At a glance
The facts that usually decide it. The full breakdown, with the caveats, is below.
| Synthesia | HeyGen | |
|---|---|---|
| Our rating | 4/5 | 4/5 |
| Pricing | Free plan · from $22/mo | Free · from $24/mo |
| Price model | Freemium | Freemium |
| Category | Video | Video |
| Best for | Training, onboarding and explainer videos without filming anyone. | Spokesperson videos and lip-synced translation into other languages. |
Prices checked 2 August 2026. Vendors change limits often — confirm on the vendor's own pricing page before you buy.
On the surface these are the same product: type a script, get a realistic person saying it, no camera and no crew. The demos look alike, the entry prices are within a few dollars of each other, and most comparisons stop there.
They are not the same purchase, and the reason is the unit they bill you in.
The unit is the whole decision
Synthesia’s Starter plan gives 120 minutes of video per year. HeyGen’s Creator plan gives 600 credits per month, and unused credits roll over.
Those two shapes suit opposite working patterns. A marketing team publishing two videos a month wants a monthly allowance that forgives a quiet January. A training department localising a course into twelve languages in one quarter wants a pooled annual budget it can spend in a single push. Buying the wrong shape means either running dry in week three or paying all year for minutes you use in March.
Read Synthesia’s free plan before you upgrade
Synthesia’s free tier gives 10 minutes of video a month. Over a year, that is 120 minutes — exactly what the $264-a-year Starter plan gives you. We checked this on the vendor’s own pricing page on 2 August 2026 and it is not a misreading: the free plan is metered monthly, Starter is metered annually, and the annual totals match.
Upgrading is still reasonable — you get 300 AI-generated assets instead of 25, the fuller feature set, and the ability to spend the entire allowance in one month instead of ten minutes at a time. But if you are upgrading because you think you are buying more video, you are not. That is the kind of thing a pricing page is not designed to make obvious, and it is the single most useful fact on this page.
HeyGen is the reverse. Its free plan — three watermarked, one-minute videos a month — is a demo and nothing more. Its $29 Creator plan is a real allowance with the watermark gone. The money buys something.
Where each one genuinely wins
HeyGen owns video translation. It works from footage you have already shot, matching lip movement to the new language, which means your existing library is the input. Synthesia cannot do that — it renders fresh avatars from a script. If your source material is video that already exists, this is not a close call.
Synthesia owns the script-first path: one document, 140-plus languages, consistent presenters, and an enterprise tier that removes the minute ceiling altogether. For internal training at company scale, the ability to fix an error by editing text rather than rebooking a studio is the entire value proposition, and Synthesia has been sharpening it for longer.
The cost nobody quotes
Both meter in credits, and neither converts cleanly to minutes, because the newest and best-looking avatar models consume far more credits per minute than the older ones. Every headline minute figure on both sites is a best case on a cheaper model.
So budget on cost per usable output, not per rendered minute — a take you reject still spent the credits. In this category that gap is wide enough to change which plan you need, and it is the reason we would run both free tiers against your actual script before paying either company a year up front.
So which one
Steady monthly output, existing footage to localise, or a creator budget: HeyGen.
Lumpy annual usage, script-first localisation, or a corporate training programme: Synthesia — and check whether its free plan already covers you before you buy Starter for capacity you have.
What actually decides it
- One meters by the year, the other by the month
- This is the difference nobody puts on a comparison table and it changes everything. Synthesia's Starter plan is 120 minutes of video per YEAR. HeyGen's Creator plan is 600 credits per MONTH, and unused credits roll over. If you publish steadily, HeyGen's shape fits your work; if you have one big localisation push a year, Synthesia's pooled annual allowance is the one that survives it.
- Synthesia's free plan is unusually good, and its cheapest paid plan is not
- The free tier gives 10 minutes of video a month — 120 minutes across a year. Starter, at $264/yr, also gives 120 minutes a year. You are not buying more video: you are buying 300 AI-generated assets instead of 25, the extra features, and the right to spend the whole allowance in a single month rather than ten minutes at a time. Worth knowing before you upgrade for capacity you already have.
- HeyGen's free plan barely exists, and that is the honest trade
- Three videos a month, one minute each, watermarked. It is enough to judge whether the avatars clear your quality bar and nothing more. But its $29 Creator plan is a genuine working allowance with the watermark gone and credits that roll over — so the money buys something real, which is the opposite shape to Synthesia.
- Translation versus localisation at scale
- HeyGen's lip-synced video translation is the best-known implementation of that specific trick, and it works from finished footage rather than a script — so you can localise video you already shot. Synthesia is built the other way round: one script, 140+ languages, avatars rendered fresh. If your source is existing footage, that difference decides it on its own.
- Who signs the invoice
- Synthesia is priced and sold for companies — annual billing in practice, a $1,000/yr add-on for studio avatars, and an enterprise tier that removes the minute ceiling entirely. HeyGen scales through credits from $29 to a $149/mo Business plan that then adds $20 per seat on top. Solo creator, HeyGen. Training department with a procurement process, Synthesia.
Which one to pick
Choose Synthesia if…
- You localise one script into many languages and do not have existing footage to work from
- Your usage is lumpy — a big annual push rather than steady monthly output
- You need only a few minutes a month, where the free plan is genuinely generous
- You are buying for internal training at company scale and want the unlimited-minutes tier
Choose HeyGen if…
- You publish video every month and want an allowance shaped that way, with rollover
- You want to translate video you have already shot, with matched lip movement
- You want a digital twin of yourself from a short recording, on a creator budget
- You want the cheapest paid plan that is meaningfully better than its own free tier
Synthesia vs HeyGen FAQ
- Which has the better free plan?
- Synthesia, by a wide margin — 10 minutes of video a month against HeyGen's three watermarked one-minute videos. If your need is genuinely small and occasional, Synthesia free may be the whole answer, and we would try it before paying either company.
- Why is Synthesia's Starter plan the same number of minutes as its free plan?
- Because the free plan is metered monthly (10 minutes, use it or lose it) and Starter is metered annually (120 minutes, spend it whenever). Over a year the video volume is identical. What Starter adds is 300 AI-generated assets instead of 25, the wider feature set, and the flexibility to use it all at once. Verified on the vendor's pricing page on 2 August 2026.
- What is a credit worth?
- Both sell credits, and neither converts cleanly to minutes because the newest, best-looking avatar models consume far more per minute than the older ones. Treat the headline minute figures as a best case on the cheapest model, and assume less. This is the category where cost per usable output diverges most from the list price.
- Can I use either without disclosing that the presenter is synthetic?
- You can, and we would not. Both tools produce a human likeness saying words that person never said; audiences increasingly spot it, and being caught not saying so costs more than saying so ever would. If you clone yourself, that is your likeness to use — cloning anyone else needs their explicit consent.
- Which is better for a small business making a few marketing videos?
- HeyGen, usually. The $29 Creator plan is a real working allowance, the credits roll over if you skip a month, and marketing video tends to be monthly rather than annual. Synthesia's economics assume either very little use or a training budget.
- Do these replace filming a person?
- For training, documentation and localisation, increasingly yes — nobody expects charisma from a compliance module, and being able to fix a mistake by editing the script rather than rebooking a studio is a genuine advantage. For anything where the point is that a real person is talking to you, no. Both still read as avatars to an attentive viewer.