Synthesia Commercial Use (2026): You Own the Video, Not the Avatar

Direct answer

You can use Synthesia videos commercially — you own them: the customer terms assign Customer Data, including your videos, to you. But the stock avatars and stock content inside them remain licensed, not owned, and that license excludes every form of paid promotion: no paid Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok or programmatic ads, and no TV ads. Organic commercial use — your website, product videos, courses, YouTube, unpaid social — is expressly allowed. Synthesia's licensing page warns that breaking the paid-promo rules "will result in the deactivation of your account." Custom avatars are exempt (your agreement with the person applies instead), and already-rendered videos stay licensed after you cancel, conditional on compliance. Verified against Synthesia's terms, acceptable-use policy and help center on Jul 19, 2026.

Last verified

Jul 19, 2026

Confidence

High — read on vendor pages

Evidence

4 checks

Sources

6 source links

Evidence used

• Ownership and post-term license clauses were read in Synthesia's customer terms of service (effective Feb 23, 2024) on Jul 19, 2026.
• The allowed/prohibited usage lists and the account-deactivation warning were read on Synthesia's video-licensing help page, updated mid-July 2026.
• The paid-advertising ban, TV/news/political restrictions and the written-consent carve-out come from Synthesia's acceptable use policy.
• This is a third-party explainer; Synthesia's own pages are the authority and can change.

How we checked this

• We quote the operative clause for every rule and link the exact source page — terms, AUP or help article — so you can verify each claim in one click.
• Where Synthesia's pages do not state a rule (free-tier commercial use), we say so instead of guessing.

You own the video file — Synthesia owns what's inside it

Synthesia's customer terms assign you ownership of Customer Data, explicitly including the videos you create. The avatars, stock footage and templates inside those videos remain Synthesia Content, licensed to you rather than owned by you.

The ownership clause is unusually clean: "Customer will own all Customer Data, but excluding the components of the Services and Synthesia Content." Your script, your uploads and the finished video are yours. The building blocks — stock avatars, stock media, templates — stay Synthesia's, and you use them under a "non-sublicensable, non-transferable, non-exclusive, limited license."

That split is what makes every question on this page answerable. Anything that is purely yours follows your rules. Anything that includes a stock avatar or stock asset follows the license — and the license has one big exclusion, covered next.

The paid-promotion ban: the clause that deactivates accounts

Stock avatars are allowed in training videos, product videos, YouTube, TikTok and any use without paid promo — and prohibited in paid TV ads, paid Facebook/Instagram/YouTube/TikTok/Snapchat ads, paid programmatic, and any form of paid promotion. Synthesia says violations "will result in the deactivation of your account."

Synthesia's licensing page draws the line by placement, not by whether you make money. Allowed: "Training videos on your website," FAQ and product videos, "Sharing videos on YouTube," Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and other social — summarized as "any use that does not include paid promo." Prohibited: "Paid TV ads," paid Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat ads, "paid programmatic advertising" and "any form of paid promotion," plus TV broadcast without permission.

The acceptable use policy repeats the rule in contract language — no stock avatar "in content for 'promoted', 'boosted', or 'paid' advertising on any social media platform... absent written express consent from Synthesia" — which is also the one escape hatch: written consent. It adds a few bans people don't expect: no stock avatars in TV programs, news broadcasts, fundraises or political campaigns, and no minting them into NFTs. The enforcement line on the licensing page is blunt: "Failure to comply with the above rules will result in the deactivation of your account" — and since [canceling doesn't refund anything](/blog/synthesia-cancel-subscription), a deactivated account is money gone.

A commercial video that's fine everywhere else becomes a violation the moment you put spend behind it. If paid distribution is the plan, budget for a custom avatar from the start — the restrictions above simply don't apply to one, "and you can use the videos according to the agreements you have made with the person whose avatar you are using."

Stock vs custom avatars: endorsement and content limits

Beyond the ad ban, stock avatars are restricted to neutral, fact-based content: Synthesia says they can't endorse products or services, deliver opinions, or represent a particular organization. Custom avatars carry more freedom because a real person consented — and consent is checked, so impersonating a celebrity is impossible.

Even organic marketing has a ceiling with stock avatars. Synthesia's moderation pages limit them to content that is "Neutral in tone, Fact-based and educational, Free from personal opinions, endorsements, or sensitive claims," and state they "can't: Endorse products or services, Deliver opinions or beliefs, Represent a particular organization or viewpoint." Read strictly, a stock avatar can explain your product; it shouldn't play a delighted customer recommending it. Testimonial-style UGC content is exactly where teams get caught.

Restricted topics — politics, religion, health claims, legal or financial advice and other sensitive categories — are "only allowed with Custom Avatars," and if any part of a video violates the guidelines, "the entire video may be rejected." Custom avatars require the explicit consent of the person being cloned, recorded by that person — which is why, in Synthesia's words, "it is impossible to impersonate a celebrity or politician." For where custom avatars fit in the product tiers, see the [Synthesia review](/reviews/synthesia); for the per-minute cost math, the [credits explainer](/blog/synthesia-credits-per-minute).

What survives cancellation

The license to Synthesia Content continues after your term "to the extent it has been incorporated in videos generated using the Services," conditional on continued compliance — so downloaded videos remain usable commercially after you cancel. Access to the account and its cloud copies still ends at the billing period.

The post-term clause matters for anyone building a course or client library: the customer terms extend the Synthesia Content license beyond your subscription for material "incorporated in videos generated using the Services, subject to... continued compliance with the Contract." Translation: the training videos you rendered and downloaded stay licensed after you stop paying — but the paid-promo ban travels with them, forever.

Don't confuse license survival with file survival. Once your billing period ends, "you lose access to Synthesia and all videos in your account" — the cloud copies are gone from your reach even though your rights to the downloaded files continue. The full exit checklist, including the 48-hour accidental-cancel reversal, is in [how to cancel Synthesia](/blog/synthesia-cancel-subscription).

The music inside your video has its own paperwork

Synthesia's stock music comes from Soundstripe. For YouTube, generate a single-use license code per track per video and file it with your upload — Synthesia says related copyright claims "will be automatically cleared."

Owning the video doesn't silence YouTube's Content ID. Synthesia's stock tracks are licensed from Soundstripe, and its help center tells you to "generate single-use codes for each track used in the video to avoid copyright content claims" — one code per song, per video, every time you reuse a track. With the code filed, "any related content claims will be automatically cleared."

One boundary Synthesia's pages don't address: whether a Soundstripe track may be extracted and used outside the Synthesia video it shipped in. The post-term license covers content "incorporated in videos," which reads as in-video use only — treat standalone reuse of the music as unlicensed unless Synthesia confirms otherwise.

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