do not re-book a booth for forty-five seconds, and you do not invent a presenter for a file that only needed speech.

Skip ElevenLabs if Day 1 needs a face walking benefits, culture, and tools. That file is a talking-head handbook, and the working path on this site is How to make HR onboarding videos with Synthesia — an ordinary guide link, not a second money hop. Skip both if the missing piece is a directed studio narrator on a scored lesson. That is How to make training voiceovers with Murf. Murf is the foil, not a Try button. Skip a stock library voice if the welcome is a named CHRO or founder’s voice and you do not have a clone yet. That is a training-set job, not this brief.

The seven-step ElevenLabs onboarding voiceover

1. 01

   Write a 30–60 second onboarding script — welcome, first week or first login, who to ask

   An onboarding voiceover is a spoken welcome, not a landing-page close and not a six-minute handbook chapter. Time it out loud: thirty seconds is who we are and what happens first; sixty is that plus one concrete next step and who to ping when the packet is wrong. Open on the hire’s or the new user’s first morning. Name the checklist, the login, or the first task. Close with a channel or a Help path that will still be true next quarter. Spell plan names, PTO codes, and product titles the way they should be heard in an LMS. If you wanted a 15–45s sales pitch, that is the sales-voiceover how-to. If you wanted a talking-head Day-1 file, that is the Synthesia HR onboarding how-to.

2. 02

   Confirm a generated VO is the right onboarding format

   Use ElevenLabs when the missing piece is a short, calm welcome you can regenerate when a login, a plan name, or a first-task step changes, and the picture already exists — a silent screen tour, a still of the handbook cover, a welcome loop you will not re-light. Skip it if Day 1 needs a people-partner face on camera. That is a talking-head, and that how-to is an ordinary path on this site. Skip it if the file is a scored lesson timed to slides. That is Murf Studio, and that how-to is also an ordinary path. Skip a library voice if the welcome is a named CHRO or founder and new hires would notice a stranger. That is a clone, not this brief.

3. 03

   Open Text to Speech — the speech playground, not Agents

   ElevenLabs’ published product for this brief is Text to Speech: paste text, pick a voice, generate speech, download a file. That is the desk this page is written for. ElevenAgents is a different product (conversational agents). Studio is a longer project surface for chaptered work. Image & Video on the pricing page is a different surface — we are not inventing an MP4 download from the speech playground. This page sends you to ElevenLabs only.

4. 04

   Sit on a plan that grants commercial rights before you treat the file as an LMS asset

   ElevenLabs’ own docs are explicit: you keep ownership of generated audio, but commercial usage rights come with paid plans. Free is an audition — published pricing lists 10,000 credits a month and no commercial license. Starter is the first paid tier that lists a commercial license and Instant Voice Cloning. Professional Voice Cloning is listed on Creator and above. Confirm the live grid on elevenlabs.io/pricing. We do not invent a checkout total or a commission rate. Do not assign a free-tier read in Workday, Greenhouse, or a product-welcome video.

5. 05

   Pick a Voice Library voice — one calm narrator for the welcome and the recut

   Open Voices and browse Default Voices or the Voice Library. Preview before you apply. Cast one narrator and keep it for this welcome and for the recut when open enrollment or the first-login step changes. Filter toward calm, professional reads, then listen on headphones — an onboarding VO should sound like a people partner finishing a thought, not a cinematic whisper and not a first-second Reel hook. A stock voice is enough when the company has no existing vocal identity. Clone only if new hires would notice a stranger. Instant Voice Cloning is the published self-serve path from short samples (ElevenLabs’ cloning help: about 1–2 minutes of clean audio) on paid plans that list it. Professional Voice Cloning trains a dedicated model on a longer set (published as 30–180 minutes) and requires Creator or above. Do not invent a clone wizard here. Do not clone a CHRO from last quarter’s all-hands, a customer, or a voice you found on someone else’s demo.

6. 06

   Paste the 30–60s script, pick a model, generate, then tweak pacing and re-roll

   Type or paste the welcome into the text box as one short block. Voice first, then model, then settings — that is the order ElevenLabs’ Text to Speech guide ranks. For a short English onboarding read, Multilingual v2 is the published “most stable on long-form” model and still the safest default for a line you will reuse in an LMS. Eleven v3 is the expressive model; it supports audio tags such as [sighs] or [clears throat], and it does not expose every older slider. Official starting settings for the sliders that exist: Stability around 50, Similarity around 75, Style exaggeration at 0. Speed defaults to 1.0 (range 0.7–1.2) where the model offers it — nudge Speed, or add a dash / em-dash, when the who-to-ask line feels rushed. Spell out numbers. Then press Generate Speech. The model is nondeterministic — same text can yield a different take. Re-roll the first sentence until it lands; leave a clean close alone.

7. 07

   Download WAV (or high-bitrate MP3), then drop it on the LMS or welcome video

   After a generation, ElevenLabs’ help says you can download immediately from the control on the bottom right. Older takes live in History on the Text to Speech page — History lists MP3 (128 kbps) or WAV, with Advanced formats of MP3 192 / 256 kbps, M4A, and FLAC. Higher-quality options are listed on paid tiers; confirm the live download list. Text to Speech is an audio export. We do not invent an MP4 button on that playground. Name the file so the next policy recut is obvious: northwick_day1_welcome_en_v1. Then put the audio on the picture you already have: import the WAV onto a dedicated VO track, line the first word to the first picture change, leave a breath before a who-to-ask card, and duck any music bed under the narration. Export that timeline as the MP4 the LMS or product-welcome player will play — or upload the audio object next to the Day-1 checklist if your HRIS accepts a file without picture. When a plan name or a first-login step changes, edit the sentence, generate, bump to v2, replace the clip.

Onboarding VO vs talking-head handbook vs Murf narrator

“AI onboarding voiceover” is a search, not a product. The decision is the format. The ElevenLabs column matches Text to Speech help and the live pricing page as of August 2026. Synthesia and Murf stay qualitative here — we already wrote those desks, and this page does not hop there.

The script is a 30–60 second welcome, spoken

Do not write a cold open for a documentary. Do not write a first-second Reel hook and then pad it. Do not write a product close for a pricing page. Time the copy out loud. Thirty seconds is enough for who we are and what happens first. Sixty seconds is one concrete next step and who to ask. Longer than that and you are writing a different video.

A working new-hire shape, spoken at a normal pace — roughly forty-five seconds:

Welcome to Northwick. Your first week is three things: meet your manager, finish the Day 1 checklist in Northwick Desk, and ask People Ops when something is not in the handbook.

Your badge and email are already live. Open Northwick Desk, find Today, and complete the I-9 and the tools tour before lunch. Slack is ask-people — not your manager’s DMs for a W-4.

If a plan name or a login looks wrong, stop and ping People Ops. We would rather you wait than follow last year’s packet.

That is an onboarding voiceover. The first sentence is the welcome. The middle is one next step a hire can finish before lunch. The last sentence is who to ask when the packet is stale. A trial URL on the end card is a landing-page move — if you need a sales close, that is the sales-voiceover how-to, not this file.

A product-onboarding cut uses the same length and a different packet. Open on the first login. Name one task the new user should finish today. Close on Help, not a pricing page. Spell the words the model should say. “Day 1,” not “D1.” “W-4,” if you want those letters, or “double-you four” if you do not. ElevenLabs’ Text to Speech help is blunt about numbers and symbols: write them out, especially on multilingual models, because the same digit is pronounced differently across languages. A welcome about “Q3 PTO” needs those letters in the script the way you want them heard.

Keep one voice for this week’s welcome and for the recut. A library narrator that survives your company name is worth more than a cinematic whisper that flubs the checklist. Emotional range is not why you are here. If realism-versus-timeline is the actual question, the comparison is ElevenLabs vs Murf vs Synthesys — ordinary path, no hop. Full product notes live in our ElevenLabs review.

Pick a voice. Generate the welcome. Direct the pacing.

Open Text to Speech. Select a voice from the control ElevenLabs documents at the bottom left — Default Voices or the Voice Library. Preview. Apply one voice and keep it. A hire who hears March’s Day 1 and October’s benefits recut should still recognize the person who said the company name.

Clone only if that person has to be a named leader. Instant Voice Cloning is the published fast path from short samples (about 1–2 minutes of clean audio in the cloning help). Professional Voice Cloning is the dedicated model: Creator plan or above, a longer training set (published as 30–180 minutes), and a wait while it fine-tunes. We are not going to invent a clone wizard on this page. If new hires would notice a stranger and you do not already have the voice in My Voices, that is a different brief — come back when the clone exists.

Paste the welcome as one short block. Voice, then model, then settings — ElevenLabs ranks those in that order. Multilingual v2 is the published stable default and the one we would start on for a weekly English welcome. Eleven v3 is the expressive model: audio tags such as [sighs] or [clears throat], a 5,000-character cap, and fewer of the older sliders (Speed, Similarity, and Speaker Boost are documented as unavailable on v3). Flash models are the low-latency family; a forty-five-second LMS tile does not need 75ms.

Where the sliders exist, the official starting point is Stability around 50, Similarity around 75, Style exaggeration at 0. Speed defaults to 1.0; the documented range is 0.7 to 1.2. Lower Stability for a livelier take, then generate more than once — the model is nondeterministic. Higher Stability for a straighter people-ops read. Do not invent a slider we cannot see on the public page. If a control is missing on your model, change the sentence and re-roll.

Pacing is the onboarding-specific job. A dash or em-dash is the documented beat — use it before the checklist and before the who-to-ask line so the close does not run into the channel name. Ellipsis adds hesitation, which a Day-1 welcome usually does not want. Nudge Speed if the first sentence eats the login. On Multilingual v2, Flash v2, and Flash v2.5, ElevenLabs also documents an SSML break tag for a timed pause of up to three seconds. Confirm the live syntax in their Text to Speech help rather than pasting markup we cannot see unchanged. On Eleven v3, use audio tags and punctuation — that model’s help says it does not support SSML break tags.

Press Generate Speech. Listen on headphones. Re-roll the first sentence until it lands. Leave a clean close alone. Two free regenerations of the exact same text and settings are the published allowance; any edit to the copy or the sliders is a new generation.

Download WAV, then put the file where Day 1 already lives

The download is the gate. ElevenLabs’ Text to Speech help: after you generate, use the download control on the bottom right. Earlier takes sit in History on the same page — sidebar Text to Speech, then the history panel (or the history icon above Generate Speech on a narrow screen). History lists MP3 at 128 kbps or WAV; Advanced adds MP3 192 / 256 kbps, M4A, and FLAC. Higher-quality options are listed on paid tiers. For an LMS or welcome-video handoff, WAV or a high-bitrate MP3 is the usual file. Confirm the live list on the plan you pay for.

Text to Speech is an audio export. We do not invent an MP4 download on that playground. The MP4 is the welcome you already have — a silent screen tour, a still of the handbook cover, a first-login loop — plus this VO. Import the WAV onto a dedicated voice track. Line the first word to the first picture change. Leave a breath before a who-to-ask card so the channel is not swallowed. If you use a music bed, duck it under the narration so the company name is the loudest thing in the first second.

Export that timeline as the MP4. Upload it into the onboarding track you already run — Workday Learning, Greenhouse, BambooHR, Lattice, or a generic LMS — or drop the audio object next to “complete I-9” if your HRIS accepts a file without picture. A product-onboarding cut goes in the first-login player, not a pricing page. Most People Ops teams do not need a SCORM package for a forty-five-second welcome; they need a file in the Day-1 checklist. Name the source audio so the next person can find it: northwick_day1_welcome_en_v1. When open enrollment changes a plan name, or the first-login step moves, open the sentence, generate, bump to v2, replace the clip. Leave the lines that are still true.

New hires still deserve a plain-language note when the narrator is synthetic. Say it in the module intro or the LMS description: this is a generated welcome reading the current packet. If you later publish the same file outside the company, you also need the current platform disclosure for realistic synthetic or altered content. That is separate from the vendor license. You need both.

Commercial rights, the LMS, and the next cut

Read the live page. ElevenLabs meters in character credits across the suite. Free is 10,000 credits a month and no commercial license. Starter is the first paid tier that lists a commercial license and Instant Voice Cloning — $6/month on the public grid we verified in August 2026 (elevenlabs.io/pricing). Creator is the tier that lists Professional Voice Cloning ($22/month on that same grid; annual billing is cheaper). Confirm checkout. We do not print a commission rate.

A 30–60 second welcome is a rounding error on credits. The plan question is the license, not the meter. Sit on a paid plan before the file is the one a hire is assigned. If you later want a named leader’s likeness on B-roll welcomes, that is a clone brief, not a reason to start this job in Creator. If the remaining job is a people partner on camera, the Synthesia HR onboarding page is that brief. If the remaining job is a slide narrator, the Murf training page is that brief. If the remaining job is a thirty-second product close, the sales-voiceover how-to is that brief. If the remaining job is a company-page post, the LinkedIn-voiceover how-to is that brief. The voice-tool comparison lives on ElevenLabs vs Murf vs Synthesys. This page does not hop there. The only Try button here is ElevenLabs.