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Pricing verified September 8–14, 2026 · HeyGen and Synthesia pay us nothing
Quick answer: HeyGen for a personal presenter, Synthesia for corporate training, Wizstar for volume, Vidu for consistent characters
Four platforms, four different meters. HeyGen puts publishable video — 1080p, no watermark, rollover credits — at $29 a month and runs the only usable free avatar tier we verified. Synthesia matches the $29 sticker but sells 120 minutes per year with no rollover, holding SCORM and SSO for Enterprise. Wizstar bundles 10+ generation models with ceilings up to 326 videos a month, at campaign prices that renew higher. Vidu, the generation-first outlier, sells character consistency instead of presenters — and its public prices could not be verified without login.
The short verdict: four winners for four different jobs
There is no single best AI avatar generator — there is a best one for your job and your meter. For a presenter video you can publish this week on a small budget, HeyGen is the strongest pick: its $0 plan is the only genuinely usable free avatar tier we verified, and $29 a month adds 1080p export, watermark removal, and 600 monthly credits that roll over. For corporate training at organizational scale, Synthesia is the platform shaped for the journey: 160+ languages on every tier, with SCORM, SSO, and unlimited minutes waiting in custom-priced Enterprise. For volume work — dozens of product or ad videos a month — Wizstar sells a bundle of 10+ generation models with plan ceilings stated in videos per month, though every price we saw was campaign pricing. And if what you really need is a consistent character across shots rather than a talking presenter, Vidu sits just outside the avatar category and is often the honest answer.
Money disclosure before anything else: our links to Wizstar and Vidu are affiliate links that can earn RIA LLC a commission; our links to HeyGen and Synthesia earn us nothing. Every figure below comes from the official pricing pages, checked September 8–14, 2026.
Explore Wizstar’s current plans →
How this roundup was prepared
Nothing here is ranked on vibes or on hands-on testing we did not do. We read four official pricing pages on the monthly billing cycle — HeyGen, Synthesia, and Wizstar on September 14, 2026, and Vidu on September 8, 2026 — and wrote down what they said. We have not benchmarked avatar realism, lip-sync accuracy, or render speed, and wherever a company publishes a statistic about itself, we label it as that company’s claim rather than our finding.
Two of the four can pay us. When a reader subscribes to Wizstar or to Vidu through our links, RIA LLC can earn a commission; a subscription to HeyGen or Synthesia earns us nothing. That mix cuts against our own interest in an instructive way: the pick-by-job section below sends most solo creators to a platform that pays us zero.
How we compare: the meters do not convert
Each platform sells capacity in its own currency, and none of the currencies exchange. HeyGen meters credits that refresh every month. Synthesia meters minutes of finished video counted across a year. Wizstar meters credits too, but translates them on its own page into a ceiling of videos and images per month. Vidu’s credits run on two expiry clocks — its official FAQ says subscription credits stay valid for 30 days while separately purchased credits last two years. No vendor publishes a conversion between its meter and anyone else’s, so this roundup never claims one allowance is “bigger” than another.
What we can do honestly is report each price stack as printed, flag the rollover and expiry rules that quietly move the real cost, and ask you to estimate your own monthly output and price that workload on each meter separately. That is the method for everything below.
HeyGen: the avatar specialist with a real free tier
Of the four, HeyGen hands an individual creator the most usable product at $0 and again at $29. The free plan is small but real: three videos a month at up to one minute each, with Avatar IV access, 500+ stock video avatars, one custom video avatar, up to three photo avatars, one voice clone, and 30+ languages. Watermark removal and export above 1080p are not listed on the free tier, so treat it as an audition room rather than a publishing plan.
The paid stack, monthly billing, checked September 14, 2026:
- Creator, $29/month — 600 credits a month with rollovers, videos up to 30 minutes, 1080p export, watermark removal, fast processing, unlimited photo avatars, unlimited voice cloning, 175+ languages and dialects, 700+ stock avatars.
- Pro, $49/month — 1,000 credits, 4K export, faster processing, access to all advanced AI models, customizable monthly usage, and the option to edit and proofread a translation script before render.
- Business, $149/month — 1,500 credits, videos up to 60 minutes, five custom video avatars, SAML/SSO, SCORM export, interactive video with quizzes and links, LMS plus n8n, Make, HubSpot, and Zapier integrations, and additional seats at $20 per seat per month.
- Enterprise — contact sales. A yearly billing toggle exists; we did not capture its figures, so flip it yourself before assuming a discount.
HeyGen’s page says 100,000+ businesses use it — the company’s number, not ours. The pattern that matters for buyers: nearly everything a solo creator needs arrives at $29, and the corporate checklist carries a printed price at $149 instead of a sales call.
Synthesia: the enterprise-leaning presenter platform
Synthesia aims the other way up the org chart. Its free Basic plan is simultaneously the most generous sandbox in this roundup — 1,200 credits a month, good for up to 10 minutes of video, with 9 AI avatars, 3 personal avatars, and the full 160+ languages — and the most restricted, because it permits no MP4 download and no logo removal. Nothing built on it can ship; both unlock at Starter.
- Starter, $29/month or $264/year — 120 minutes of video per year, 125+ avatars, downloads, logo removal, one editor plus three guests. One custom personal avatar is included only on annual billing.
- Creator, $89/month or $804/year — 360 minutes per year, 180+ avatars, five personal avatars, API access, interactive videos, branded video pages, one editor plus five guests.
- Enterprise, custom pricing — unlimited minutes, 240+ avatars, unlimited personal avatars under fair use, SAML/SSO, SCORM export, one-click translation into 80+ languages, and a dedicated customer success manager.
Three fine-print items move the real cost. Unused minutes do not roll over, per the official FAQ, so a quiet quarter permanently shrinks the year’s allowance. Synthesia sells subscriptions only, with no pay-per-video option. And its premium Studio Avatars are a separate $1,000-per-year add-on. The pricing page also carries large claims — trusted by 90% of the Fortune 100, 1M+ users, 2,000+ five-star G2 reviews — all Synthesia’s statements, not our measurements. For how the two specialists collide head-on, see our Synthesia vs HeyGen price breakdown.
Wizstar: the multi-model bundle priced for volume
Wizstar is not an avatar specialist and does not pretend to be. It is a Singapore-based platform for creators, e-commerce sellers, and marketers that bundles 10+ major generation models — the pricing page names Seedance 2.5, Kling 3.0, MiniMax H3, GPT Image 2, and Nano Banana 2 — alongside AI avatars, lip sync, workflows that turn product links or images into videos, and video in any language on every plan. It earns its slot here because avatar-fronted ads at volume are one of its stated jobs.
One caveat colors every figure: when we checked wizstar.com/pricing on September 14, 2026, all prices were displayed under a limited-time campaign, with list prices shown as the anchors.
- Starter (“AI Video Exploration”), $8.99 first month under a 72%-off new-user promotion, renewing at $18.05/month — 1,310 credits a month, stated as up to 32 videos or 436 images, watermark-free exports, images up to 4K, Fast rendering, cancel anytime.
- Plus (“Daily Content Creation”), $36.27/month under a 48%-off campaign against a $69.99 list price — 2,690 credits, up to 67 videos or 896 images, unlimited access to newly released models, Turbo rendering.
- Pro (“Teams & Agencies”), $166.32/month under a 54%-off campaign against a $359.99 list price — 13,040 credits, up to 326 videos or 4,346 images, early access to new models, Ultra rendering.
- Enterprise — contact sales, with dedicated consulting, priority support, and enterprise security.
All plans list 20 bonus points a month for monthly usage, and an annual toggle advertises up to 53% off — annual figures we did not capture, so verify them on the live pricing page. Budget Starter at its $18.05 renewal rather than the $8.99 door price, and decide in advance whether you would still pay list if the campaign ends. Our full Wizstar review walks through the credit arithmetic plan by plan.
Vidu: the generation-first pick when consistency is the job
Vidu, built by ShengShu at vidu.com, is the adjacent option rather than a fourth presenter tool. It generates video from text, images, or reference inputs, and its central pitch is keeping a character, object, or style consistent across multi-shot sequences — with ultra-fast generation, multi-reference consistency, an off-peak mode, and smooth 2D anime among the advertised features. If your “avatar” is really a recurring brand mascot or anime persona instead of a person reading a script, that consistency is precisely the capability the three platforms above do not sell.
We quote no Vidu prices on purpose: on September 8, 2026, its public plan prices were not visible without logging in, and we do not print numbers we could not verify. What the official FAQ does establish is the meter rule — subscription credits valid 30 days, purchased credits valid 2 years — which rewards buying capacity you will actually use soon. Disclosure applies here as well: Vidu links can earn us a commission. We test its positioning against a restyling tool in Vidu vs DomoAI.
The four contenders side by side
Everything below is transcribed from official pages on monthly billing; remember from the method section that the allowance meters do not convert between columns.
| Platform | Free tier | Entry paid plan | Allowance meter | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HeyGen | $0 — 3 videos/month, 1 min each, incl. 1 custom video avatar | Creator, $29/month — 1080p, watermark removal | 600 credits/month, rollovers listed | Free tier lists no watermark removal or 1080p+ export |
| Synthesia | $0 — up to 10 min/month, 160+ languages, no downloads | Starter, $29/month or $264/year | 120 minutes per year; unused minutes do not roll over | Custom personal avatar included only on annual billing |
| Wizstar | None shown on the captured page | Starter, $8.99 first month, renews $18.05/month | 1,310 credits/month, stated as up to 32 videos | All prices were limited-time campaign rates; Plus list $69.99, Pro list $359.99 |
| Vidu | Not verified — prices sat behind a login | Not quoted (unverified) | Subscription credits valid 30 days; purchased credits 2 years | No presenter avatars — it is a generation tool, not a talking-head tool |
Pick by job, not by brand
You publish a weekly video with a personal presenter → HeyGen
Creator at $29 covers the whole solo loop: unlimited photo avatars, unlimited voice cloning, 1080p, no watermark, and credit rollovers that forgive an uneven schedule. Start on the free plan’s custom video avatar to see whether your likeness clears your own bar.
You run corporate L&D and the LMS demands SCORM → Synthesia’s Enterprise path
Synthesia concentrates SCORM export, SAML/SSO, unlimited minutes, one-click translation into 80+ languages, and a dedicated CSM in Enterprise, and its 160+ languages are testable on the free plan before procurement ever calls sales. If you want the same checklist at a printed price instead, HeyGen Business at $149 is the counter-offer.
You produce e-commerce ads in bulk → Wizstar
Plan ceilings of 32, 67, or 326 videos a month, product-link-to-video workflows, and one subscription across 10+ models fit batch ad production better than either specialist — provided you budget at renewal and list prices, not the campaign stickers.
You need one character consistent across shots, no presenter → Vidu
Reference-driven consistency across multi-shot sequences is Vidu’s stated specialty, and none of the avatar platforms here advertise it. Verify current pricing after login before committing, since we could not.
Who should buy none of these
Two kinds of readers should close all four tabs. If your real project is restyling footage you already own — turning existing video into anime, 3D, or illustrated looks — none of these four is a restyling tool; that job is what we examine in our DomoAI review. And if your rule is to spend nothing until a tool proves itself, only two of these platforms even have a meaningful $0 tier — our guide to the best free AI video generators maps which free plans across the wider market actually export usable video. A one-off video for a single occasion also fits badly here: all four sell recurring subscriptions, and Synthesia explicitly offers no pay-per-video option.
The free-first trial plan
- Spend HeyGen’s three free videos deliberately. One from your real script, one using the free custom video avatar, one in a second language you can judge. Cost: $0.
- Build the same script in Synthesia Basic. Use the 10 free monthly minutes to audition avatars and languages inside the platform, knowing downloads wait behind Starter. Cost: $0.
- Choose by meter. Steady, plannable output favors Synthesia’s yearly minutes; fluctuating output favors HeyGen’s monthly credits with rollovers. If either answers the job, stop here — neither pays us.
- If the job turned out to be volume, run one bounded month on Wizstar Starter at $8.99, log the credit cost of every render, and judge the platform against its $18.05 renewal before it arrives.
- If the job turned out to be character consistency, log into Vidu, capture the current plan prices we could not, and test one multi-shot sequence with your own reference images.
Check Wizstar’s plans before the campaign changes →
Frequently asked questions
What is the best AI avatar generator?
It depends on the job. Based on the official pricing pages checked September 8–14, 2026: HeyGen is the strongest pick for an individual creator publishing presenter videos, because 1080p export, watermark removal, and credit rollovers all arrive at $29 per month and its free plan includes a custom video avatar. Synthesia fits corporate training at scale, with 160+ languages on every plan and SCORM, SSO, and unlimited minutes in its custom-priced Enterprise tier. Wizstar suits bulk production, with plan ceilings stated in videos per month across a bundle of 10+ generation models. Vidu is the pick when you need a consistent character across shots rather than a talking presenter.
Which AI avatar generator is cheapest?
There is no honest single answer, because the platforms meter capacity in units that do not convert. HeyGen Creator and Synthesia Starter both cost $29 per month, but one grants 600 credits monthly and the other 120 minutes of video yearly, with no published exchange rate between credits and minutes. Wizstar Starter showed the lowest entry price at $8.99 for the first month under a limited-time campaign, but it renews at $18.05 per month, and Vidu's public prices were not visible without login when we checked. Estimate your own monthly output and price that workload on each platform's meter separately.
Can I make an avatar of myself?
On the two specialists, yes, and the terms differ. HeyGen includes one custom video avatar even on its free plan, unlimited photo avatars and unlimited voice cloning from Creator at $29 per month, and five custom video avatars on Business at $149. Synthesia includes 3 personal avatars on its free plan, one custom personal avatar with Starter only on annual billing ($264 per year), 5 personal avatars on Creator, and unlimited personal avatars under fair use on Enterprise, with its premium Studio Avatars sold as a separate $1,000-per-year add-on. Wizstar lists AI avatars and lip sync among its features, but the pages we checked did not spell out custom-likeness terms, so confirm before subscribing.
Is there a free AI avatar generator?
Two of the four have real free tiers, with opposite limits. HeyGen's free plan allows three videos a month at up to one minute each and includes a custom video avatar, but lists no watermark removal or export above 1080p. Synthesia's free Basic plan allows up to 10 minutes of video a month with 160+ languages, but permits no MP4 download and no logo removal, so nothing made on it can be published. The Wizstar pricing page we captured on September 14, 2026 showed no free plan, and Vidu's plans could not be verified without login.
Are these videos commercial-use safe?
The pricing pages address watermarks, not licenses, so we can only report what they list: HeyGen includes watermark removal from Creator at $29, Synthesia includes logo removal from Starter at $29, and Wizstar's Starter plan lists watermark-free exports. None of that is a legal opinion about commercial rights, avatar likeness terms, or client work — those live in each platform's terms of service, which we have not evaluated and which can change. Read the current terms for your tier before shipping paid work; we do not give legal advice.
Should I pick an avatar generator or a generation tool like Vidu?
Ask what appears on screen. If a presenter — you, or a stock human avatar — delivers a script to camera, you want a specialist like HeyGen or Synthesia, which document avatars, voice cloning, and language coverage in detail. If instead you need the same character, object, or visual style held consistent across a multi-shot sequence with no presenter at all, that is the job Vidu advertises, including multi-reference consistency and 2D anime output. Disclosure: Vidu links can earn us a commission; we could not verify its plan prices without login on September 8, 2026, so check them yourself.
Fact-checking note: HeyGen, Synthesia, and Wizstar figures come from their official pricing pages checked September 14, 2026, on the monthly billing cycle; Synthesia's own pricing FAQ confirms the USD figures, and its unused minutes do not roll over. All Wizstar prices were shown under a limited-time campaign at the time of checking — Starter renews at $18.05/month after the $8.99 first month, list prices are $69.99 for Plus and $359.99 for Pro, and annual-billing figures were not captured. HeyGen's yearly billing figures were not captured. Vidu's official pages and FAQ were checked September 8, 2026; its public plan prices were not visible without login, so no Vidu prices are quoted. Credit and minute allowances are not comparable across platforms and no conversion is published. Reconfirm all prices, credits, and plan terms on the official pages before purchase.