# Is HeyGen Free? What the $0 Plan Gives and Where It Stops

> HeyGen's Free plan gives up to 3 one-minute watermarked videos a month, for non-commercial use only, with no paid-plan trial. See what Creator adds.

_Source: https://professionalstoolkit.com/articles/is-heygen-free — The Professional's Toolkit · updated October 2026_

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**3 x 1 min** — HeyGen Free: up to 3 watermarked videos a month (1 to 3 by region), each up to 1 minute.



- **$0** — HeyGen Free plan, no credit card
- **1 minute** — Maximum length of each Free video
- **Non-commercial** — Free output licence under HeyGen's Terms


## The short answer: free to try, not free to use for work

Yes, HeyGen has a free plan, and it is not a time-limited trial. HeyGen's pricing page lists the Free plan at $0 a month with no credit card, covering up to three watermarked videos a month, each capped at one minute [1]. Free runs on a small video quota instead of credits, and on every paid plan it is the credits, not the plan price, that decide how much video you get, as our [HeyGen pricing guide](/articles/heygen-pricing) explains. The tighter limit is legal. Free output is licensed for personal, non-commercial and internal evaluation use only. So Free answers one question well: whether the tool suits you.

## What three free minutes a month really include

The quota is smaller than the headline. HeyGen's help center says free users get one to three videos a month depending on region, so three is a ceiling rather than a promise [2]. Each video stops at one minute, carries the HeyGen logo, and renders one at a time at standard processing speed. Inside that quota you still get the AI Studio editor, 500+ stock avatars, one Digital Twin slot that holds up to 500 looks of the same person, three Photo Avatars, one voice clone and translation into 30+ languages for clips of up to a minute.



> **About these prices:** Prices shown are what HeyGen lists for visitors in the United States, in US dollars. Your price can differ by country, currency and local taxes such as VAT. Check your current price — HeyGen: https://api.colosus.site/go/heygen?to=pricing


| | Free | Creator |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0, no card | $29 a month billed monthly, or $24 a month billed yearly ($288 a year) |
| Monthly allowance | 1 to 3 videos (by region), no credits | 600 credits |
| Length per video | 1 minute | 30 minutes |
| Watermark | Always on | Can be turned off |
| Output licence | Personal, non-commercial, internal evaluation | Commercial use |
| Digital Twin slots | 1 | 1 or 5 (region, account age) |
| Voice clones | 1 | Up to 40 |
| Translation | Up to 1 minute, 30+ languages | Up to 30 minutes, 175+ languages and dialects |
| Video Agent | 3 videos a month | Expanded access, paid in credits |
| Creative Studio video models | All locked | Most open; Seedance 2 and 2.5 are Pro only for new Creator plans |
| Videos processing at once | 1 | 3 |

Several tools sit outside the video quota. Background removal costs nothing on any plan, AI Clipping and Instant Highlights are open to free accounts, and the Remote MCP connection works on Free, except for generating new avatar looks. Video Agent has its own allowance of three videos a month, and the developer docs say free-tier accounts that exceed the Video Agent or AI clip quotas get a quota error. Avatar IV, Video Agent and lip-sync translation are all described as limited trial access. Treat them as previews of the paid tools. They are not working allowances.

The generative side is shut entirely. HeyGen's help center says every video model in Creative Studio is locked on Free, so prompt-to-video clips, B-roll and the cinematic models need a paid plan [3]. What Free shows you is the avatar presenter workflow: write a script, pick an avatar and a voice, render a short clip, the steps our [HeyGen beginner's guide](/articles/how-to-use-heygen) walks through. That is the core of the product, so the test is still useful, just narrow.

## The licence catch: personal and evaluation use only

HeyGen's Terms give Free users only a limited, revocable licence to their output, for personal, non-commercial and internal evaluation use [4]. That rules out selling the video, redistributing it, monetizing it, running it as an ad, delivering it to a client or building it into a product that earns revenue. A watermarked explainer on a company's YouTube channel is the obvious trap. The watermark is not the real problem there. The licence is. Commercial use starts on Creator, and users on Creator, Pro and Business own their input and output under the same Terms.

Three more lines in the Terms shape the Free plan. Each person may hold only one Free account, so opening a second email address to double the quota breaks the rules. HeyGen can impose usage caps, storage and rate limits on Free users, and can change or discontinue Free features at any time without notice. A Free account left inactive for six continuous months may also be deleted after reasonable notice, with no liability for lost data. Download anything you want to keep.


> 💡 **Test your Digital Twin first:** HeyGen Free comes with one Digital Twin slot and one voice clone, so build your own avatar and judge its quality before paying for Creator.


## No free trial of the paid plans

HeyGen offers no self-serve free trial of Creator, Pro or Business. The Free plan is the trial, and it shows the editor rather than the paid output: no 30-minute video, no watermark-free export, no Creative Studio models. Two programmes are exceptions that most buyers cannot use. HeyGen's Ambassador program gives ambassadors on the Free plan a complimentary six-month Creator plan, and the Founders Program gave a handful of selected founders free credits for six months, with applications for the 2026 cohort now closed. An Enterprise trial arranged by an account manager appears in one HeyGen customer story. It is not a published offer.

The mobile app is no back door either. App sign-ups start on Free, and the first paid offer there is Creator billed weekly, monthly or yearly, with weekly billing available only in the app. By HeyGen's own help figure, four weekly payments cost more than one monthly web payment for the same 600 credits, and credits on an Apple or Google subscription expire after 30 days with no rollover. If you want one paid month to test commercial output, the web monthly plan is the cleaner route.

## Creator, the cheapest step up, and what it buys

HeyGen's pricing page lists Creator at $29 a month billed monthly, or $24 a month billed yearly ($288 a year), with 600 credits a month for one user. That plan price only opens the door, because credits charged per minute by engine and look decide how much video you get, which our [pricing guide](/articles/heygen-pricing) breaks down by engine. At HeyGen's per-minute rates, 600 credits work out to about 19 minutes of Avatar IV with a video look at 31 credits a minute, or about 100 minutes of Speed translation at 6 credits a minute per target language. Avatar V costs 48 credits a minute, about 12.5 minutes, but Creator includes it only with limited usage.

Any of those is far beyond three one-minute clips. Creator also raises the cap per video to 30 minutes, exports at 1080p, lets you switch the watermark off at Generate, and adds unlimited Photo Avatars and a Brand Kit. It has limits of its own. Seedance 2 and 2.5 are Pro only for new Creator plans, and Creator cannot buy credit packs on the web. When the 600 credits run out, the route is an upgrade to Pro. Unused monthly credits roll over one more billing cycle while you stay on a paid plan.

Billing terms matter more than they look. By our arithmetic, twelve monthly payments of $29 come to $348, against $288 billed yearly, a $60 gap. The break-even sits at ten months: nine monthly payments total $261, under the yearly price, while ten total $290, just over it. Monthly billing therefore suits a project of up to nine months, and yearly billing suits anything longer. Choose yearly only when you are sure, because payments are generally non-refundable and HeyGen gives no refund for unused annual months.


> 💡 **Match billing to project length:** By our arithmetic, paying for Creator monthly costs less than its $288 yearly price for projects of up to nine months; yearly billing wins from ten months on.


Going back down has a cost too. Cancel to Free, or pause, and the remaining credit balance is wiped; extra Digital Twins are locked rather than deleted until you resubscribe, and rendered videos stay in Projects. A pause also restarts billing on its own after about 30 days, which can look like a charge after cancelling. Our [cancellation guide](/articles/how-to-cancel-heygen) walks through the steps and the timing.


> ⚠ **Dropping to Free wipes credits:** Cancelling a paid HeyGen plan to Free, or pausing it, erases the unused credit balance, and extra Digital Twins stay locked until you resubscribe.


## How HeyGen Free compares with other free tiers

Other avatar video tools are more generous with free minutes. Synthesia's Basic plan is free and includes 10 minutes of video a month, 500 credits and 9 stock avatars, with a watermark, and Basic videos are shared by link, since downloads start on Starter. Colossyan's Starter plan is free with no credit card and includes 20 NEO minutes a month, and Colossyan also offers a 14-day free trial with no card, which HeyGen does not. Against both, three one-minute videos is a small allowance. On personal assets the picture splits. HeyGen Free, with its Digital Twin slot and voice clone, beats Synthesia Basic, whose personal avatars start on paid plans, while Colossyan's free Starter lists 15 custom avatars and 3 cloned voices.

Two editors in our catalog take a different route. Descript offers a Free plan rather than a paid-plan trial, with 1 media hour a month, 100 one-time AI credits and 720p export with a watermark; it is an edit-by-transcript editor, not an avatar-first generator. VEED's Free plan exports at 720p with a watermark, caps exports at 10 minutes and gives 50 AI credits a month in some regions, and VEED has no paid-plan trial except on Enterprise. Neither replaces a HeyGen avatar test. Both suit a team whose videos start from real footage.


## FAQ

**Does a free HeyGen account include free API credits?**

No. HeyGen's help center says monthly free API credits ended in February 2026; the API runs on a separate prepaid wallet you top up yourself (see our API guide), and purchased API credits expire after 12 months.

**Can I make a Digital Twin of someone else on the Free plan?**

Only with that person's own consent. On Free and the self-serve paid plans, every video-based Digital Twin needs a live on-camera consent clip recorded by the person depicted, and that person can ask for removal at any time.

**Is LiveAvatar included in HeyGen's Free plan?**

No. LiveAvatar is a separate product with its own plans and credits; its own Free plan allows sessions of up to 2 minutes with one session at a time.

**Does HeyGen offer a student or nonprofit discount?**

HeyGen publishes no student, education or nonprofit discount. Nonprofit inquiries go to HeyGen's partnerships team by email.


## The bottom line

HeyGen is free in a narrow sense. The Free plan costs nothing, needs no card and is not a time-limited trial, but it gives up to three watermarked one-minute videos a month and a licence that stops at personal and evaluation use. Use it to record your Digital Twin, clone your voice and judge the avatar quality, all at no cost. The moment a video is meant for a client, an ad or a monetized channel, Free is off the table and Creator is the cheapest legal step, with monthly billing for short projects and yearly billing from ten months on.



## Sources

[1] Pricing Plans for Creators and Marketers — https://www.heygen.com/pricing (2026-10)
[2] HeyGen Help: heygen credit based pricing plans subscriptions explained — https://help.heygen.com/en/articles/15125761-heygen-credit-based-pricing-plans-subscriptions-explained (2026-10)
[3] HeyGen Help: how to create b roll with heygen creative studio — https://help.heygen.com/en/articles/17680953-how-to-create-b-roll-with-heygen-creative-studio (2026-10)
[4] Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy — https://www.heygen.com/terms (2026-10)
[5] HeyGen Help Center — https://help.heygen.com/en/
[6] App Store (US), HeyGen listing — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ai-avatar-generator-heygen/id6711356409