Synthesia for HR Onboarding: Plans, Surveys and Policy Videos

Synthesia fits an HR team that explains the same things again and again: the first-week walkthrough, the revised leave policy, the annual compliance refresher. You write or paste a script, an AI avatar presents it, and when the policy changes you edit the text instead of reshooting. For most HR teams the real decision is the plan. Starter is $19 a month billed monthly, or $14 a month billed yearly ($168 a year), and unlocks MP4 downloads for one editor. Pro is $89 a month billed monthly, or $59 a month billed yearly ($708 a year), and adds branching and bulk personalization. SCORM export, 1-Click Translation, shared workspaces and SSO sit on Enterprise only. That line decides most purchases.

Onboarding a new hire before their first morning

A typical onboarding series is a handful of short videos: a welcome from the CEO, how payroll and benefits work, the tools the hire will use, and who to ask for what. Synthesia builds each one from a script split into scenes, with up to 150 scenes and 5 minutes of script per scene. Assistant, the chat-based creation tool that launched in July 2026 and runs on Starter and above, turns a prompt, a URL or a file of up to 50 MB into an editable outline. PowerPoint import works on every plan, so your existing onboarding deck can become the first draft.

Delivery is where the plans split. Basic videos carry a watermark and are shared by link or embed, with no MP4 download; downloads start on Starter. Synthesia's case studies show the scale teams reach. Antisel onboarded 18 remote new hires with an NPS of 100 and saved 50% of onboarding time, and Sky Italia cut onboarding for new team members from about 3 months to 2 weeks.

Putting leaders on camera, with their consent

New hires respond to a face they will actually meet. A Personal Avatar, your digital twin, comes only with paid plans: 3 on Starter, 5 on Pro, and a larger allowance on Enterprise subject to reasonable consumption and compute. The recommended route takes one photo plus a live consent video in which the person reads a passcode, and it is typically ready within minutes, while the legacy route from a 1-5 minute video take needs about one business day.

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. So the CEO records their own consent. HR cannot do it for them. Inviting colleagues to submit their photo and consent through a link is an Enterprise feature. Photo avatars also move with neutral body language, and Synthesia warns the twin may not perfectly match the real person.

Stock avatars are the cheaper default, but internal announcements are a gray zone. Synthesia's moderation rules list internal organizational news, such as new hires, policy updates and internal events, with stock avatars as something Enterprise customers can produce, while content in its restricted categories is allowed with custom avatars ^[1]. On Starter or Pro, a Personal Avatar of the person announcing the change is the safer route. Recruiting teams should note one more limit: stock avatars cannot appear in paid social or other paid ads without Synthesia's written consent. Every video passes automated and human moderation, and only paid plans can appeal a rejection; our Synthesia review covers the full rules.

Policy updates and compliance refreshers that keep changing

This is where script-based video earns its place. When the remote-work policy changes, you edit the sentence and regenerate. Credits are charged only for new footage, at about 100 credits per finished minute of avatar video, so changing three seconds costs three seconds. Synthesia itself positions Assistant and the editor, rather than its Syren video agent (launched October 2026, labeled beta), for exact scripts and regularly updated training and compliance content. Keep one source script per policy, approved by legal, and each revision becomes an edit rather than a production project.

Compliance is harder than production. Proof of completion usually lives in an LMS, and SCORM export, quizzes and named-learner tracking are Enterprise-only. Synthesia's own analytics stay anonymous unless SCORM Record learner identity or Require SSO to watch is switched on, and both of those are Enterprise settings too. On Starter and Pro the route into an LMS is an embed or a downloaded MP4, and Synthesia's analytics count views only in its own player, not in a downloaded file uploaded elsewhere.

Branching and CTA buttons start on Pro, which helps when one refresher must send each office to its own local rule. Videos with branching or CTA buttons and Sessions have no MP4 download, so they reach an LMS only by embed. Our employee training guide compares the LMS routes in depth.

Multi-site HR teams also need languages. Avatar voices cover 140+ languages and accents on every plan, so you can write a Spanish script yourself. AI dubbing of a finished video reaches 70+ languages on self-serve plans and 140+ on Enterprise, while 1-Click Translation, which also translates on-screen text and feeds the multilingual player, is Enterprise-only. Dubbing translates speech only, not titles or captions. Synthesia's case study on Northwest Healthcare Properties REIT says one person produced 30+ videos for 300+ employees in 3 languages for a Workday HR rollout. Keep benefits content generic, though. Synthesia is not a HIPAA business associate, so employee health information stays out of scripts.

New-hire check-ins and exit interviews with Survey Sessions

Survey Sessions, launched in October 2026, put an avatar on the other side of the conversation. It asks up to 10 questions aloud, can probe each answer at None, Light, Moderate or Deep depth, and returns a report of themes and sentiment with transcripts and audio. A ready-made New Hire Check-In template exists, which suits the 30-day conversation many HR teams never find time for. Every plan includes 3 free responses a month, and after that each response costs 350 credits ^[2]. By our arithmetic, plan credits cover about 3 more responses a month on Starter and about 17 on Pro, if nothing else draws on them.

The catch matters most for exit interviews. Responses are not anonymous: each one includes a playable audio recording even when you require neither email nor SSO, so a departing employee's voice sits in the results. Tell respondents before they start. Reports are always generated in English, new results take up to 30 minutes to appear, and charts show only once a survey has 3 responses. Results stay in Synthesia's video analytics, not in the Learner Portal. Synthesia says Survey Sessions complement pulse and NPS tools rather than replace them, and that it stores customer data in the EU.

The rule HR cannot work around

Synthesia's Acceptable Use Policy, last updated February 2024, prohibits using its outputs as a basis for employment decisions, meaning recruitment, promotion, termination, pay or monitoring work performance, and it applies the same ban to decisions on education or training access ^[3]. Clearly labeled internal training and role-play are not restricted. For HR this draws a firm line. Use check-in themes to fix the onboarding program, never to judge the person who answered. A Survey scene does not score respondents anyway; there is no pass or fail, only collected answers.

Roleplay Sessions, also launched in October 2026, do score. A learner practices a spoken conversation, such as manager feedback, and an AI coach rates it against a skill rubric. Free plays are capped at 10 a month on Basic, Starter and Pro, and 25 a month per organization on Enterprise. Learner seats cost $29 per learner seat a month billed monthly, or $25 billed annually, and add the Learner Portal, assignment and analytics. HRIS sync with BambooHR, HiBob or Workday is only on the sales-led Custom tier; it syncs nightly, auto-assigns Sessions to matching new hires and deactivates leavers after a 7-day grace period. Those scores are training data, not appraisal input.

Which plan fits an HR team

The single-editor model shapes everything. Starter and Pro are priced per account with one editor, the account owner, and teammates join only as guests who view and comment ^[4]. A three-person HR team therefore cannot co-edit below Enterprise. If one HR generalist owns video, Starter covers downloads and a leader's avatar; move to Pro for more volume (6,000 credits a month instead of 1,250), branching paths or a personalized welcome for each hire from a spreadsheet. By our arithmetic, yearly billing saves $60 a year on Starter and $360 a year on Pro; at list price it wins from 9 months on Starter and 8 on Pro, and with the first-month offer from 10 and 9.

Two billing rules deserve a calendar reminder. Credits reset every billing period with no rollover, and all purchases are non-refundable, even if unused, unless a contract says otherwise, so cancel well before renewal; Synthesia's Customer Terms ask for 30 days' notice of non-renewal, and our pricing breakdown covers the credit levels. Download your onboarding library before canceling, because videos become inaccessible at the end of the billing period; branching videos and Sessions cannot be downloaded as MP4, so they are lost with the account. Enterprise is the right call once SCORM tracking in your LMS, translated versions or more than one editor is a requirement rather than a wish.

The bottom line

Synthesia suits an HR team that publishes the same explanations repeatedly and revises them often: onboarding series, policy changes, compliance refreshers and new-hire check-ins. Starter is enough for one owner who needs downloads and a leader's avatar, and Pro adds more credits, branching and personalized welcomes. Buy Enterprise when SCORM tracking, translation at scale or shared editing is a hard requirement. Settle two things before rollout. Tell survey respondents that their voice is recorded, and keep every output away from hiring, pay and performance decisions, as Synthesia's own policy requires.