ElevenLabs explains which SSML tags its models support and what replaces the rest

Key points

• The break tag works on all ElevenLabs models except Eleven v3 and v4, with pauses up to three seconds.
• Phoneme tags for custom English pronunciation work only on Flash v2 and Turbo v2.
• Eleven v3 and v4 drop SSML entirely in favor of bracketed Audio Tags such as [whispering] and [sighs].
• WebSocket streams need enable_ssml_parsing turned on, and tags should be sent whole to avoid added latency.

Why it matters for marketers: Content teams producing voice scripts must check the model first, since break and phoneme support differs and v3 and v4 need Audio Tags instead.