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Avatars IA

Sourcé25 août 2026

Synthesia review 2026: what the free plan buys and who it is not for

Synthesia turns a script into presenter-led video. What its plans publish, what the free tier allows, and where it is the wrong tool.

Par la rédaction · Mis à jour le 25 août 2026

8.2

Note de la rédaction

Lire la grille

Of the seven tools in our video ranking, the clearest free tier to plan a deliverable around, and a narrow product that does one job properly.

Idéal pour
Training, onboarding and internal comms teams turning written material into presenter-led video.
Déconseillé à
Anyone who needs generated footage of a scene rather than a person reading a script. Synthesia does not do that and does not claim to.

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Aller sur Synthesia

Ce qui fonctionne

  • The free tier is denominated in output minutes, so a free-tier result is directly comparable to the deliverable you were asked for
  • Scope is narrow and honest: it turns a script into a presenter, and the product does not pretend to be a general video generator
  • The free tier is large enough to produce something you can show to whoever approves the project, not just something you can look at

Ce qu'il faut peser

  • Ten minutes a month runs out quickly once you start iterating on a script rather than producing a final cut
  • The entry plan card shows a different figure under the annual toggle, so the monthly number is easy to misread
  • The free plan meters in credits and in minutes at once, so one allowance has two units to track against it

Ce que l'éditeur publie

Lu sur les pages de l'éditeur lui-même, aux dates listées au bas de cette page. Là où un chiffre n'est publié nulle part que nous ayons pu trouver, la ligne est absente plutôt que devinée.

Free tier allowance
Usable for up to 10 minutes of video/month1
Free tier credits
1,200 credits/mo2
Entry price, monthly billing
$29/mo3

L'article ci-dessous est publié en anglais. Chaque chiffre qu'il contient est le chiffre publié par l'éditeur lui-même, avec la date à laquelle nous l'avons lu.

Synthesia sells one thing: a script goes in, a video of a presenter delivering it comes out. That narrowness is the most useful fact about it.

What the plans actually publish

The figures above are read from Synthesia's own pricing page on the date shown, and the full list with links is at the bottom of this page. Two of them are worth reading together: the free plan grants 1,200 credits a month, and the same card translates that into up to ten minutes of video a month.

The field splits on that translation. Descript also denominates a free tier in time; HeyGen meters a count of clips with a one-minute ceiling on each; Runway and Pika publish credits. A credit is a unit only the vendor understands. A minute of finished video is a unit the person who asked you for the video understands, and being able to hand a free-tier output to that person is the difference between an evaluation and a demo.

Where the pricing gets slippery

The Starter card displays a lower figure when the annual toggle is selected, and the toggle state is not always obvious at a glance. The number in the table above is the one shown for monthly billing. If you are budgeting from a screenshot somebody sent you, check which toggle was active when it was taken.

Who should not buy this

If you need generated footage of a scene rather than a person reading a script, Synthesia is the wrong tool and no amount of prompting will change that. It is a category boundary, not a limitation, and the vendor is clear about it.

If you are iterating heavily, ten minutes a month will not survive the drafting phase. That is an argument for starting on the free tier and moving up quickly, not an argument against the product.

What this review does not tell you

Nothing here is a judgment of output quality. We do not generate footage and score it, and we have not found an independent benchmark of avatar realism that we would be willing to rank on. What we can tell you is what the plans commit to in writing, which is checkable, and where the product's edges are.

Questions

For most teams, yes. Ten minutes of video a month is enough to produce a genuine first module and show it to whoever would sign it off, which is the real test. It runs out fast if you iterate heavily on a script before settling.

D'où viennent ces chiffres

Chaque chiffre ci-dessus est le chiffre publié par l'éditeur lui-même. Chaque ligne nomme le document qui a été lu et le jour où une personne l'a ouvert.

Registre des sources : chaque affirmation de cette page avec son document et sa date de vérification
#AffirmationValeurSourceVérifié le
1Free tier allowanceUsable for up to 10 minutes of video/monthSynthesia pricing page, Basic plan card28 juil. 2026
2Free tier credits1,200 credits/moSynthesia pricing page, Basic plan card28 juil. 2026
3Entry price, monthly billing$29/moSynthesia pricing page, Starter plan card28 juil. 2026