InsightsNovember 12, 2026
HeyGen Pricing 2026: What You Actually Pay
HeyGen pricing in 2026: what Free, Creator, Pro and Business cost, how far the credits go per avatar minute, and when an ad team outgrows them.
Matthias SteffensHeyGen pricing in 2026 starts with a free plan of three watermarked videos a month. Creator costs $29 a month, Pro starts at $49, Business at $149 plus $20 for each added team member, and Enterprise is quoted. Every paid plan is a monthly credit balance, and the avatar model decides how far it goes: Pro's 1,000 credits buy 250 minutes of Avatar III video or 21 minutes of Avatar V.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | Credits a month | Longest video | Users | When credits run out |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 3 videos, watermarked | 1 minute | 1 | Upgrade to a paid plan |
| Creator | $29 | $24 a month ($288) | 600 | 30 minutes | 1 | Upgrade to Pro |
| Pro | $49 to $4,300 | $41 to $3,586 a month | 1,000 to 100,000 | 30 minutes | 1 | Move to a higher Pro tier |
| Business | $149, plus $20 per additional seat | $119 a month ($1,428) | 1,500 | 60 minutes | Shared workspace | Buy 100 credits for $5 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Set to your usage | No maximum | 3 or more | Custom terms |
Source: HeyGen's pricing page, checked November 12, 2026, in US dollars. If you are weighing HeyGen against a tool that works from your own footage, our Solid vs HeyGen comparison goes through it feature by feature.
Key takeaways
- On Pro, 1,000 credits buy 250 minutes of Avatar III video, 32 minutes of Avatar IV video, 21 minutes of Avatar V or about 4 minutes from Video Agent in Seedance mode.
- Pro credits barely get cheaper with volume: $49 per 1,000 at the entry tier and $43 per 1,000 at 100,000 credits, a 12% difference.
- Creator and Pro are single-user plans without top-ups; teams need Business at $149 a month plus $20 per added member, which buys half the credits of the $149 Pro tier.
- Monthly credits expire after one extra billing cycle and are lost on cancellation, so buying a large tier "for later" does not work.
How do HeyGen credits work?
Credits are HeyGen's single currency for video creation. All paid plans come with a set number of credits per month, and each feature burns them at its own rate, mostly per minute of finished output. HeyGen's help article on credits, checked November 12, 2026, lists these standard rates; we added what a minute costs at Pro's entry price of $49 for 1,000 credits:
| Feature | Credits a minute | Minutes from 1,000 credits | Cost a minute on Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avatar III, video look | 4 | 250 | $0.20 |
| Avatar III, photo look | 7 | 143 | $0.34 |
| Video translation with lip-sync, Precision mode | 10 | 100 | $0.49 |
| Avatar IV, photo look | 16 | 63 | $0.78 |
| Avatar IV, video look | 31 | 32 | $1.52 |
| Avatar V, photo or video look | 48 | 21 | $2.35 |
| Video Agent, standard mode | 80 | 12.5 | $3.92 |
| Video Agent, Seedance mode | 240 | 4 | $11.76 |
Video generation for B-roll starts at 12 credits a minute and generated images cost 2 credits each. HeyGen notes that rates can vary by account and region, and the app shows the exact cost before each generation. Every generation draws on the balance, so a take you throw away costs the same as the one you keep.
Unused credits roll over for one more billing cycle on monthly plans, which gives each credit up to 60 days. On yearly plans they accumulate until the renewal date, which HeyGen describes as better credit rollover. Upgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing; downgrades and cancellations take effect at the end of the cycle, and the remaining credits then expire. CapCut also sells AI video by the credit; our CapCut pricing breakdown shows how far its credits go.
Is HeyGen free?
Yes, with limits. The Free plan includes three videos per month, each up to one minute and watermarked, one custom video avatar, one voice clone, more than 500 ready-made presenters, 30+ languages and limited trial access to Avatar IV, Video Agent and lip-sync translation. No credit card is needed. HeyGen offers its API separately, with its own API pricing for developers.
For ads, the watermark is the limit. Any version you want to run needs a paid plan, and Creator is the first with watermark removal and 1080p export. Pro includes everything in Creator, plus 4K export, the Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1 and Nano Banana models for generated scenes and images, and edits to translation scripts. Voice cloning grows from one clone on Free to maximum usage on Pro.
Which HeyGen plan fits an ad team?
The plans are cut for individuals first. On HeyGen's plan comparison, Free, Creator and Pro each have one user seat; only the Business plan adds members to a shared workspace, with centralized billing, SAML SSO, SCORM export and integrations with Zapier, Make, n8n and HubSpot. Features such as interactive video and quizzes show where HeyGen is strongest: training and presenter content.
The price per credit tells the rest of the story. Across all ten Pro tiers, the monthly price stays between $43 and $50 per 1,000 credits. At $149, Pro buys 3,000 credits for one user, while Business buys 1,500 credits plus the team features. A team pays about twice as much per credit for working together.
That leaves a short decision list:
- One person, a few presenter videos a month: Creator, at $29 or $24 a month billed yearly.
- One person producing avatar ads every week: the Pro plan, at the tier that matches your real usage, since credits only roll over for one cycle.
- A team with shared projects and approvals: Business, with top-ups at $5 per 100 credits when a launch month runs over.
- Many teams with strict security needs: Enterprise, which adds SCIM user provisioning, custom commercial terms, a dedicated customer success manager and tailored onboarding.
What does a month of avatar ads cost on HeyGen?
How much does HeyGen cost for real ad work? Less than a single shoot, as long as the avatar is the whole ad. A worked example, with assumptions you can swap for your own: a team of three makes 20 new 30-second ads a month with Avatar V, needs one retake per ad, and translates every final ad into two more languages with lip-sync in Precision mode.
The month needs 1,160 credits. That is more than Pro's entry tier, so a single user would move to the 1,500-credit tier at $74 a month. The team of three needs Business: $149 plus $40 for two added members, $189 a month for 60 finished versions in three languages, or about $3.15 per version.
Two things change that math quickly. Switch the same plan to Video Agent in Seedance mode, which generates whole scenes, and the takes alone need 4,800 credits, the 5,000-credit Pro tier at $240 a month. And the credits only cover the avatar. Product shots, cutdowns for each placement, music and approvals still happen somewhere else.
Where does HeyGen pricing get expensive for ad teams?
For presenter videos, HeyGen's pricing plans are good value. For paid ads at volume, the costs show up in five places.
The model, not the plan, sets the price. Avatar V costs 12 times as many credits per minute as Avatar III video, and Video Agent in Seedance mode 60 times as many. A team that upgrades its look multiplies its spend without changing plans.
Volume barely lowers the unit price. The top Pro tier, 100,000 credits for $4,300 a month, works out to $43 per 1,000 credits, only 12% below the entry tier.
Teams pay twice. Creator and Pro cannot add members or buy one-time credit packs. Business can, but it includes half the credits per dollar of the equal-priced Pro tier, plus $20 per added member.
Credits expire. One extra cycle on monthly plans, and nothing after cancellation, so a quiet month after a launch month wastes budget.
Avatars carry a trust cost. HeyGen's own CEO frames the stake. In the June 25, 2026 announcement that HeyGen had passed $200 million in annual recurring revenue, doubling in eight months with more than 30 million users, Joshua Xu said:
People don't want more AI slop. They want to communicate with trust, clarity, and presence in every language and every format where their audience lives.
Audiences agree on the trust part. In IAB's 2026 study with Sonata Insights, a survey of more than 500 Gen Z and Millennial consumers and 100 ad executives, nearly half of consumers said advertisers should disclose AI voices or AI avatars. In NIQ's neuroscience study of more than 2,000 people, about 150 of them measured with EEG, viewers spotted most AI-generated ads and found them more annoying, boring and confusing than traditional ads, with weaker memory activation even when the ads looked high quality.
Platforms and law add labels. TikTok's advertising policy requires its AIGC label or a clear disclaimer when AI makes a person appear to say or do something they did not. In the EU, Article 50 of the AI Act has applied since August 2, 2026 to deep fakes, realistic AI-generated or manipulated video that could pass as authentic; our Article 50 checker shows which ads it covers. Our guide to AI video ads explains how to label without losing performance.
We see the practical version in calls. One brand we work with uses HeyGen clips as a single segment and cuts them together with product B-roll in another tool, so the avatar is a part of the ad, not the ad.
How does Solid compare with HeyGen for ad teams?
They solve different jobs. HeyGen is built around presenters; Upstarts Media reported in June 2026 that its core customers are small business owners, real estate agents, personal trainers and online course instructors rather than big brands, and that it stayed cash-flow break-even. Solid, the AI creative engine for brands and their agencies, is built around the footage a brand already owns: shoots, creator clips and past winning ads.
| HeyGen | Solid | |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | AI avatars and presenters, plus generated scenes | Your real footage, plus generated shots where footage is missing |
| Pricing unit | Credits per minute of output | Ads a month, with credits included |
| Entry price | Creator, $29 a month, one user | Starter, €299 a month, five Creator seats |
| Team | One user on Creator and Pro; added members $20 each on Business | 5 to 20 Creator seats by plan, unlimited reviewers on every plan |
| AI video models | Seedance 2.5, Veo 3.1 and Nano Banana from Pro | Veo, Seedance, Nano Banana, FLUX, Seedream and more on every plan |
| AI avatars | 700+ stock avatars and custom avatars | None, by design |
| Free start | Free plan, three watermarked videos a month | 7-day free trial without a credit card |
Where HeyGen renders a presenter, Solid runs the whole production around real footage:
- Upload once into the Smart Library: every file is cut into scenes, transcribed and auto-tagged, so you find a shot by describing it.
- Set the rules in the Brand Hub: guidelines, colors, fonts and your dictionary.
- Brief in plain words: the Solid Agent picks the scenes and writes hooks and voiceovers.
- Fill the gaps with the AI Video Generator, which creates only the shots you never filmed.
- Fine-tune in the Video Editor, with full edit control.
- Approve and ship in Review and Export: comments sit on the frame, clients review through guest links, and approved ads export in every format and language.
Plans start at €299 a month for about 15 finished ads, Grow is €999 for about 75 with multi-language output, and Scale €1,999 for about 150, all excluding VAT and all with every format, every video model and unlimited reviewers. Solid is not the cheaper subscription. The number to compare is the cost per finished, approved ad built from your own footage, and our Solid vs HeyGen page works through it.
FAQ
What is better than HeyGen?
It depends on the job. For an avatar video such as training, onboarding or an explainer, HeyGen is one of the strongest tools. For performance ads, where real customers, creators and product footage carry the proof, a tool that works from your own footage fits better. Our list of HeyGen alternatives compares the options by use case.
How many custom avatars do HeyGen plans include?
Free, Creator and Pro include one custom video avatar, Business five with Avatar V, and Enterprise ten or more, according to HeyGen's plan comparison. Extra custom avatars are a paid add-on from Creator up, and Enterprise can add a custom studio avatar shoot. Creator and Pro include unlimited photo avatars; the Free plan allows three.
Should you keep a legacy HeyGen plan?
If it still covers your work, probably yes. HeyGen says legacy unlimited plans keep Avatar III video and audio dubbing without lip-sync free and unlimited, while premium features such as Avatar IV, Avatar V and video translation now use credits at the new rates. Once you cancel a legacy plan or switch to a credit plan, you cannot switch back.
Does HeyGen use your videos to train its AI?
HeyGen says no. Its FAQ states that user data is not used for model training and that it enforces consent rules for avatars to prevent unauthorized use of someone's likeness. For brand footage and employee likenesses, check the contract terms as well, especially on Enterprise.
Ready to make ads from your own footage?
Turn the footage you already own into dozens of ad versions, in every format and language, without an avatar in sight.
Start free trial or Book a demo
About the author
Matthias Steffens is Founder Associate (GTM) at Solid, the AI creative engine for brands and their agencies. He talks with brand and agency ad teams every week about how they plan, produce and test video ads. Connect on LinkedIn
Sources
- HeyGen: Pricing page and plan comparison, all ten Pro credit tiers, checked November 12, 2026
- HeyGen Help Center: How to use credits on HeyGen, checked November 12, 2026
- HeyGen: HeyGen doubles to $200M ARR in eight months, June 25, 2026
- HeyGen: Frequently asked questions, checked November 12, 2026
- Upstarts Media: HeyGen's AI video reaches $200M in ARR, without the burn, June 25, 2026
- IAB and Sonata Insights: The AI Ad Gap Widens, January 15, 2026
- NIQ: Consumer attitudes toward AI-generated ads, December 12, 2024
- TikTok: Advertising policy on misleading and false content, April 2026
- Solid: Pricing page, checked November 12, 2026
- Solid customer calls and demos, 2026 (customers not named)