Case study: AI voiceover vs my own voice — retention test

Case study: AI voiceover vs my own voice — retention test

A faceless 'history facts' channel suspected its robotic TTS was hurting watch time. We re-voiced 20 Shorts in ElevenLabs (a warm narrator voice) and compared to 20 on the old TTS.

Result: avg view duration up 14% (12.8s to 14.6s); like rate up from 4.1% to 5.3%.

Pros:
— Natural pacing held attention past the 5s drop-off
— Pronunciation dictionary fixed names

Cons:
— Credits burn fast; long scripts get pricey
— Some voices over-emote on numbers

Price: $5 mo starter (30k chars) / $22 mo creator tier for real volume.

Verdict: the retention gain was real and repeatable. Not for you if you're already on a decent human VO — won't beat that.