HeyGen

HeyGen generates talking-head videos from a typed script. You pick an avatar — either one of HeyGen's 700+ stock avatars or a custom avatar of your own face — paste in your script, choose a voice, and the tool renders a video of that avatar speaking your words. The whole process takes a few minutes.

The output looks like a person recorded on camera and talking to the viewer. At normal playback speeds and screen sizes, most audiences cannot tell it is AI-generated. At close inspection or on large screens, the lip sync is occasionally slightly off and the facial movement follows visible patterns. Whether that matters depends on the use case.

Anyone who regularly makes talking-head videos for LinkedIn, YouTube, email campaigns, or internal training has a clear reason to use this: you stop needing a camera, lighting, or time to re-record when you mis-speak. Current plan details are at heygen.com/pricing.

Pricing: the free plan gives 3 videos a month, each up to 1 minute and watermarked — enough to test the platform, not for regular use. Creator is $29 a month or $24 billed yearly, with videos up to 30 minutes, 600 credits, 700+ stock avatars, custom avatars, and translation into 175+ languages and dialects. Pro is $49 a month, and Business is $149 a month plus $20 for each added seat. Most individual creators run on Creator; agencies and in-house video teams look at Pro or Business.

HeyGen's custom avatar feature creates a digital version of you from your own video footage. You record yourself speaking directly to the camera — ideally in good lighting with a neutral background — upload the file, and HeyGen processes it into a reusable avatar. Once the avatar is trained, you never need to record again. You type the script and HeyGen renders it.

Voice cloning works separately. You record a few minutes of audio in a quiet environment, upload it, and HeyGen builds a voice model that matches your tone and cadence. The cloned voice is used across all videos from that avatar, so the output sounds like you even when you have not recorded anything.

The setup takes some time the first time. After that, producing a video takes little more than writing the script. For anyone who makes video content regularly, the time saving is significant compared with filming and editing each video.

One practical note: the custom avatar quality depends on the source recording. Film against a plain wall with consistent, even lighting — a ring light or a window at the right angle. Avoid recording in rooms with echo. The avatar will reproduce whatever characteristics the source footage has, including background noise and inconsistent lighting. A mediocre recording produces a mediocre avatar; a careful recording produces one that is hard to distinguish from on-camera footage at normal viewing sizes.

HeyGen's video translation feature takes an existing video — one you recorded yourself or a stock avatar video — and translates it into another language with matching lip movements. You upload the source video, select the target language from the 175+ languages and dialects HeyGen lists on paid plans (30+ on free), and receive a translated version where the avatar's lips appear to be speaking the new language.

This is genuinely useful for anyone distributing content across multiple markets. A 5-minute product explainer recorded in English can become a Spanish, French, German, and Japanese version without recording again. The lip sync quality is not perfect — on close inspection the movements do not always match perfectly — but it is good enough for corporate training materials, online courses, and marketing videos where the audience is not scrutinising the lip movements.

The translation feature uses the audio from the original video to generate the translated script, so it is important that the source audio is clear. Background noise, heavy accents, or overlapping speech reduce translation accuracy. See HeyGen's full language list for what is currently supported.

Both HeyGen and Synthesia make AI avatar videos. The practical difference is who they are built for. HeyGen is stronger for marketing, social media, and content creators who want fast output and a lower starting price. Synthesia is built for corporate training and learning and development teams who need SCORM export for LMS systems, structured templates, and enterprise workflow features.

If you are a marketing team producing LinkedIn videos, product demos, or email campaigns, HeyGen is the more natural fit. The Creator plan at $24 a month billed yearly ($29 monthly) covers most marketing use cases.

If you are building structured employee training — think compliance training, onboarding modules, safety briefings — Synthesia's SCORM export and LMS integration make it the practical choice. Synthesia Starter is $14 a month billed yearly ($19 monthly), and its enterprise features are what L&D teams pay for.

For language coverage, HeyGen now lists 175+ languages and dialects for video translation on paid plans, and Synthesia lists 140+ languages. Both cover the major business languages; check each tool's list for the specific languages your workforce needs.

Do not use HeyGen if your video requires anything beyond a talking head. HeyGen does not edit footage, add B-roll, or compose scenes. If your video needs people walking, demonstrating products, or moving through environments, you need a conventional video production workflow or a tool like Runway for AI-generated scenes.

Avoid it for high-stakes video where the AI look would undermine credibility. Executive announcements to large audiences, investor communications, media interviews — these contexts call for genuine on-camera presence. The AI avatar tells audiences something about how much effort went into the communication.

And if you are on the free plan expecting to produce ongoing content, 3 one-minute watermarked videos a month are not enough to sustain a real content schedule. The free plan is for evaluating whether the output quality meets your needs, not for regular use.

Finally, do not expect HeyGen to replace a video editor. Once you have the avatar video, any additional editing — adding screen recordings, cutting to product footage, inserting lower thirds, adding background music — requires a separate video editor. HeyGen produces a single rendered clip. What you do with it after that is outside the tool.