Synthesia Review 2026: Credits, Plans and Who It Fits

Our Synthesia review for 2026, in short: Synthesia makes videos presented by AI avatars from a script, a document or a PowerPoint, and also dubs video into other languages. Per its pricing page, Basic is free (500 credits a month, up to 10 minutes of video, a Synthesia watermark), Starter is $19 a month on monthly billing or $14 a month billed yearly, and Pro is $89 monthly or $59 a month billed yearly; Enterprise is custom. Everything runs on credits, at 100 per minute of video. It suits training, onboarding and internal-comms teams that want presenter videos without filming; the credit pool, content moderation and Pro-only features are the things to watch. Ratings are 4.6 on G2, 4.6 on Capterra and 3.9 on Trustpilot.

What Synthesia does

Synthesia is an AI video platform for businesses. Based on its pricing page and homepage, here is what it includes:

• AI avatars and voices: stock presenters (9 on Basic, 125+ on Starter, 180+ on Pro, 240+ on Enterprise), plus Personal Avatars made from your own footage and 140+ languages and voices.
• AI Video Assistant: builds a draft video from a prompt, document, link or PowerPoint. The homepage describes turning slides into "fully editable and on brand narrated videos".
• Dubbing and translation: AI dubbing of existing video, listed in 70+ languages on Basic to Pro and 140+ on Enterprise, with voice and accent preservation and lip-sync. The homepage also uses a "130+" figure, so the language count is not consistent across the site.
• Interactive and training tools: branching, quizzes and calls to action, Roleplay Sessions for practice conversations, and Survey Sessions where an avatar interviews respondents.
• Publishing: share links, embeds, downloads on paid plans, SCORM export on Enterprise, and an API.

We have not tested any of it, so what follows describes plans and limits, not video quality.

Synthesia pricing in 2026

Source: synthesia.io/pricing, captured October 13, 2026 with the Monthly and Yearly toggles. Prices checked 2026-10-13. Prices in USD; yearly figures are monthly equivalents.

Reading the numbers: the page says "Save up to 4 months with yearly". From the figures it shows, Starter drops from $19 to $14 and Pro from $89 to $59, so the yearly saving is about 26% on Starter and 34% on Pro by our arithmetic, and the full-year totals work out to roughly $168 and $708. Pro's card also lists "Flexible plan tiers", so check what larger credit volumes cost before buying.

How credits work: the plan finder on the page prices video at 100 credits per minute (the first 10 minutes are included on every plan), dubbing at 76 credits per minute and survey responses at 350 credits each. It adds that actual use "depends on what's in your videos", because avatars, B-roll, motion graphics and dubbing each count differently. So the "~12" and "~60" minute figures are estimates. Roleplay learner seats cost $29 a month ($25 yearly) each, and Studio Avatars are a paid add-on listed at $1,000 a year.

What the free plan gives: Basic offers 500 credits, one editor, nine avatars and a Synthesia watermark. Its card says content is shared by link, while "Download your content" and "Remove Synthesia logo" appear as Starter additions, so we read it as view-by-link only; unconfirmed.

What we could not confirm: the Starter personal-avatar count (the comparison table's columns were unclear); how many credits a typical finished minute with B-roll and effects uses; whether unused monthly credits roll over (Trustpilot reviewers mention expiry, see below); and the vendor claims in the next section.

Vendor claims we did not verify

The homepage says Synthesia has "over 2,000,000 users", is used by "50,000+ teams" and is trusted by 90% of the Fortune 100. For security it cites SOC 2 Type II (in its FAQ), ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and ISO 42001, GDPR compliance with EU data residency, content moderation on every video, and a live on-camera consent recording before a Personal Avatar can be created. The site is inconsistent on details such as the dubbing language count, so ask for current security reports before procurement.

What users say: ratings on review sites

Source: the three review-site pages linked above, read on October 13, 2026. G2 blocks scripted fetches, so its figures came through a page-reading tool that reads structured data; spot-check them in a browser. The Capterra page's URL uses the slug Enact but its title is Synthesia. Counts change daily.

G2 and Capterra agree at 4.6, while Trustpilot shows 3.9 from 1,823 reviews, with 72% five-star and 13% one-star. Trustpilot notes that Synthesia has not invited reviews recently and has not replied to negative reviews. Its summary of 140 recent reviews praises ease of use, onboarding help and realistic avatars, and reports frustration with strict content policies, unexpected limits, script rendering errors and avatar restrictions; recent reviews also raise credit expiry on monthly plans and moderation rejections. A page-reading summary of the Capterra reviews likewise flags content moderation as the main complaint in lower-rated reviews. These are summaries, not our findings.

Pros and cons

Who should buy it, and who shouldn't

Good fit: training, HR, sales-enablement and support teams that publish a steady flow of explainer videos and translated versions, and want a presenter without scheduling a shoot. Start on Basic with a real script, then price Starter or Pro against the minutes you actually need.

Skip it if: you want stock footage cut to a voiceover rather than a presenter (our Pictory and Murf reviews below fit better); you need detailed timeline editing, since reviewers on Capterra ask for more of it; your content might trip moderation rules; or you need a fixed monthly bill, given the credit model. Check first how many finished minutes a month you need and whether you want your own avatar.

Alternatives

For script-to-video with stock footage, see our Pictory review. If you only need the voice, our Murf review and best AI voice generators cover narration. For dubbing, see best AI dubbing and translation tools; for slide-led content, best AI presentation tools; to edit real footage, our Descript review. Two other reviews in this series fit alongside Synthesia: our Otter.ai review for turning meetings into text, and our Rytr review for drafting scripts.

Verdict

Synthesia in 2026 is a credit-based avatar video platform: a free watermarked Basic plan, Starter at $19 a month ($14 billed yearly) and Pro at $89 ($59 billed yearly), with Enterprise on request. Its strengths are the avatar and language range and the training-oriented extras; its weak points are credit estimates that depend on what is in the video, plan-gated features and mixed Trustpilot feedback on moderation and credit expiry. Ratings of 4.6 on G2 and Capterra are strong. Make one real video on Basic, count the credits it uses, then price your volume.

How this page was made: AI tools drafted the structure and wording from the vendor and review-site pages linked above, all captured on October 13, 2026. Figures should be re-checked against those pages before you rely on them.

Frequently asked questions