How much does HeyGen cost?

Verified Jul 3, 2026: Creator $29/month ($24/month on annual billing) with 600 credits, Pro $49 with 1,000, Business $149 with 1,500 plus $20 per extra seat, and a free plan of 3 one-minute watermarked videos a month. Enterprise is custom.

How many credits does a minute of HeyGen video cost?

20 credits per minute on Avatar IV and V, 3 on Avatar III, 5 for video translation, and 20 for Video Agent runs — all from one shared pool. On Creator's $29/600-credit plan that's about $0.97 per Avatar-V minute.

Do HeyGen credits roll over?

Yes: monthly plans carry unused credits forward one billing cycle, and annual plans accumulate them until renewal — one of the friendlier rollover rules in the AI-video field.

Does HeyGen's free plan have a watermark?

Yes. The free tier is 3 videos a month, capped at one minute each, and all of them are watermarked. Watermark-free export starts with the paid tiers.

Is HeyGen cheaper than Synthesia?

For flagship avatar footage, HeyGen Creator works out to about $0.97 per minute (600 credits ÷ 20/min at $29). Synthesia's Starter is ~120 minutes a year for $29/month — the meters differ (monthly pool vs annual pool), so compare on your actual monthly output; our Synthesia vs HeyGen page runs the scenarios.

Pricing/7 min

HeyGen Pricing (2026): $29 Buys 30 Avatar-V Minutes — the Credit Math

HeyGen's sticker prices are ordinary; the per-model credit rates are the real price list. The same 600 credits buy 30 minutes on Avatar V or 200 on Avatar III — knowing which model you need is most of the budgeting.

By Vincent

Founder & lead tester

Updated Jul 19, 2026Target query: heygen pricing

Direct answer

HeyGen has four self-serve tiers, verified on heygen.com/pricing Jul 3, 2026: Free ($0 — 3 one-minute watermarked videos a month), Creator ($29/month, $24 on annual billing — 600 credits), Pro ($49 — 1,000 credits, 4K export), and Business ($149 plus $20 per extra seat — 1,500 credits, 60-minute videos, SSO/SCORM). What the credits buy depends on the model: Avatar IV/V costs 20 credits per minute (Creator ≈ 30 minutes, about $0.97/minute), Avatar III costs 3, and video translation 5. Unused credits roll over — one cycle on monthly plans, accumulating until renewal on annual.

Last verified: Jul 19, 2026
Confidence: High — read on vendor pages
Evidence: 4 checks
Sources: 1 source links

Evidence used

All plan prices, credit pools and per-model rates were read on heygen.com/pricing on Jul 3, 2026.
Per-minute dollar figures are pure division from the verified prices and rates.
The credit-burn complaint pattern is summarized from our G2/Trustpilot sentiment check (Jul 3, 2026), quoted in the review.
This is a third-party explainer; HeyGen's live pricing page is the authority and can change — it sets burn rates per generation.

How we checked this

We quote verified plan figures and show the arithmetic; the model-rate spread is the lede because it moves real cost 6.7×.
We earn an affiliate commission on some tools; it never changes the math or the verdicts.

Full testing method About ToolProven Affiliate disclosure

HeyGen plans at a glance (verified Jul 3, 2026)

Plan	Price	Credits / month	≈ Avatar V minutes	≈ $/Avatar-V minute
Free	$0	— (3 watermarked 1-min videos)	—	—
Creator	$29/mo ($24 annual)	600	≈ 30	≈ $0.97
Pro	$49/mo	1,000	≈ 50	≈ $0.98
Business	$149/mo + $20/seat	1,500	≈ 75	≈ $1.99

Credit rates: Avatar III 3/min · Avatar IV/V 20/min · translation 5/min · Video Agent 20/min, one shared pool. Rollover: monthly plans carry one cycle; annual plans accumulate until renewal.

The per-model rates are the real price list

One shared credit pool, four exchange rates: Avatar III costs 3 credits per minute, Avatar IV and V cost 20, video translation with lip-sync costs 5, and Video Agent runs cost 20. The 6.7× spread between III and V is the whole cost strategy.

Run the math on Creator's 600 credits at $29: that's 30 minutes of flagship Avatar V footage (about $0.97 per finished minute), or 200 minutes of the older Avatar III, or 120 minutes of translation. Pro's 1,000 credits at $49 lands at nearly the same per-credit rate — the extra $20 buys 4K export and faster processing, not cheaper minutes. Convert any pool or credit amount yourself in the [HeyGen credits calculator](/tools/heygen-credits-calculator).

The strategy the spread enables: draft and iterate on Avatar III at 3 credits a minute, then render the final take on V. Translation at 5 credits per minute is the quiet bargain — it dubs source video into a new language with a clone of the original speaker's voice and re-synced lips, at a quarter of flagship avatar cost.

Hidden costs and gotchas

The retake tax dominates real budgets: every re-render bills its minutes again, and re-rendering a 5-minute Avatar-V video three times burns 300 credits — half a Creator month. Business doubles the per-credit price to pay for seats and SCORM, not volume. The free tier watermarks everything.

The most repeated complaint in our G2/Trustpilot check is exactly this: an opaque, fast-burning credit system ("Pricing Issues," 147 mentions on G2) — which in practice is the retake tax on a 20-credits-per-minute model. Budget your credit math on your revision rate, not your final runtime. Scripts still in flux belong on Avatar III.

Business is the tier to read twice: $149 buys 1,500 credits — roughly double Creator's per-credit price — because the premium pays for team features (extra seats at $20, SSO, SCORM export, 60-minute videos), not cheaper minutes. And the free plan is a demo, not a pool: 3 videos a month, one minute each, watermarked. Rollover is the genuinely friendly rule — monthly plans carry unused credits forward one cycle, annual plans accumulate them until renewal — a contrast worth knowing against [Runway, where monthly credits simply expire](/blog/runway-credits-rollover).

Which tier fits which job

Creator covers a weekly short-form avatar cadence. Pro adds 4K and speed for client deliverables. Business is for teams that need seats, SSO and SCORM. If your format is B-roll and montage rather than a presenter, HeyGen is the wrong tool at any tier.

Creator's 30 Avatar-V minutes a month supports a weekly publishing rhythm with modest retakes, and it includes voice cloning, unlimited photo avatars and 1080p export. Pro earns its $20 when clients demand 4K or turnaround matters. Business is a workflow purchase — SCORM export and LMS integrations put it in L&D procurement territory, where its per-seat pricing still undercuts enterprise avatar contracts.

The budget question that precedes the tier question: is a talking-head presenter your actual format? Everything HeyGen makes looks like a person addressing a camera — for [faceless YouTube](/ai-video/faceless-youtube) niches built on B-roll, it's the wrong tool regardless of price, and for slide-style corporate explainers [Synthesia's per-minute math](/blog/synthesia-credits-per-minute) is the direct comparison. The full verdict, wobbles included, is in our [HeyGen review](/reviews/heygen).