Synthesia Buyer's Checklist: What to Check Before You Pay

Before you buy Synthesia, run five checks in this order: the plan gates for your must-have features, the minutes you will really generate, whether your topics pass moderation, how videos reach your LMS and languages, and the contract terms. One fact changes most purchases. Starter and Pro each give one editor per account, and teammates join only as guests who view and comment. If one person scripts and publishes, Starter covers MP4 download and removes the watermark. If you need branching or bulk personalization, Pro is the floor. If you need SCORM, translation, brand kits, SSO or shared editing, only Enterprise works.

Check the plan gates against your must-haves

Synthesia sells four plans, and the gaps between them are hard gates rather than soft limits. Basic is $0 a month and watermarked. Starter is $19 a month billed monthly (the card shows a first-month offer of $9), or $14 a month billed yearly ($168 a year). Pro is $89 a month billed monthly (the card shows a first-month offer of $49), or $59 a month billed yearly ($708 a year) at its entry level.^[1] Enterprise is custom pricing through sales. Write down every feature your team cannot work without, then tick it against this list.

• Download and watermark. Basic videos carry a Synthesia watermark and cannot be downloaded as MP4; download at 1920x1080 starts on Starter.
• Editors versus guests. Starter and Pro include one editor; Starter adds 3 guests and Pro adds 5, and guests view and comment (and can download if permitted), but never edit or generate.
• Pro gates. Clickable CTAs and branching, bulk personalization from a .csv or .xlsx file, password-protected videos and the branded share page start on Pro.
• Enterprise-only. SCORM export, 1-Click Translation, the multilingual player, quizzes, brand kits, workspaces, live collaboration and SSO appear only on Enterprise.
• API. The Video API is on Pro (up to 360 minutes a year, deducted from plan limits) and on Enterprise.
• Fonts. The pricing page lists custom font uploads on Pro and Enterprise; Synthesia's help center describes them as Enterprise-only, so confirm before buying Pro for fonts.

The editor check deserves a second look. Self-serve accounts cannot add members at all, so a team where two writers revise the same videos does not fit Starter or Pro. Guests can leave timestamped comments and download videos if permitted, which works for a reviewer or a manager signing off. Shared editing, folder permissions and workspaces belong to Enterprise. Decide who edits before you compare prices, because that answer alone can move you two plans up.

Size your minutes before you size the plan

Self-serve plans meter everything in credits since the October 2026 plan change; on Enterprise, video generation uses no credits, but Syren, dubbing and other credit products do. Every plan, Basic included, gets a free monthly allowance of 10 minutes of video or dubbing, 3 survey responses and 500 credits, and paid plans add their own credits on top. On self-serve plans, avatar video uses about 100 credits per finished minute, charged on the avatar footage generated. Only new footage counts when you edit. Previewing is free. Estimate a normal month of output, then compare it with the allowances below.

• Avatar video. Starter gives the 10 included minutes plus up to about 12 more a month; Pro gives 10 plus up to about 60 more.
• Dubbing. Lip-sync dubbing uses 80 credits a minute and voice-only 40; the pricing card puts Starter at up to 16 dubbing minutes a month and Pro at up to 78, on top of the free allowance.
• Syren, the AI video agent (launched October 2026, labeled beta): the pricing page says a 1-minute video typically uses 1,000 to 2,000 credits, and every change round spends more.
• Survey responses. After the 3 included each month, each response costs 350 credits.
• Rollover. None. Credits and the free allowance reset every billing period.

Running out has consequences you should plan for. Video creation and survey collection pause until renewal unless you buy extra credits or move up a plan, and upgrading mid-cycle forfeits unused credits and resets the balance. Pro is also sold at higher credit levels on the same plan, starting at 12,000 credits a month, so a heavy month does not force Enterprise. The full rate card sits in our Synthesia pricing guide.

Yearly billing hands over the whole year's credits upfront: by our arithmetic, Starter yearly gives up to about 150 minutes a year and Pro yearly up to about 720 minutes a year from credits, on top of the 10 included minutes each month. By our arithmetic, yearly Starter saves $60 a year against the $19 list price, and yearly Pro saves $360 a year against $89. At list price, yearly wins from 9 months on Starter and 8 on Pro; with the first-month offer, from 10 and 9. Below those thresholds, monthly billing costs less. Remember that a first-month offer renews at the list price.

Test your topics against moderation and avatar rules

Every Synthesia video is checked at generation by automated systems plus human review. Stock avatars are limited to neutral, factual, educational content. Medical, legal, financial, news or political topics, or references to real people and companies, can make a script ineligible for a stock avatar; some of those topics need a Personal or Studio avatar, and some need Enterprise. Appeals are open to paid plans only, one per decision, reviewed within 48 hours, and the decision is final.^[2] Repeated rejections bring a final warning and can lead to a permanent ban.

• Sample your hardest script. On Basic, Starter and Pro an advisory checker flags script issues before generation; run your most sensitive topic through it first.
• Paid advertising. Stock avatars may not appear in paid TV, paid social, programmatic or any paid promotion without Synthesia's written consent; organic posts and training are allowed.
• Endorsements. Stock avatars cannot endorse products, deliver opinions or act as spokespersons.
• Personal avatars. Starter includes 3, Pro 5; more are paid add-ons (help center), deleting one frees its slot, and Enterprise allows unlimited, subject to reasonable consumption and compute.
• Studio avatar. A $1,000-a-year add-on for annual plans only, which can take up to 10 days to process.

Consent is the gate for any digital twin. Synthesia creates a personal avatar or voice clone only with a live consent recording from that same person, who must be of legal age; it refuses celebrities, public figures, deceased people and anyone who has not consented, and you cannot create a photo avatar of someone else even with their permission. If your plan is a series fronted by your CEO, the CEO records the consent. Nobody can do it for them.

Map the route into your LMS and your languages

How videos reach learners decides the plan as often as features do. Share pages and embeds work on every plan, but SCORM export is Enterprise-only. Video analytics count only plays through the Synthesia player, never a downloaded MP4 uploaded elsewhere, and naming individual learners needs SCORM learner identity or required SSO, both Enterprise. Videos with buttons or branching cannot be downloaded as MP4 at all. Deleting a video's public link takes it down everywhere, including embeds and SCORM packages already in an LMS. An LMS team without Enterprise usually embeds. Languages need the same care. Each job has its own figure.

• Avatar voices: 140+ languages and accents on all plans.
• AI dubbing of an existing video: 70+ languages on self-serve plans and 140+ on Enterprise; it translates spoken audio, not on-screen text or burned-in captions.
• 1-Click Translation of a Synthesia video: 140+ languages, Enterprise only; it translates the script and on-screen text and keeps the avatar.
• Voice cloning: 32 languages on non-Enterprise plans.
• Closed captions: only in the language of the script.

Read the contract terms before the first charge

Money rules are strict. All purchases are non-cancelable and, unless a contract says otherwise, non-refundable, even if the subscription went unused.^[3] Plans renew automatically at the same per-unit price, and Synthesia's Customer Terms ask for 30 days' notice of non-renewal, so cancel well before renewal. Self-serve users cancel from account settings. Access lasts to the end of the billing period, after which every video in the account becomes inaccessible, so download what you need first.^[4] A mistaken cancellation can sometimes be reversed through support within 48 hours.

HR and training buyers have one more rule. Synthesia's Acceptable Use Policy prohibits using its outputs as a basis for employment decisions, such as recruitment, promotion, termination, pay or monitoring work performance, or for decisions on access to education or training. Clearly labeled internal training and role-play are not restricted. That matters for Roleplay Sessions, launched October 2026, which score learners against a skill rubric. Use those scores for coaching. Keep them out of promotion and pay files.

Security and data checks close the list. Synthesia says it holds SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, 27701 and 42001 certifications and complies with GDPR, with customer data stored in the EU on AWS in Ireland. It is not a HIPAA business associate, so protected health information stays out. Synthesia says it does not use customer data to pre-train its AI models. Its Customer Terms state no uptime percentage. Finally, Syren, Interactive Avatars, motion graphics, Gemini Omni and the MCP connection for ChatGPT and Claude (November 2026, public beta) are labeled beta, so do not buy for a beta feature alone.

The bottom line

Synthesia rewards buyers who check gates before prices. A single creator who needs downloadable, watermark-free presenter videos fits Starter; a team that needs branching, bulk personalization or the Video API fits Pro, still with one editor. Anyone who needs SCORM, translation, brand kits, SSO or several people editing is shopping for Enterprise, whatever the self-serve prices suggest. Test your most sensitive script, count your minutes against credits that never roll over, and download everything before you cancel. If the gates rule it out, our Synthesia alternatives cover the other routes.