HeyGen vs Synthesia in 2026: What Six YouTube Reviewers Found, Checked Against Today's Prices

I haven’t paid for HeyGen or Synthesia yet. The parts that matter, such as your own avatar and videos without a watermark, sit behind paid plans on both, so before spending money I went through what YouTube reviewers found this year. I picked six reviews from 2026, read each full transcript, checked the key moments in the videos and compared every price they quoted with the official pages.

Each video below starts at the part I refer to. The tests in them are the reviewers’ own, and I note where a channel was sponsored or uses affiliate links.

The short answer

If you make short videos for social media and want an AI version of yourself, the reviewers who do that work preferred HeyGen. If you make training, onboarding, sales or internal videos for a company, the reviewers who do that work preferred Synthesia. Price is the part that changed most during 2026, and several of these videos are already out of date on it.

The six reviews

Holly Mack: “The verdict flipped” for business teams

Holly Mack (July 27, 2026) says she used to default to HeyGen and no longer does for business video. Her reasons are mostly about price: she says HeyGen moved all plans to credits in May 2026, while Synthesia cut its entry price to $19 a month, or $14 billed yearly, and moved personal avatars into that tier. She puts the avatar quality gap as narrow enough that most viewers won’t notice.

She also compares what each tool generates around the avatar. Synthesia’s AI Playground generates B-roll clips on every plan, including the free one, and HeyGen generates motion graphics that follow what the avatar is saying, which she rates higher for polished explainers. From 2:46 she does the cost math, including an outside test she cites where 25 videos cost $95 on Synthesia and $384 on HeyGen. I couldn’t check that test myself. Her pick: Synthesia for training, SEO video and internal communications, HeyGen for high-volume short social video and for less common languages. The video description includes affiliate links.

Brody Niehoff: the same recording, two avatars

Brody Niehoff (April 15, 2026) makes AI clones for creators who post every day, and he built an avatar on each platform from the same recording. Starting at 2:35 he plays them side by side. He found Synthesia’s lip sync slightly better and its movement a bit more realistic, but its blinking looked unnatural to him. HeyGen handled blinking better, and he says its sharper video made it look more real overall.

He spent the most time on the voice. HeyGen let him connect his ElevenLabs voice and adjust emotion and tone. In Synthesia he had no such controls and says he kept rewriting the script to make it sound natural. His verdict for his own content is HeyGen. Two things to keep in mind: his prices come from before HeyGen’s May change, and the end of the video pitches his own done-for-you service.

Simon Crowe: a year of HeyGen

Simon Crowe (March 13, 2026) has used HeyGen for about a year and is on the Pro plan. His review is a tour of what a creator can do with it: the AI agent that builds a whole video from one prompt, a digital twin made from a short recording, and different “looks” for the same avatar. From 3:12 he shows his clone in a home studio, a jungle, a restaurant kitchen and on a jet ski. He also shows animated cartoon characters that stay consistent from video to video. He calls it the best AI video tool he has used. His credit figures are from March and have since changed, and the description has affiliate links.

Mr. Money: the credit catch

Mr. Money (September 25, 2026) is the most critical of the six. He rates HeyGen’s avatars and translation highly, then spends most of the video on cost. From 4:56 he covers a Better Business Bureau complaint about a refund request made inside the 14-day window that he says was not honored, a reviewer who called the credit system a bait and switch, and renders that hang and still use credits. He also passes on reports that avatar movement gets repetitive on longer scripts.

He gives a fair counterpoint too: a much-upvoted Reddit comment that many complaints come from people who didn’t understand credits before subscribing. His advice is to start on the free plan and work out your monthly minutes before paying. Some of his numbers don’t match HeyGen’s own pages, which I cover in the price section below.

MakerThrive: Synthesia is more than talking heads now

MakerThrive (June 30, 2026) builds a sales training video in Synthesia from start to finish in an 18-minute walkthrough. The AI assistant drafts a whole video from a prompt, a PowerPoint, a Word file, a PDF or a web page. From 6:00 he generates B-roll inside the editor with Google’s Veo model, then adds motion graphics, quizzes and branching. Later he makes an avatar from a single photo and shows the translation glossary, which keeps product names unchanged across languages.

The tone is close to an ad, but his conclusion is useful because it limits who the product is for: the full platform is built for teams, and for individuals making the occasional social video he says there are cheaper and simpler tools.

Daniel (Tech & Data): translation and lip sync, sponsored

Daniel (August 28, 2026) tests one feature, Synthesia’s video translator, on his own footage. The video is sponsored by Synthesia, which he says at the end. He translates a short clip into Spanish on the free tool, then one YouTube Short into German, French, Chinese and Spanish at once. From 4:21 he plays the results: Spanish was the cleanest, and Chinese, the hardest because its rhythm differs so much from English, held together better than he expected. He still says each result needs checking before publishing, because the voice may not fit and some lip movement still looks generated.

Where they agree and where they split

All six treat the avatars as good enough for real use, and the realism differences they report are small. Brody’s side-by-side found points in each direction before he gave HeyGen the edge on overall image quality. The split is about who the video is for. Brody wants a fast route from script to a video of himself with control over the voice, and he chose HeyGen; Simon, who only reviewed HeyGen, uses it every day for the same kind of work. Holly cares about entry-level cost for business teams and chose Synthesia, and MakerThrive, who only reviewed Synthesia, praises the team features: templates, quizzes, approvals and the certifications that help a tool pass a company’s security review. Mr. Money also rates HeyGen’s quality highly; his warnings are about how it bills.

What the prices look like now

Both companies changed their plans between March and September, the months these videos came out. The right-hand column is what the official pages showed on October 31, 2026.

Say you want about 20 minutes a month of video with your own avatar. HeyGen Creator gives you about 19 minutes of Avatar IV with a video avatar for $29 a month, or $24 billed yearly. Synthesia Starter billed yearly works out to about 12 minutes a month from its credits plus the 10 free minutes, for $14 a month. Synthesia’s page says a typical finished minute uses about 100 credits and more if the avatar is on screen the whole time, so treat both figures as estimates.

Which one to try first

Both have free plans, so you can test with your own script before paying. HeyGen’s free plan gives up to 3 watermarked videos a month, each up to a minute; its help center says some regions get fewer. Synthesia’s free plan gives 10 minutes of video a month with a watermark. Use the same short script on both and listen to the voice as closely as you look at the face, since the voice is where Brody and Daniel found the most to fix.

If you mostly make social content of yourself, start with HeyGen, then check the in-app credit cost before every long generation. If you make training or company videos, start with Synthesia, and check whether the features you need are in Starter or only in Enterprise.

What this article doesn’t cover

I haven’t tested either tool. Everything about quality comes from the six reviewers, and their tests used different scripts, avatars and settings. Prices and credit rates change often and, according to HeyGen, can differ by account and region. Check the pricing page on the day you sign up.