HeyGen Pricing 2026: Real Cost Per Minute, Credits Explained

Pricing verified: 27 July 2026. Compiled from HeyGen’s official pricing page, Help Center credit article, API pricing article and Terms of Service, cross-checked against third-party write-ups. We do not hold paid seats on HeyGen and make no first-hand testing claim — every figure is sourced to a named surface, and where sources disagree we say so. Compiled and fact-checked by the AI Tools Worth editorial team. Corrections: contact page.

The short answer

Billed monthly: $0 (Free), $29 (Creator), from $49 (Pro, a ten-rung ladder), $149 (Business, first seat). Billed annually, HeyGen publishes both the effective monthly rate and the yearly total: $24/mo, $288/yr (Creator), $41/mo, $488/yr (Pro entry rung), $119/mo, $1,428/yr (Business). Enterprise is quote-only.

The sticker price is the smaller half of the story. What you pay is set by which model and feature you generate with, because HeyGen bills in credits at published per-feature rates. Inside one subscription, a minute of talking-head video costs 3 credits to 40 — a 13.3x spread no plan change can match.

How the credit system works

Each paid plan grants a monthly credit pool, debited at a rate set by feature and model. Free accounts do not use credits at all. Every rate below is published in HeyGen’s Help Center credit article.

Feature / model	Published credit cost
Avatar III video	3 credits/min
Avatar IV / Avatar V video	20 credits/min (stated as 1 credit per 3 seconds)
Avatar IV with custom expressive motion	40 credits/min (2x on that scene)
Video translation, lip sync	5 credits/min
Video translation, precision mode	10 credits/min
Video translation, no lip sync (audio dubbing)	2 credits/min in the rate table — the same article’s prose calls it unlimited and credit-free. See conflicts.
AI model training (custom avatar)	60 credits per run
Video via integrations (HubSpot, Clay, Zapier, Make, n8n)	Depends on the feature used. HeyGen’s worked example: Studio video with Avatar IV, 20 credits/min.

One row deserves a second look: training a single custom avatar burns 10% of a month’s Creator allowance before any video exists.

Plan comparison — exact figures

	Free	Creator	Pro (entry rung)	Business	Enterprise
Billed monthly	$0	$29/mo	$49/mo	$149/mo first seat, $20 per extra seat	Custom
Billed annually	$0	$24/mo, $288/yr	$41/mo, $488/yr	$119/mo, $1,428/yr	Custom
Credits/month	None	600	1,000 (ladder to 100,000)	1,500, shared	Custom
Max length per video	1 min	30 min	30 min	60 min	No limit
Max length, Avatar IV	1 min	30 min	30 min	30 min	30 min
Export resolution	720P	Up to 1080P	Up to 4K	Up to 4K	Up to 4K
Custom digital twins	1	1+, add-on	1+, add-on	5+, add-on	10+
SCORM export, SAML/SSO	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Commercial use	Not permitted	Permitted	Permitted	Permitted	Permitted

Note the Avatar IV row: Business buys a 60-minute per-video cap, but it does not extend to Avatar IV, which stays at 30 minutes on every plan including Enterprise. The Free plan is “up to 3 videos a month” on the pricing page and “1–3 depending on region” in the Help Center; treat 1 as the floor.

The Pro ladder, in full

“Pro starts at $49” hides ten rungs, and HeyGen publishes all of them — so the volume-discount question is answerable rather than a matter of opinion.

Credits/month	Billed monthly	Cost per credit
1,000	$49	$0.049
1,500	$74	$0.049
2,000	$99	$0.050
3,000	$149	$0.050
5,000	$240	$0.048
7,500	$360	$0.048
10,000	$460	$0.046
20,000	$900	$0.045
50,000	$2,250	$0.045
100,000	$4,300	$0.043

Annual billing takes 16.4–17.0% off every rung. There is effectively no volume discount: 100x more credits improves the unit price by 12.2%, and it gets slightly worse between the 1,000 and 3,000 rungs first. The ladder also exposes the sharpest number here — at $149/month you can buy Pro with 3,000 credits or Business with 1,500. Same money, half the credits.

The real unit economics

Divide the price by the credits, then the credits by the published per-minute rate. These are our calculations on vendor-published inputs, rounded.

Cost per credit

• Creator: $0.048 monthly, $0.040 annually
• Pro entry rung: $0.049 monthly, $0.041 annually
• Business: $0.099 monthly, $0.079 annually
• Business one-time top-up pack: $0.050

Read the last two together: on monthly Business, the bundled credits cost almost exactly twice as much per credit as the top-up packs.

Cost per finished minute

Plan, billed monthly	Avatar IV/V (20 cr/min)	Avatar III (3 cr/min)	Translation + lip sync (5 cr/min)
Creator, $29 / 600 cr	30 min → $0.967	200 min → $0.145	120 min → $0.242
Pro entry, $49 / 1,000 cr	50 min → $0.980	333 min → $0.147	200 min → $0.245
Business, $149 / 1,500 cr	75 min → $1.987	500 min → $0.298	300 min → $0.497

Every row is monthly-billed, so the comparison is like-for-like; annual billing lowers each figure by 17.0–20.1% at the same ratios. Two conclusions survive. First, Creator and Pro cost the same per minute, and the ladder shows this holds to 100,000 credits — Pro buys volume and 4K, not efficiency. Second, Avatar IV costs 6.7x Avatar III per minute (20 credits against 3), and expressive motion doubles it again.

What 600 credits actually gets you

Creator’s 600 monthly credits buy exactly one of these, not several: 30 minutes of Avatar IV, 15 minutes with expressive motion, 200 minutes of Avatar III, 120 minutes of lip-synced translation, or 10 custom avatar training runs.

The catch: regenerations bill exactly like originals. HeyGen publishes no retake data and we hold no paid seats, so we assert no takes-per-final figure. Pick the column matching how you work:

One-minute Avatar IV videos published per month	1 take each	2 takes	3 takes
Creator, 600 credits	30	15	10
Pro entry, 1,000 credits	50	25	16
Business, 1,500 credits	75	37	25

Length caps are per video, not per month: Creator permits a 30-minute video, but a 30-minute Avatar IV render costs 600 credits — the entire month in one file.

How the cost compares

Billing basis matters, because vendors here advertise annual rates beside rivals’ monthly ones. Every row below is billed monthly, dividing price by monthly output allowance.

Plan, billed monthly	Price	Included output	Cost per finished minute
HeyGen Creator	$29	600 credits = 30 min Avatar IV, or 200 min Avatar III	$0.967 / $0.145
Synthesia Starter	$29	10 minutes of video	$2.90
Synthesia Creator	$89	30 minutes of video	$2.967

At identical $29 sticker prices, HeyGen’s premium model is 3x cheaper per minute and its Avatar III engine 20x cheaper. Two caveats: Synthesia’s minutes are model-agnostic, so no dropdown can multiply your cost, and its unused minutes do not roll over. Colossyan is excluded because its page publishes only an annual rate ($59/month billed annually for Professional), leaving no monthly-basis comparison.

API pricing (published, pay-as-you-go)

The API is billed separately, in dollars rather than credits, with no subscription required and no free API credits since February 2026. Rates are per minute of generated video, charged by actual seconds.

API operation	720p / 1080p	4K
Avatar III engine (photo avatar, digital twin or studio avatar)	$1.00	$1.20
Avatar IV engine: photo avatar / digital twin or studio avatar	$3.00 / $4.00	$4.00 / $5.00
Video Agent, prompt to video	$2.00	—
Translation: audio only / speed lip sync / precision lip sync	$1.00 / $2.00 / $4.00	—
Digital twin or photo avatar creation	$1.00 per call	—

Concurrency is capped at 10 simultaneous videos and credits expire 12 months after purchase. The API is not a cost-saving route: an Avatar IV studio minute is $4.00 against $0.967 inside monthly Creator (4.1x), and Avatar III is $1.00 against $0.145 (6.9x). Use it for programmatic generation, not price.

Which tier should you pick

Daily short-form creator

Creator at $29 if you keep first takes; Pro at $49 if you do not. Creator’s 600 credits are exactly 30 one-minute Avatar IV videos with no retake budget. Pro absorbs two takes and adds 4K.

Course creator, L&D, internal training

Creator at $29 on Avatar III. A 30-minute module costs 90 credits there against 600 on Avatar IV. Move to Business for SCORM or SAML/SSO — not for the 60-minute cap, which Avatar IV does not receive.

Localization and translation teams

Creator or Pro. Lip-synced translation is 5 credits/min — 120 minutes for $29. Audio-only dubbing may or may not be free: HeyGen’s documentation says both, and its API charges $1.00/min for it, so do not budget on free.

Teams needing SSO, SCORM and shared workspaces

Business at $149 — but buy credits, not seats. Extra seats cost $20 and add zero credits; the pool is shared. If you need neither SSO nor SCORM, the Pro rung at the same $149 gives double the credits.

Developers embedding avatar video

Pay-as-you-go API. No subscription, 10 concurrent jobs, $5 minimum top-up — but budget $4.00/min for Avatar IV studio output.

Gotchas worth knowing before you pay

• Free-plan output cannot be used commercially. HeyGen’s Terms state Free output “may not be sold, sublicensed, redistributed, monetized, or used in connection with commercial activities, advertising, client work, revenue-generating product or any other services.”
• The Free watermark cannot be removed — removal is included from Creator up.
• Creator and Pro cannot buy one-time packs. Creator must upgrade to Pro; Pro moves up a rung. Only Business buys top-ups or auto-reload.
• Rollover is one cycle on monthly plans, and until renewal on annual. Cancel to Free and unused credits are forfeited.
• Integration video is billed by feature, not a flat integration rate. HeyGen’s worked example — Studio video with Avatar IV — is 20 credits/min, so an unattended loop on that setup drains a month fast; cheaper models cost less through the same integration.
• Annual break-even lands just under 10 months. Against twelve monthly payments, Creator saves $60 ($288 vs $348, 17.2%), Pro entry $100 ($488 vs $588, 17.0%) and Business $360 ($1,428 vs $1,788, 20.1%).

Where the sources disagree

• Audio-only dubbing — vendor against itself, in one article. HeyGen’s credit article says in prose that no-lip-sync dubbing is “unlimited for paid plans,” then lists “Video Translation – no lipsync: 1 minute = 2 credits” in its own rate table further down the same page. Its API charges $1.00/min for it. Budget as if billed.
• Model cost spread — subscription against API. On credits, Avatar IV costs 6.7x Avatar III (20 against 3 credits/min); on the API the same engines are $4.00 against $1.00, a 4x spread. Both are vendor-published and the gap is unexplained, so 4x–6.7x is the honest range.
• Custom digital twin slots. The live pricing page shows 1 on Free, “1+” on Creator and Pro, “5+” on Business, “10+” on Enterprise. An older Help Center article shows 5 on Creator and Pro and 10 on Business — but it still lists the retired Team plan and Pro at $99, so it describes legacy plans.
• Free plan video count. Pricing page: “up to 3 videos a month.” Help Center: “1–3 depending on their region.”
• “Pro is $99” in third-party guides. A real price attached to the wrong thing: $99/month is the 2,000-credit rung, not Pro’s $49 entry price for 1,000 credits.
• Pro’s annual rate does not multiply out. The toggle shows $41/month and $488 as the yearly total; 12 × $41 is $492. The published yearly total is what you are charged.
• Team plan. Retired and replaced by Business; guides still quoting it are out of date.

What we could not verify

• Enterprise pricing — quote-only; no price, credits, seats or caps published.
• LiveAvatar streaming pricing — the API article states it is separate, and publishes nothing.
• Text-to-speech cost — the API article lists a rate of $0.04 for its Starfish model but not the unit it is charged against, so no TTS cost is asserted here.
• Top-up pricing beyond Business — HeyGen’s GenCredits article now returns HTTP 404, so the $0.05-per-credit figure rests on one live vendor surface with no second source.
• Photo-avatar and voice-only subscription costs — not itemised in the credit table.
• A realistic retake ratio — we hold no paid seats and HeyGen publishes no data, so the takes-per-final figures are inputs you choose, not measurements.
• Colossyan’s monthly-billed price — only its annual rate is displayed, so it is excluded rather than converted.

FAQ

How many credits does one minute of HeyGen video cost?

Three on Avatar III; 20 on Avatar IV or V; 40 with custom expressive motion. Translation is 5 credits/min with lip sync, 10 in precision mode. Video Agent is 30 credits/min in standard mode.

Is the $29 Creator plan enough for daily posting?

Only if you publish your first take. 600 credits ÷ 20 per minute = exactly 30 one-minute Avatar IV videos. Because discarded takes bill identically, two takes each halves that to 15 and three leaves 10. If you routinely regenerate, Pro at $49 is the realistic entry point — though Avatar III stretches Creator to 200 minutes.

Can I buy extra credits mid-month?

Only on Business, at $0.05 per credit in 100-credit blocks costing $5, with optional auto-reload. Creator must upgrade to Pro; Pro users move up a rung and pay the prorated difference.

Is HeyGen cheaper than Synthesia?

On a monthly-billed basis, yes, per finished minute. Both entry plans are $29/month; Synthesia Starter includes 10 minutes ($2.90/min), while HeyGen Creator’s 600 credits buy 30 Avatar IV minutes ($0.967) or 200 Avatar III minutes ($0.145).

Can I use HeyGen videos commercially on the free plan?

No. HeyGen’s Terms limit Free output to personal, non-commercial and internal evaluation use, barring selling, monetizing, advertising and client work. Free exports also carry a permanent watermark. Commercial rights begin at Creator.

Bottom line

For a solo creator publishing weekly, Creator at $29 monthly or $288 annually is correctly priced and beats the obvious alternative by 3x per minute. For daily short-form with retakes, Pro at $49 buys headroom rather than efficiency — cost per credit barely moves across ten published rungs. For long-form training, Avatar III drops the cost to $0.145 per minute and makes Creator surprisingly capable. Business at $149 earns its price on SSO, SCORM and shared workspaces only: at that same price a Pro rung gives 3,000 credits against Business’s 1,500.

Figures verified 27 July 2026 against HeyGen’s pricing page, Help Center credit article, API pricing article and Terms of Service, with competitor figures from Synthesia’s and Colossyan’s own pricing pages the same day. All per-credit and per-minute costs are our arithmetic on those published inputs. Plans and rates change; verify with the vendor before purchasing.