{
 "schema_version": "1.0",
 "id": "synthesia",
 "name": "Synthesia",
 "research_status": "researched",
 "vendor_domain": "synthesia.io",
 "category": "Operations & Workflow",
 "task": "AI video & voice content",
 "summary": "AI avatar video for training, explainers and onboarding: type a script, no camera or actors needed. Re-generating an edit spends the minutes again.",
 "best_for": "teams making talking-head training, explainer and onboarding videos without cameras, actors or editing",
 "skip_if": "you need lots of video or cinematic, human-shot production — the minute caps and avatar style won't fit",
 "honest_knock": "The minute caps are tight: Starter's 1,250 credits a month is roughly 10 to 12 minutes of finished video, and the meter counts seconds. A small edit generated again cost us 4 credits rather than the whole video, but the free plan put that second render in a 15-minute queue. Fantastic for avatar-led training and explainers without a studio, but not for high-volume or cinematic production. And check the plan at checkout: the app and the public pricing page described different plans on the same day.",
 "pricing": {
  "status": "public",
  "entry_price": "$29",
  "entry_price_terms": "Starter · billed monthly",
  "from_price_usd_month": 29.0,
  "plans": [
   {
    "name": "Basic",
    "price": "$0",
    "includes": "500 credits/month; 10 min video or dubbing free; 3 survey responses; watermark; shared by link"
   },
   {
    "name": "Starter",
    "price": "$29/month, or $18/month billed yearly",
    "includes": "1,250 credits/month (15,000/year); ~12 min video beyond free allowance"
   },
   {
    "name": "Pro",
    "price": "$89/month or $64 billed yearly",
    "includes": "6,000 credits/month (72,000/year), ~60 min; scales to 48,000 credits at $676"
   },
   {
    "name": "Enterprise",
    "price": "quote-only",
    "includes": ""
   }
  ],
  "plans_source": "summarised from pricing.notes; every plan name and amount appears verbatim in those notes",
  "notes": "(re-read 1 October 2026) The public pricing page, read without signing in from a Netherlands connection, now shows dollars and a new credit model: 'Credits are now the shared currency across all AI usage-based features'. Basic is $0 with 500 credits a month plus a free allowance of 10 minutes of video or dubbing and 3 survey responses; free videos carry a Synthesia watermark and are shared by link. Starter is $29 a month, or $18 a month billed yearly, with 1,250 credits a month (15,000 a year), which the page puts at about 12 minutes of video on top of the free allowance. Pro, which replaces Creator on the plan cards, is $89 a month or $64 billed yearly with 6,000 credits a month (72,000 a year), about 60 minutes, and scales to 48,000 credits a month at $676. Enterprise is quote-only. The page's calculator prices video at 100 credits a minute, dubbing at 76 and a survey response at 350, with the first 10 minutes of video included on every plan. Inside the app the same day, signed in on Basic, the upgrade window still showed the earlier plans in euros: Starter €19 a month or €12 billed yearly with 15,500 credits a year (up to 120 minutes of video), and Creator €79 or €49 with 72,500 credits a year (up to 360 minutes). In our own test the meter charged 59 credits for 29 seconds of video. Check which plan your checkout shows before budgeting. A Studio avatar remains a paid add-on.",
  "verified_at": "2026-10-01",
  "source_url": null,
  "schema_offer": {
   "price": 29.0,
   "currency": "USD",
   "description": "Starter, billed monthly — $18 a month is the yearly rate on the public page (1 October 2026); there is a free Basic tier. Read on the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-10-01.",
   "page": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/b2b/synthesia-review/"
  },
  "source_quotes": null
 },
 "free_plan": true,
 "free_plan_evidence": "Basic is $0 with 500 credits a month plus a free allowance of 10 minutes of video or dubbing and 3 survey responses; free videos carry a Synthesia watermark and are shared by link.",
 "cost_traps": [
  {
   "id": "usage_metered",
   "label": "Usage-metered",
   "evidence": "(re-read 1 October 2026) The public pricing page, read without signing in from a Netherlands connection, now shows dollars and a new credit model: 'Credits are now the shared currency across all AI usage-based features'.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-01",
   "source_url": null
  },
  {
   "id": "addons_extra",
   "label": "Key features are paid add-ons",
   "evidence": "A Studio avatar remains a paid add-on.",
   "verified_at": "2026-10-01",
   "source_url": null
  }
 ],
 "compare_with": {
  "name": "HeyGen or D-ID",
  "why": "other AI-avatar video tools"
 },
 "links": {
  "record": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/api/v1/products/synthesia.json",
  "review": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/b2b/synthesia-review/",
  "marketplace": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/marketplace/synthesia/",
  "vendor_site": "https://synthesia.io"
 },
 "purchase": {
  "seller": "the vendor",
  "how": "AIBuilder Marketplace does not sell this software. Sign up, start a trial or buy on the vendor's site.",
  "handoff_url": "https://www.synthesia.io/?via=daniel-haket",
  "affiliate": true,
  "disclosure": "Where purchase.affiliate is true, purchase.handoff_url is an affiliate link: AIBuilder Marketplace may earn a commission at no extra cost to the buyer. Commission never changes what a record says, and products are not ranked by commission. Where it is false the link is the vendor's plain site."
 },
 "provenance": {
  "research": "hand-researched dossier, read on the vendor's own pages",
  "researched_since": "2026-07",
  "method": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/how-we-review/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0. Credit 'AIBuilder Marketplace' with a link to https://aibuildermarketplace.com/atlas/.",
  "note": "A rebuild is not a new measurement: pricing.verified_at is the date that matters."
 },
 "cost": {
  "status": "not_yet",
  "engine": "https://aibuildermarketplace.com/agents/#cost",
  "rules": null,
  "growth": null
 },
 "unknowns": [
  "Contract terms (cancellation, data export, data location, minimum seats) are not researched as separate fields; pricing.notes mentions them only where the vendor's pricing page does.",
  "Being verified: free trial and refund terms are not yet matched to a verbatim line on the vendor's own pages. Not matched does not mean there is none.",
  "No computable price rules yet: cost at a given team size cannot be calculated for this product."
 ],
 "verification": {
  "price": "read",
  "free_trial": "being_verified",
  "refund": "being_verified"
 },
 "status_page": null,
 "task_evidence": {
  "structured_checks": [],
  "sessions": [
   {
    "source": "session",
    "product_name": "Synthesia",
    "product_id": "synthesia",
    "run_date": "2026-10-01",
    "session_type": "hands_on",
    "what": "A new free Basic account. We made one 29-second video from a blank template with a stock avatar and our own 99-word script, read the credit meter on the Billing page before and after, then changed one word and generated it again. The same day we compared the app's upgrade window with the public pricing page.",
    "findings": [
     "Onboarding knew who we were before we told it. We skipped the company-website question, yet the prompt box was pre-filled with a brief about our own site, with suggestions such as 'Introduce the Tool Finder', and four draft videos about us appeared in the library without being asked for. They used no credits.",
     "The meter charges by the second. Our 29-second video took the Billing page from 0 to 59 of 1,200 credits, about 2 credits a second, and the app's banner went from '600 seconds' to '571 seconds of video creation time left'. In this account the free month is 10 minutes of finished video. The public pricing page the same day prices video at 100 credits a minute, which would make 59 credits about 35 seconds.",
     "A small edit did not cost the whole video again. After changing one word and generating again, the meter moved from 59 to 63 credits. The second time, though, the button read 'Generate in 15 minutes' instead of 'Generate' and the job went into a queue. Each version took about eight to nine minutes from the click to a finished video.",
     "An upgrade window ('You only have 600 seconds of video creation time left') opened the moment we clicked Generate, and again on every reload of the video page.",
     "On Basic the video carries the Synthesia logo. 'Remove watermark' is marked as paid in the Generate window, and the Billing page lists 'Download your videos' as a Starter feature; we did not try to download.",
     "The app and the public pricing page described different plans on the same day. The app's upgrade window offered Starter at €19 a month or €12 billed yearly with 15,500 credits a year, and Creator at €79 or €49 with 72,500 credits a year. The public pricing page, read without signing in and served in dollars, lists Starter at $29 or $18 with 1,250 credits a month and a Pro plan at $89 or $64 with 6,000 credits a month where Creator used to be; its own comparison table still says 'Free, Starter, and Creator'.",
     "The AI Assistant page that should have built a video from our prompt stayed on a loading screen for over 90 seconds in our session, so we built the video from a blank template instead."
    ],
    "not_tested": [
     "downloading, dubbing, personal avatars, longer videos and the paid plans"
    ],
    "report": null,
    "disclosure": null,
    "evidence_status": null,
    "result": "reported",
    "note": "Findings as written up after the session; no pass/fail per task was scored.",
    "in_catalog": true
   }
  ]
 },
 "open_questions": [
  {
   "question_id": "synthesia:cancellation_terms",
   "key": "cancellation_terms",
   "question": "Can a customer cancel at any time, and what happens to an annual plan that is cancelled mid-term?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "synthesia:data_export",
   "key": "data_export",
   "question": "Which data can a customer export, in which formats, on which plans?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "synthesia:data_location",
   "key": "data_location",
   "question": "Where is customer data stored, and can a customer choose the region?",
   "status": "open"
  },
  {
   "question_id": "synthesia:minimum_seats",
   "key": "minimum_seats",
   "question": "Is there a minimum number of seats or users on any plan?",
   "status": "open"
  }
 ],
 "vendor_answers": [],
 "agent_channels": {
  "vendor_mcp": null,
  "agent_checkout": {
   "status": "not_found",
   "detail": "No explicit support for purchases by AI agents on the vendor's own pages.",
   "checked_at": "2026-10-07",
   "method": "homepage, /pricing and the pricing page we cite, read as plain HTML (no JavaScript) and searched for explicit support of purchases by AI agents: Agentic Commerce Protocol, Instant Checkout, Agent Payments Protocol, buy in ChatGPT, agentic checkout"
  }
 }
}