HeyGen alternatives

Why look past HeyGen: no ads on Free, and avatar models that vary twelvefold in credits

HeyGen bars ads made on its free plan. Section 4 of its terms (23 July 2026) says Free output “may not be sold, sublicensed, redistributed, monetized, or used in connection with commercial activities, advertising, client work, revenue-generating product or any other services”.

On paid plans the avatar model sets the cost. HeyGen bills 4 credits a minute for Avatar III with a Video Look and 48 for Avatar V (credits article). Pro rata, and if every credit goes to avatar video, Creator’s 600 make 300 Avatar III ads of 30 seconds, or 25 on Avatar V.

Monthly credits roll over for one more month, and “Credits do not carry over after cancellation”. Creator and Pro buy more only by upgrading; Business alone buys credit packs (pricing FAQ). HeyGen pricing works out every plan and model, and the AI ad tool price tracker keeps HeyGen’s dated prices.

Of the 20 latest Trustpilot reviews, read for our HeyGen profile on 24 September 2026, three dispute a charge. Twenty reviews are too few to show a trend.

Which alternatives let stock avatars run in paid social ads?

Of the four alternatives, only Creatify says yes on the pages we read, for paid plans. Synthesia bars them without its written consent.

“Unclear” means no document we read settles it; the AI commercial use matrix holds each tool’s terms clauses.

Creatify’s terms grant a licence to “Community Assets” for commercial use (6.3) without saying the AI actors are among them. Neither JoggAI’s terms nor HeyGen’s have a clause on stock avatars in ads, but HeyGen’s stock avatars page calls every avatar “cleared for commercial use”.

For an ad read by your own clone, JoggAI lists one custom avatar on Free and 3 on Starter (pricing page). Creatify lists 3 on Pro (pricing page), and D-ID 3 personal avatars on Pro (pricing page). Synthesia’s pages give conflicting counts for Starter (section below).

Is there a free HeyGen alternative for ads?

Of the four HeyGen alternatives, only JoggAI’s free plan allows ads, with conditions. Creatify Free is unclear, and Synthesia Basic and D-ID’s trial are barred.

JoggAI’s 200 promotional credits, “valid for 31 days”, come under terms that allow commercial use, as long as the ad does not present the output as entirely human-made. But the stock avatars page ties commercial use to “your subscription plan”, so a free JoggAI ad with a stock avatar is unclear on our reading.

The credits make about one minute of avatar video, do not renew, and watermark removal starts on Starter (pricing page).

JoggAI Free also lists one custom avatar, which the stock avatars page does not cover. JoggAI’s Product Ad Tools, Product Avatar and Video Translation “require a paid plan” (pricing FAQ).

Creatify Free gives 10 credits a month with a watermark. Its terms say “Users of the Free Tier have limited rights” (section 1) without listing them.

Creatify’s FAQ says of your creatives, “You can use them in any channel without limitations”. But its AI avatar page says commercial usage rights “are included in all paid subscription plans (Starter, Pro, and Enterprise)”, so whether free output may run as an ad is unclear.

Synthesia Basic cannot download videos; downloads start on Starter (pricing page). D-ID’s trial is “for non-commercial use only” (EULA 3.1), and its paid Lite plan is too (20.2).

Nextify.ai, left out below, has a watermarked free card headed “Free Trial” (pricing page). Its terms do “not restrict your ability to use User Output for your own purposes (including for commercial purposes)” (2.1). Its FAQ says “Paid plans include watermark-free videos with full commercial rights”, so whether free videos may run as ads is unclear.

Free AI UGC generators checks what each AI UGC tool’s free plan allows.

JoggAI: the lowest list cost per 30-second ad among the alternatives

JoggAI makes talking-avatar, product-avatar and URL-to-video ads. Starter lists $29 a month for 12,000 credits, billed monthly (pricing page). Its cards give about 100 credits a minute on Starter and 200 on Free. So a 30-second ad costs $0.12 to $0.24 pro rata, if every credit is used.

Those are JoggAI’s approximations for standard avatars; AvatarX and generated video cost more at rates it does not publish. If every credit is used, HeyGen Creator’s Avatar III Video Look costs $0.10 pro rata, or $0.19 billed by the whole minute (credits article). On Avatar III, HeyGen costs less than JoggAI’s lowest figure.

Unused monthly credits “can roll over for up to three months”, against one more month on HeyGen.

The terms do “not restrict your ability to use User Output for your own purposes (including for commercial purposes)”, except on termination or where “otherwise clearly specified in the Services”. They also bar “representing that the User Output is entirely human generated”, as HeyGen’s section 2 does.

Best for

High-volume talking-avatar output on a small budget, and teams that want the same credits in the web app, the API and agent tools.

Not for

Buyers who want refunds, which the terms rule out, or a firm price for premium AvatarX and generative output, which Jogg only approximates.

Synthesia: 160+ languages, with stock avatars kept out of paid social

Synthesia makes presenter videos “in 160+ languages” and dubs into 70+ below Enterprise. Starter lists $29 a month for 10 minutes, “calculated in seconds”, a rule HeyGen does not publish. So a 30-second ad costs $1.45 if every minute is used (pricing page).

Its Acceptable Use Policy (23 February 2024) bars stock avatars from “promoted”, “boosted”, or “paid” advertising on social media “absent written express consent from Synthesia”. A custom avatar needs “appropriate consent from the individual”. So a Meta or TikTok ad needs a personal avatar or Synthesia’s written consent.

A help centre article of 22 July 2026 adds that stock avatars can’t “Endorse products or services”, with no plan exception. The AUP lets a stock avatar suggest the actor “personally holds, endorses, or actually has your stated opinions” only “on enterprise Service plans”.

Whether monthly Starter includes a personal avatar is unclear. The plan table on the pricing page lists 3, the Starter card none, and the FAQ ties one to annual Starter and Creator. On yearly Starter ($18 a month billed yearly), the plan the FAQ ties a personal avatar to, a 30-second ad costs $0.90 if every minute is used.

HeyGen vs Synthesia sets the two side by side; the Synthesia profile reads the rest of its terms.

Best for

Explainer, onboarding and product-education videos and their localisation. For paid social, only with a personal avatar of someone who has consented.

Not for

UGC-style paid social with stock avatars: the Acceptable Use Policy bans them in promoted, boosted, or paid advertising on social media without Synthesia’s written consent. Stock avatars may not endorse products either.

Creatify: URL-to-video and an ad launcher, billed in 15-second blocks

Creatify turns a product URL or script into avatar ads, and its plan table lists an “Ad Launcher (Meta / TikTok / AppLovin)”. The version we could read on 26 September 2026 did not say which plans include it.

Starter lists $39 a month for 100 credits (pricing page). Avatar video bills 5 credits per 15 seconds, “rounded up” (help centre), so a 30-second ad costs $3.90 if every credit is used. That is more than three times HeyGen Creator’s cost on its dearest avatar model, Avatar V, on the same basis.

Creatify’s pricing page says “75+ Languages”. Its FAQ, updated 20 September 2026, says it “supports 29 languages” and names them. Which count covers avatar ads is unclear.

A breach of its Moderation Policy, or of its bar on training AI with your assets, ends the agreement, and “all rights granted to you shall revert to Creatify” (terms 6.2). The Creatify profile reads the rest of its terms, and Creatify alternatives sets it against other ad tools.

Best for

E-commerce teams making URL-to-video ads in volume who want an ad launcher for Meta, TikTok and AppLovin in the same tool.

Not for

Buyers who need predictable spend on the agent features, whose credit use is not known upfront, or more than one seat below Pro.

D-ID: 15-second billing and a synthetic mark on every video

D-ID animates a photo or presenter into a talking video. Pro lists $29 a month for 15 minutes, and “The length of the video is rounded up to the nearest 15-second interval” (pricing page). If every minute is used, a 30-second ad costs $0.97 and a 15-second hook $0.48.

HeyGen and JoggAI publish no rounding rule, so of the three only D-ID’s hook cost can be worked out from published terms. Even billed by the whole minute, a 15-second hook costs $0.19 on HeyGen Creator’s Avatar III and about $0.24 on JoggAI Starter, if every credit is used.

D-ID’s EULA says “All Animations contain a synthetic mark”, which you may not “remove, hide or minimize” without “D-ID’s prior written approval” (4.2). The Pro plan table also lists an “AI watermark”. On our reading, every D-ID ad shows it was made with AI.

Best for

Talking-photo and presenter videos where an AI marker is acceptable, and teams building interactive agents on the same API minutes.

Not for

Ads that must carry no AI marker: every animation has a synthetic mark you may not remove or minimise without written approval (EULA 4.2). Trial is non-commercial, Lite personal-use only.

Left out, and why

Argil sells videos read by your own clone, made only after a compulsory identity check (KYC) under its terms (5.2.3.1). The four alternatives above also offer custom or personal avatars, so a clone alone gives Argil no separate ad job.

Argil’s terms also say “The Services are exclusively intended for the personal use of the User, except where access to the Services is via an API” (6.7.1). Whether that limits ads made in its app is unclear.

Captions costs the most of any tool here with a 30-second rate. On Max at $24.99 a month, a Prompt to Video ad of 30 seconds costs $4.00 at its average-use rate, if every credit is used (pricing page, help centre). That Max price is the iOS one its pricing page shows.

MakeUGC publishes no credit cost per video, so no 30-second cost can sit beside HeyGen’s. Product-in-hand videos start on Pro at $149 a month (pricing page).

Tagshop AI Starter, at $29 a month, promises “Upto 5 videos” of a length it does not state (pricing page). Its terms (section 7) make output “subject to third-party content provided by us (e.g., stock, templates, music, avatars), which may have their own license terms”. None of the pages we read publishes those terms.

Hedra bars output that “involves commercial activities and/or sales, such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising, or pyramid schemes without Hedra’s prior written consent” (3.6(F), in the terms PDF). Its pricing page labels paid plans “Commercial use” all the same.

Nextify.ai states no video length for Starter’s “Up to 50 videos”, and its terms let other users remix output not marked private (4.2).

Arcads shows no price we could read: its pricing URL returned a 404 page on 24 September 2026. The Arcads profile reads its credit rules, and Arcads alternatives sets it against HeyGen.

No open-source avatar model has a row in our database, so none is compared here. AI UGC tools lists every avatar tool we track.