AI video platform for talking-avatar videos made from a script and lip-synced translation of existing videos.
Compiled from HeyGen's own pricing, help, developer, legal and security pages plus the third-party sources named on the page. Checked on 14 September 2026. How these pages are made
HeyGen is an AI video platform from HeyGen Technology, Inc., a Los Angeles company.
From a script, slides or a text prompt, it renders a video of a talking presenter: a stock avatar, an animated photo or a digital twin of you.
It also translates existing videos with lip-sync. Paid plans run on monthly credits.
Besides the Free plan it sells Creator, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans.
HeyGen at a glance
Yes, within tight limits. HeyGen's $0 Free plan needs no credit card, but it is built for testing, not publishing.
On 14 September 2026, Creator cost $29 a month ($24 billed yearly), Pro started at $49 ($41 billed yearly) and Business cost $149 ($119 billed yearly) plus $20 a month per extra seat.
Free is $0, and Enterprise is priced through sales. A finished minute costs from about $0.19 to $2.32 on Creator, depending on the avatar engine (our arithmetic, explained below).
| Plan and price (monthly / yearly) | Credits a month | Limits and extras |
|---|---|---|
| Free: $0 | None | 1-minute videos, watermarked; non-commercial evaluation only |
| Creator: $29 / $24 ($288 a year) | 600 | 30-minute videos, 1080p; watermark removal, unlimited photo avatars and voice cloning; no Seedance engine on plans bought after 17 August 2026 |
| Pro: from $49 / $41 ($488 a year) | 1,000, in ten tiers up to 100,000 for $4,300 a month | 30-minute videos; 4K listed (see limitations); faster processing (HeyGen's claim), translated-script proofreading, all advanced models including Seedance 2.0 |
| Business: $149 / $119 ($1,428 a year), plus $20 a month per extra seat | 1,500, shared by all seats | 60-minute videos (Avatar IV 30); 4K listed; 5 custom video avatars, SAML/SSO, SCORM export, LMS integrations, interactive video, top-ups or auto-reload; HubSpot, Zapier, Make and other integrations (plan access unclear elsewhere) |
| Enterprise: contact sales | Not published | No maximum video length; 4K; SCIM, audit log, enforced team 2FA, proofreader seats, a dedicated customer success manager, invoice billing |
Cost per credit (our arithmetic, price ÷ credits, monthly / yearly): Creator $0.048 / $0.040; Pro $0.049 / $0.041, falling to $0.043 / $0.036 on the 100,000-credit tier; Business $0.099 / $0.079 for included credits, or $0.05 bought as top-ups.
A credit is HeyGen's unit of rendering: on 14 September 2026 a minute of avatar video used 4 to 48 credits, depending on the look and engine.
The pricing page no longer lists per-model rates, saying only that usage "can vary based on which AI model is used, video duration, and the complexity of the generation"; the credit table in HeyGen's help center has them.
Two choices set the rate.
The look: a photo look animates a still image, while a video look is built from at least 2 minutes of footage of a consenting person, as your digital twin is.
The engine: in HeyGen's model comparison, Avatar IV is the default, Avatar V is the opt-in engine HeyGen calls its highest fidelity, and Avatar III is the older engine with a dedicated photo-to-video pipeline. Avatar V uses 48 credits a minute, 12 times Avatar III's video-look rate (our arithmetic).
A realistic month on Creator (our arithmetic): four 3-minute videos of your digital twin use 48 credits on Avatar III video look (8% of 600), 372 on Avatar IV video look (62%, leaving about 7 minutes for re-renders) or 576 on Avatar V (96%, too few for even one 3-minute re-render).
HeyGen says a script change re-renders the affected avatar scene and that it bills only the seconds of avatar generated, but it gives no worked example for a script fix.
| Feature | Credits a minute, before | Now (14 Sep 2026) | Creator minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avatar III | 3 | 4 (video look) / 7 (photo look) | 200 → 150 / 85 |
| Avatar IV | 20 | 16 (photo look) / 31 (video look) | 30 → 37 / 19 |
| Avatar V | 20 | 48 | 30 → 12 |
| Translation, no lip-sync | 2 | 4 | 300 → 150 |
| Translation, Speed lip-sync | 5 | 6 | 120 → 100 |
| Translation, Precision lip-sync | 10 | 10 | 60 → 60 |
Earlier rates come from HeyGen's pricing FAQ archived on 26 August 2026 and help articles archived on 7 and 16 August; no HeyGen page we found dates the change, and some third-party guides still quote the old figures.
Video Agent is left out because those pages gave it 20, 30 or 40 credits a minute.
Outside the chart, Custom Expressive Motion adds 40 credits a minute on Avatar IV, and Video Agent's Seedance mode costs 120 a minute; Seedance is the video engine behind that mode, Avatar Shots, cinematic mode and B-roll generation.
| Engine (credits a minute) | Creator | Pro 1,000 | Business, one seat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avatar III, video look (4) | $0.19 / $0.16 | $0.20 / $0.16 | $0.40 / $0.32 |
| Avatar IV, photo look (16) | $0.77 / $0.64 | $0.78 / $0.65 | $1.59 / $1.27 |
| Avatar IV, video look (31) | $1.50 / $1.24 | $1.52 / $1.26 | $3.08 / $2.46 |
| Avatar V (48) | $2.32 / $1.92 | $2.35 / $1.95 | $4.77 / $3.81 |
| Video Agent, standard (40) | $1.93 / $1.60 | $1.96 / $1.63 | $3.97 / $3.17 |
| Translation, Speed lip-sync (6) | $0.29 / $0.24 | $0.29 / $0.24 | $0.60 / $0.48 |
Pro's 100,000-credit tier is only about 12% cheaper per credit than its 1,000-credit tier, so the engine matters far more than the tier.
Bought as top-ups, Business credits bring Avatar IV video look down to $1.55 a minute.
You pick a presenter (a stock avatar, a photo avatar or your digital twin) or let Video Agent plan the video, add a script, slides, a prompt or recorded audio, choose a voice and language, and generate.
If animating a still image is all you need, compare other tools that turn a still image into video.
Video Agent turns a prompt into a video, handling the script, avatar selection, scenes and rendering, according to HeyGen; Chat Mode lets you refine its plan before anything renders.
Translation. Upload a video of up to 5 GB, or a YouTube or Google Drive link, with speech in one language, and pick up to 10 target languages per job, as audio-only dubbing or Speed or Precision lip-sync.
Only speech is translated, not on-screen text, and lip-sync may slip when the speaker's head turns away from the camera (beyond 30 degrees in one HeyGen guide, 45 in another).
Voices and slides. 300+ stock voices (per HeyGen's avatars page and voice docs), voice cloning, and voices imported from providers such as ElevenLabs.
PPT, PPTX or PDF files up to 50 MB (first 50 slides) become videos, with PowerPoint speaker notes as the script.
HeyGen also lists Canva, Adobe Express, HubSpot, Zapier and Make apps, among others.
HeyGen's REST API v3 launched in April 2026 (POST /v3/videos for avatar videos, POST /v3/video-agents for Video Agent); v1 and v2 retire on 31 October 2026.
HeyGen also offers an official CLI for macOS and Linux (Windows "coming soon") and a hosted MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that lets AI assistants make videos.
HeyGen's real-time conversational avatars, formerly Interactive Avatar, now run on LiveAvatar, a separate platform with its own plans and credits (paid plans from $19 a month on 14 September 2026); HeyGen plans, avatar slots and avatars don't carry over.
Workflows as HeyGen's help center documents them, with our credit arithmetic.
HeyGen Technology, Inc. is a US corporation.
It publishes terms of service, a privacy policy and a security page, requires consent videos for video-based digital twins (with one Enterprise exception, below) and says it is SOC 2 Type II certified.
Yes, on paid plans.
On Creator, Pro and Business, HeyGen's terms say you own your inputs and outputs and commercial use isn't restricted, unless HeyGen terminates your account for a violation; then you must stop using the outputs and delete them.
HeyGen can also remove or block content at its discretion, without notice, and its terms and moderation policy require you to:
The terms for paid plans grant HeyGen a royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable, worldwide, irrevocable license to your content, including for AI training.
The privacy policy lets users opt out of that training by emailing privacy@heygen.com and describes no self-serve setting.
HeyGen's security page says Enterprise data is excluded from training by default, AI subprocessors are contractually barred from training on customer data, and all customer data is stored in the United States on AWS.
Deleted data stays in disaster-recovery backups for 60 days.
For digital twins, HeyGen's biometric privacy notice says it matches face geometry between the consent recording and the avatar footage; consenting to training on that biometric data is optional, but withdrawing consent doesn't remove data already built into trained models.
HeyGen's API docs let Enterprise accounts that sign an indemnity agreement skip consent collection. Anyone depicted can ask for removal at moderation@heygen.com.
HeyGen's security page names SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the EU AI Act, but no ISO certification and no HIPAA compliance.
HeyGen says SOC 2 reports are available to customers on request; its trust center lists SOC 2 and SOC 3 reports and a penetration test report without naming the auditor.
Its terms require binding arbitration, with an opt-out within 30 days of first accessing HeyGen, and waive class actions.
HeyGen's pages conflict on these points, and this page doesn't pick a side:
Not verifiable from public pages on 14 September 2026: the yearly price of an extra Business seat; whether failed renders are reliably left uncharged in practice; any paid-plan trial (none found, but absence can't be proven); and what a Free account, which has no credits, can make through the MCP server.
| Platform | Rating (reviews) | Read on |
|---|---|---|
| Trustpilot | 3.8 / 5 (about 3,400) | 14 Sep 2026 |
| G2 | 4.8 / 5 (1,967) | 31 Aug 2026, archived copy |
| Capterra | 4.7 / 5 (319) | 14 Sep 2026 |
| Gartner Peer Insights | 4.2 / 5 (26 ratings) | 14 Sep 2026 |
| Product Hunt | 4.3 / 5 (71) | 14 Sep 2026 |
The scores aren't comparable across platforms.
HeyGen's claimed Trustpilot profile asks customers to review (65% of reviews are five-star, 17% one-star), and G2, whose live page was unreadable, labels some reviews "Seller invite".
Capterra's customer service sub-rating is 4.6. G2's most-tagged positives are ease of use and quality; its most-tagged negatives concern cost.
Recurring themes, with the number of separate reviews or forum posts found:
Cybernews's hands-on review (updated 4 November 2025, with an affiliate disclosure) found Spanish dubbing natural, Arabic more synthetic, and processing that slowed from about two minutes to about four hours.
For a solo creator who needs a talking presenter, DeepBrain AI's AI Studios Personal plan costs the same as Creator, and the plans that cost less, at least billed yearly, carry trade-offs: Synthesia's Starter ($14–$18 a month billed yearly) includes 120 minutes of video a year, D-ID's Pro plan ($29, or $16 billed yearly) keeps an "AI" watermark, and for Vidnoz Starter ($26.99 a month, no watermark) what its credits buy couldn't be verified.
| Tool | Entry paid plan: monthly / yearly | Free option as published |
|---|---|---|
| Synthesia | Starter: $19–$29 / $14–$18, by region and offer | Basic: 10 minutes of video a month, 9 stock avatars, no downloads |
| Colossyan | Professional: monthly price not confirmed / $59 | Starter: 20 minutes a month, watermark, no SCORM exports |
| D-ID | Lite: $5.90 / $4.70 (watermark, personal use); Pro, first commercial plan: $29 / $16 | 14-day trial: 3 minutes, watermark, personal use |
| DeepBrain AI (AI Studios) | Personal: $29 / $24 | Up to 3 videos of up to 1 minute, 720p |
| Vozo AI | Creator: $29 / $22 | 20 one-time points, about 2 lip-sync minutes (Vozo's estimate) |
| Fliki | Standard (US prices): $28 / $21 | 3 credits a month, 720p, watermark |
A business avatar video platform for training and internal communications, with AI dubbing.
An AI avatar video maker with a built-in course builder, including quizzes.
An avatar video studio with an API, AI agents and video translation.
DeepBrain AI's workspace for avatar video, AI dubbing, text-to-speech and generative video.
A video translation tool with dubbing, lip-sync and translation of on-screen text.
A text-, script- and blog-to-video tool that pairs AI voices with stock visuals.
Yes, if your videos fit the credit arithmetic and you choose the engine deliberately; less so if you mostly render with its newest engines or need predictable costs.
Individual plans can't buy web top-ups, so heavy Avatar V or Video Agent users must move up Pro tiers (the cheapest route per credit) or switch to Business.
Our reasoning from the pricing page, credit table, documentation and terms listed in Sources, and the user ratings above. It does not judge output quality.
Strength: breadth on self-serve plans. One credit balance covers presenters, prompt-to-video, dubbing and developer access, and Business bundles training features that some rivals keep for Enterprise (see the pros).
Weakness: cost predictability. A minute's cost depends on the engine, the rates moved without appearing on the pricing page, and re-renders and lapsed credits add to the bill; the user reports above point the same way.
No. HeyGen doesn't advertise a timed trial of its paid plans; its Free plan, which needs no credit card, is how HeyGen suggests you test it. The cheapest paid test is the mobile-only weekly Creator plan: $10 for 150 credits, about 4 minutes of Avatar IV video look or 3 of Avatar V by our arithmetic.
Yes. Free-plan videos carry a HeyGen logo watermark that free users can't remove. HeyGen's help center says every video carries the logo by default and paid users can switch it off when they submit a video, and the pricing table shows watermark removal from the Creator plan upward.
By our arithmetic, a credit costs about 3.6 to 4.9 cents on Creator and Pro and 7.9 to 9.9 cents as part of Business. On the web only Business can buy extra credits, at 5 cents each; HeyGen tells Creator and Pro users to move to a larger plan or tier. In the mobile app, once Creator credits run out, packs of 60, 150 or 250 credits cost $5, $10 or $15, valid for 12 months.
Not for anyone subscribing today. HeyGen moved to credit plans in May 2026 and stopped selling Legacy Unlimited plans after 15 May. Existing legacy subscribers keep their plan while it stays active, but canceling or switching is permanent. On those plans Avatar III videos and audio-only dubbing stay unlimited, while Avatar IV, Avatar V and lip-sync translation use credits at the credit plans' per-minute rates. No plan, Enterprise included, has unlimited Avatar IV.
Yes, but it isn't free. HeyGen's FAQ page says API pay-as-you-go starts at $5 with no monthly commitment, and its help center says there have been no free API credits since February 2026 and that pay-as-you-go credits expire after 12 months. API credits are bought in US dollars, separately from plan credits, and Free users can buy them too.
No. HeyGen is a US company today, though it started in China. Its contracting entity is HeyGen Technology, Inc., a US corporation headquartered in Los Angeles. Joshua Xu and Wayne Liang founded it in Shenzhen in 2020 as Surreal; it became Movio after moving to Los Angeles in 2022 and HeyGen in April 2023. The South China Morning Post reported that the Shenzhen entity was dissolved at the end of 2023.
HeyGen's own pages, read on 14 September 2026. Competitor and rating pages are linked where the page cites them.
Compiled by
Full Stack AI Strategist
Amit Kumar runs Most Popular AI Tools, where he tests and writes about AI software for video, audio, writing, design and productivity. When he covers a tool, he checks its pricing, credits and plan limits against the vendor's own pages, so readers know what a plan includes before they pay. He also leads the site's SEO and AI-focused content strategy.
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Compiled by Amit Kumar