Synthesia Pricing 2026: Plans, Credits and the Yearly Break-Even

Synthesia sells four plans, and only two carry a list price. As listed in November 2026, Basic is $0. Starter is $19 a month billed monthly, or $14 a month billed yearly ($168 a year). Pro costs $89 a month billed monthly at its entry level, or $59 a month billed yearly ($708 a year). Enterprise is quoted by sales. By our arithmetic, at list price yearly billing wins if you would stay nine months or more on Starter, or eight months or more on Pro; with the first-month offer, the line moves to 10 and 9 months. Pay for Pro when Starter's 1,250 credits a month (about 12 extra minutes of avatar video) will not cover your output, or when you need branching, bulk personalization or the Video API.

Four plans, two list prices, one editor

The allowance never rolls over. Every plan, Basic included, gets the same free allowance each month: 10 minutes of video or dubbing, 3 survey responses and 500 credits to spend on anything ^[1]. Paid credits sit on top of that allowance, and the included minutes are spent first. The monthly Starter card shows a first-month offer of $9, then $19 a month at list price. The Pro card shows a first-month offer of $49, then $89 a month. Neither offer is the real price. Plan your budget on the list figure. Synthesia lowered its listed Starter and yearly Pro prices in early November 2026; check the page before you buy.

Pro is the plan formerly called Creator; Synthesia renamed it in October 2026, when plans moved from minutes to credits ^[2]. Starter and Pro each include one editor, the account owner. Starter adds 3 guests and Pro adds 5, and guests can only view and comment. Self-serve accounts cannot add more editors, so two people who both need to build videos either share nothing or move to an Enterprise quote. Each price covers the whole account.

What the credits actually buy

Editing costs nothing. On the self-serve plans, avatar video uses about 100 credits per finished minute, more if the avatar stays on screen throughout. Synthesia charges for avatar footage generated, not the length of the finished video, and editing three seconds charges only those three seconds. By our arithmetic, Starter gives you the 10 included minutes plus up to about 12 more a month, and Pro the 10 included minutes plus up to about 60 more. On yearly billing the credits arrive upfront: up to about 150 minutes a year on Starter and about 720 on Pro, on top of the 10 included minutes each month.

Dubbing has its own rate. Other work draws on the same pool. Dubbing costs 80 credits a minute with lip-sync and 40 without, so lip-sync doubles the bill. The pricing card puts dubbing at up to 16 minutes a month on Starter and up to 78 on Pro, beyond the free allowance. Each survey response past the 3 included costs 350 credits, which covers about 3 more a month on Starter and about 17 on Pro. Syren, the AI video agent launched in October 2026 and labeled beta, is the line to watch: Synthesia says a 1-minute Syren video typically uses 1,000 to 2,000 credits, against Starter's 1,250 credits a month.

Unused credits simply expire. Plan credits and the free allowance reset every billing period and do not roll over. Credits bought separately stay valid for 12 months, but our sources publish no price for them. When the balance hits zero, video creation and survey collection pause until renewal unless you top up or move up a plan, and upgrading mid-cycle forfeits unused credits and resets the balance to the new allocation. Limited-time Syren-only promo credits belong in no budget.

Pro's five credit levels

The features stay identical. Pro is one plan sold at five credit sizes, with the same features at each. Billed monthly, Pro at 12,000, 24,000, 36,000 and 48,000 credits a month costs $176, $347, $514 and $676 a month. Billed yearly, the same Pro levels cost $117, $230, $341 and $448 a month. The higher levels carry a small labeled discount of 1.25% to 5%, so buying more credits on one account barely lowers the rate. Volume is not where Synthesia rewards you. Commitment is.

Bigger levels reward commitment. That commitment is worth real money at the larger sizes. By our arithmetic, the 12,000-credit level runs $2,112 a year on monthly billing against $1,404 on yearly billing, a saving of $708. At 24,000 credits the gap is $1,404, at 36,000 it is $2,076, and at 48,000 it reaches $2,736 a year. Because a mid-cycle upgrade wipes your unused balance, move to a bigger level only after the current period's credits are nearly spent. Otherwise the unused credits you already paid for are lost.

Monthly or yearly: where the break-even sits

Yearly wins for stayers. The yearly cards advertise three free months on Starter and four on Pro. By our arithmetic, Starter on yearly billing saves $60 a year, about 26%, against paying $19 a month for twelve months, and costs the same as 8.8 monthly payments. At list price, that is the threshold: stay nine months or longer and yearly wins; leave sooner and monthly is cheaper. Pro's yearly plan saves $360 a year, about 34%, and costs 8.0 monthly payments, so at list price the line sits at eight months.

The first-month offers move that line for a new buyer. With the offer, by our arithmetic, yearly billing pays off only from 10 months on Starter and from 9 months on Pro. Over twelve months, monthly billing with the offer comes to $218 on Starter and $1,028 on Pro, so yearly still saves $50 and $320. The Studio avatar add-on is also sold only with annual plans. Against that, every purchase is non-refundable, so a yearly plan you drop in month three is money spent. The yearly Starter and Pro cards show a "Try for FREE" button next to "Purchase now", but Synthesia's pricing FAQ does not describe a trial of a paid plan; the dependable free option is the Basic plan, covered in is Synthesia free.

The units differ, though. Shoppers often price HeyGen next to Synthesia. HeyGen's entry paid plan is $29 a month or $24 a month billed yearly ($288 a year), and its credits roll over for one month. Synthesia's plan credits do not roll over. SCORM export sits on HeyGen's Business plan but only on Synthesia's Enterprise plan, which matters for LMS buyers. The full rival breakdown is in our HeyGen pricing guide.

Add-ons, API rates and Enterprise

Starter and Pro include personal avatars. A Studio avatar, filmed on green screen, is a $1,000-a-year add-on for annual plans only, can take up to 10 days to process, and cannot be refunded once produced. Starter includes 3 Personal avatars and Pro 5; the help center calls extra ones paid add-ons, so ask for the price first. 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 build a photo avatar of someone else even with their permission.

Developers pay per minute. The API has its own rate card, though usage draws on the same credit balance as your plan ^[3]. Interactive Avatars, available on all plans since October 2026 and labeled beta, cost $0.10 a minute for the avatar layer only. The Dubbing API costs $0.40 a minute for voice only and $0.80 a minute with lip-sync. A full-stack Interactive Avatars option at $0.20 a minute is marked coming soon. The Video API itself is gated to Pro, with up to 360 minutes a year deducted from plan limits, and Enterprise.

Seats are a separate subscription. Roleplay Sessions, launched in October 2026, bill separately. Basic, Starter and Pro get 10 free plays a month, Enterprise 25 a month per organization, and learner seats cost $29 per learner seat a month billed monthly, or $25 billed annually, for 1 to 100 seats with no paid Studio plan required. Seat reductions apply at renewal with no prorated refund. Enterprise is custom pricing through sales, which the help center says replies to demo requests within 48 to 72 hours. The pricing page lists unlimited video minutes there, yet Syren, dubbing and other credit products still use credits set by contract, and those expire unused at the contract anniversary.

Billing rules that cost money

Renewal is automatic. Paid plans renew automatically at the same per-unit price. You can cancel Starter or Pro any time from account settings, but Synthesia's Customer Terms ask for 30 days' notice of non-renewal, so cancel well before the renewal date. Unless a contract says otherwise, all purchases are non-refundable, even if the subscription went unused ^[4]. Users charged while locked out by a confirmed technical issue can ask support to review, and a cancellation made by mistake can, where possible, be reversed by contacting support within 48 hours. Read these rules before choosing yearly billing.

Export before you leave. After you cancel, access lasts to the end of the billing period. Then every video in the account becomes inaccessible. Download your MP4s first, and remember Basic cannot download at all. Upgrades apply immediately with a prorated charge, while downgrades wait for the next period, and dropping below Pro resets share-page branding. Every video also passes content moderation, stock avatars are restricted on sensitive topics, and only paid plans can appeal a rejection; our Synthesia review covers how that plays out.

The bottom line

Synthesia prices simply on paper and strictly in practice. Starter on yearly billing suits one person producing a few short training videos a month who will stay the year and needs little beyond MP4 download; watermark-free embeds in an LMS need only Starter. Pro earns its higher price as the volume step, with 6,000 credits a month against Starter's 1,250 (about 60 extra minutes against about 12), and through branching, bulk personalization and the Video API, not through extra seats, because there are none. Credits, not features, are what run out first. If you need SCORM tracking, 1-Click Translation, brand kits or shared editing, skip the self-serve plans and ask sales.