HeyGen Review & Pricing: Is It Free, and What Each Plan Really Costs

HeyGen is an AI video platform: you write a script, pick a presenter (a stock avatar or a digital copy of yourself) and it hands you back a talking-head video, in any of the languages it supports. It also translates videos you already have, and it's designed to keep the speaker's voice and lip movements. Is HeyGen free? Yes, with limits: the free plan gives you 3 videos a month, up to 1 minute each and with a watermark, and it doesn't ask for a credit card. Paid plans start with Creator at $29 a month ($24 a month billed yearly), Pro starts at $49, and Business costs $149 a month for teams.

What HeyGen is

The idea is simple: a video where someone talks to the camera, without the camera. You type or paste a script, choose an avatar and a voice, and HeyGen generates the presenter speaking your words. The obvious uses are the boring-but-necessary videos every company has to make: onboarding and training modules, product explainers, sales follow-ups, social clips, and the same video again in Spanish, French or Japanese.

There are three ways to get a presenter. You can use one of HeyGen's stock avatars (500+ on the free plan, 700+ on paid plans), turn a photo into a "photo avatar", or record yourself to create your own video avatar, which HeyGen calls a Digital Twin. Its latest model, Avatar V, is the one HeyGen promotes for keeping the same face and expressions across different shots and angles, and it says the lip sync covers 175+ languages and dialects. On top of that there's Video Agent, which HeyGen says builds a whole video from a prompt, and an editor called AI Studio for working scene by scene.

HeyGen pricing: Free, Creator, Pro, Business and Enterprise

These are HeyGen's prices in US dollars, as listed on its pricing page. "Yearly" is HeyGen's own toggle, sold as "2 months free".

Pro isn't one price but a ladder: the same features with more credits, from 1,000 credits at $49 a month up to 100,000 at $4,300. Creator and Pro are sold to individuals, with one user seat each. Business is the plan for teams.

One thing the page doesn't tell you is whether these prices include tax: there's no mention of tax anywhere on the page, so check the total at checkout before you pay.

What HeyGen credits actually buy

This is the part that matters more than the sticker price. On every paid plan, credits are a single balance you spend across features, and each feature burns them at its own rate. According to HeyGen's help center, these are the standard rates (it warns that some accounts may see different rates depending on region and signup date, and the app shows the cost before you generate):

So the same $29 can be two and a half hours of video with the older avatar engine or at most about 12 minutes with the newest one. If you're making a weekly 5-minute training video with Avatar V, Creator won't last the month and you're looking at Pro, likely above its entry tier. If you mostly translate existing videos, Creator goes a long way.

Business works differently on that last point: extra credits cost $0.05 each, sold in blocks of 100 for $5, or you can switch on auto-reload.

What the free plan really gets you

The free plan is generous enough to judge the quality and too tight for anything you'd publish. You get 3 videos a month, each up to a minute long, with HeyGen's watermark. The help center adds two details the pricing page leaves out: depending on your region you may get between 1 and 3 free videos, and free videos are shared as a 720p link (1080p export starts with Creator). You do get 500+ stock presenters, Avatar IV, Video Agent, one voice clone and one custom video avatar.

The app's welcome screen says a lot. Before you even sign in, it lays out a four-step setup that starts with recording yourself for 15 seconds to create your Digital Twin, then polishing your voice or creating a "look"; the first video unlocks after either one. Below it are ready-made video prompts for ads, educational videos, explainers, news briefs and video podcasts. HeyGen clearly wants you to be the avatar. You don't have to be: the stock presenters are there from day one.

Translating videos, and cloning voices with consent

Video translation is where HeyGen is most useful for many teams. You upload a video or paste a YouTube link, choose the translation engine and pick up to 10 languages at once, and HeyGen says it re-voices the speaker in each language with matched lip sync. On Pro and Business you can edit and proofread the translated script before publishing, which I'd consider essential for anything customer-facing.

Voice cloning comes in two flavors on HeyGen's voice cloning page: an instant clone from a 30-second recording, and a Professional Voice Clone trained on 20 or more minutes of audio, which is an add-on at $29 a month or $288 a year per voice on top of a paid plan. The free plan lets you make an instant clone with limited use.

Now the serious part. You can only clone your own voice or one you have written permission to use: HeyGen says it verifies voice ownership before training a clone, requires written consent for anyone else's voice and blocks third-party cloning without verified permission. This is a tool for putting yourself, or a presenter who agreed to it, in more videos, not for putting words in other people's mouths.

Which HeyGen plan I'd pick

For most solo creators and small businesses, Creator is the plan: no watermark, 1080p, and enough credits for a couple of hours of video with Avatar III or a translation-heavy month. Pro makes sense if you want 4K or heavier Avatar V use, or if your videos run longer than a few minutes a week. Business is for teams that need a shared workspace, more seats and SCORM export for their learning platform. And if you need a video now and then, the free plan plus one paid month when you need it is the cheapest route of all.

HeyGen or something else?

HeyGen is at its best when the video needs a person talking. If you need a different kind of video, these are the ones I'd look at:

InVideo

from $20/mo

Prompt-to-video with AI visuals and voiceover, plus an online editor with AI agents.

InVideo review →

Descript

Free with limits · from $24/mo

Edit real recordings by editing the transcript; free plan with 1 hour of media a month.

Descript review →

InVideo is the one for faceless videos built from a prompt, Descript is for when you film yourself and want to edit fast, and Runway is for generated clips rather than a presenter.