# ElevenLabs Music API vs Stable Audio API

> ElevenLabs Music API has a score of 67 (B) against Stable Audio API's 50.3 (D). Both do audio music. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 65 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

ElevenLabs Music API has a score of 67 (B) against Stable Audio API's 50.3 (D). Both do audio music. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 65 points.

- ElevenLabs Music API: grade B, 67/100, rank #150 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/elevenlabs-music.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/elevenlabs-music.json
- Stable Audio API: grade D, 50.3/100, rank #362 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/stable-audio.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/stable-audio.json

## Which one, for what

Pick ElevenLabs Music API for schema & documentation (+7), agent ergonomics (+5), security & auth (+47), maintenance & community (+65), transparency & trust (+14).

Pick Stable Audio API for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | ElevenLabs Music API | Stable Audio API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 63 | 65 | Stable Audio API +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 86 | 79 | ElevenLabs Music API +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 65 | 60 | ElevenLabs Music API +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 77 | 30 | ElevenLabs Music API +47 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 80 | 15 | ElevenLabs Music API +65 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 65 | ElevenLabs Music API +14 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **67 · B** | **50.3 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | ElevenLabs Music API | Stable Audio API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model API | Model API |
| Vendor | ElevenLabs | Stability AI |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1` | `https://api.stability.ai/v2beta` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (SDKs) | none |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | none |
| Popularity | 3.1k stars, 1.1M npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**ElevenLabs Music API.** Vocals and lyrics in several languages, or forced instrumental, with length set from 3 to 600 seconds. Music API is disabled on the Free plan and pay-as-you-go needs a card.

**Stable Audio API.** Pay-as-you-go credits, $0.26 a 3.0 generation and $0.20 on 2.5, failures free. Stable Audio 3.0 is async only, with polling and no webhook, and inpaint stays on 2 and 2.5.

## Before you call either

### ElevenLabs Music API

1. Strip artist and song names from user prompts before calling, or the request breaks the Music Terms
2. Pin `model_id`. The API default is still `music_v1`
3. Set `music_length_ms` and `force_instrumental: true` for background beds. Billing is by minute of audio
4. On 429, retry `system_busy` with exponential backoff, but treat `too_many_concurrent_requests` as a plan limit and queue
5. Don't plan on the MCP server for music. Its documented tools cover agents and speech

### Stable Audio API

1. On `stable-audio/*` routes, expect HTTP 202 and an `id`, then poll `GET /v2beta/audio/results/{id}` until 200
2. Send `accept: audio/*` for raw bytes, not base64 JSON
3. Set `duration`. It defaults to 190 seconds on 3.0
4. Wait 60 seconds after a 429 before the next call
5. Use the `stable-audio-2` routes for inpainting. 3.0 has no inpaint route

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