PlayHT is discontinued — do not buy
PlayHT, later branded PlayAI, no longer exists as a product. Meta confirmed it had acquired the team on 13 July 2025, the Voice API and text-to-speech service were deprecated within weeks, and as of 22 September 2026 the play.ht domain still returns no DNS record at all. This page is kept as a correction, because the tool is still recommended widely in older articles and courses.
The timeline
| Date | Event | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 13 July 2025 | Meta confirms acquisition of the PlayAI team, described in an internal memo as the "entire PlayAI team" joining, to work on AI Characters, Meta AI, wearables and audio content creation. | TechCrunch; Meta spokesperson confirmed to Bloomberg. |
| 30 July 2025 | AudioStack tells its customers that "PlayHT has officially deprecated support for its Voice API and TTS services", noting that as part of the acquisition the voices "no longer work". | AudioStack deprecation changelog. |
| 31 December 2025 | Reported full sunset of studio, API and Voice Agents, with user data deleted and no export tooling. | Consistent across migration write-ups, but not first-party verified — the vendor site is gone. |
| 22 September 2026 | play.ht still returns no DNS record. First observed by CartSignal on 3 September 2026 and unchanged since. | CartSignal resolution check on the date shown. |
What PlayHT was used for, and what replaces it
PlayHT was usually chosen for one of two jobs. Match yours to pick a replacement rather than defaulting to the best-known name.
- Cheap TTS or a voice API — this was the most common reason to pick PlayHT over ElevenLabs. Cartesia occupies that slot now: Free at 20K credits a month, Pro at $5 a month for 100K credits or roughly 133 minutes of speech, Startup at $49 for about 1,667 minutes, per its official pricing page in September 2026.
- Voice realism and cloning — ElevenLabs, at $6 a month for Starter and $22 for Creator as officially listed in September 2026. Watch the credit burn rate rather than the sticker price: text to speech is 1 credit per character, but dubbing runs 2,000 to 10,000 credits a minute.
- A browser voiceover studio with team seats — Murf AI, from $19 a month on annual billing, with separate meters for Studio, API and Dub.
- Governed cloning with watermarking and detection — Resemble AI.
The migration page works the cost-per-minute arithmetic across these, and the voice alternatives shortlist covers the wider set.
If you still have a PlayHT dependency
- Any code calling the PlayHT API is dead, not degraded — it has been non-functional since 2025.
- Voice clones are not portable files. Re-consent and re-clone with the new vendor under its policy.
- Rebuild needed audio from source scripts; assume nothing is recoverable from the old account.
- If you publish synthetic voice into the EU, check Article 50 labelling duties before you ship the replacement.
Frequently asked questions
Is PlayHT still available?
No. Meta confirmed it acquired the PlayAI team on 13 July 2025, integration partners reported the Voice API and TTS service deprecated by 30 July 2025, and as of 22 September 2026 the play.ht domain still returns no DNS record. There is nothing left to sign up for.
What should PlayHT users switch to?
Cartesia is the closest match on price, with a $5 per month Pro plan covering roughly 133 minutes of text to speech. ElevenLabs is the choice if voice realism decided your purchase, at $6 per month for Starter. Murf AI is the closer fit if you used PlayHT as a browser voiceover studio rather than an API.
Can I recover my PlayHT voice clones or saved audio?
There is no reachable site to export from. Migration write-ups widely report that accounts, voice clones and saved audio were deleted at sunset with no export tooling, though CartSignal cannot verify that against a first-party announcement because the domain is gone.
Source links
- TechCrunch — Meta acquires voice startup Play AI
- AudioStack — PlayHT deprecation notice
- Former official domain: play.ht — no longer resolving, link removed