HeyGen

So what does HeyGen actually do? It puts a person on screen saying your script, and nobody has to stand in front of a camera.

Pick one of the stock presenters, or record one short clip of yourself and get an avatar with your face. After that it's just typing. Write "welcome to week 2 of the course" and your avatar says it.

Translation is the part we think is most useful. Paste a YouTube link and the video comes back in another language, with a cloned voice and the lips moved to match.

Then there's Video Agent. You type an idea, like "60 second explainer for our new pricing", and it builds the lot: presenter, graphics and B-roll. You can still change every piece afterwards.

It's on your phone as well. There are iPhone and Android apps, and it plugs into Canva and ChatGPT.

Credits. Nearly every unhappy reviewer is cross about them.

Here's how it works. Paid plans give you a pot of credits each month, and every feature drains it at its own rate. HeyGen's help page puts the newest avatar model at 48 credits a minute. So Creator's 600 credits is about 12 minutes of video.

Run out on Creator? You can't top up. The only way to get more is to move up to Pro.

There used to be unlimited plans. HeyGen stopped selling them in May 2026, and long-time subscribers are not happy about it.

Read the small print on leaving, too. The help centre says payments are generally non-refundable. Unused credits vanish when you cancel, and pausing your plan wipes them as well.

And the avatars aren't magic. One Hacker News commenter says you can spot a HeyGen video by the handful of gestures it keeps repeating.

Try the free plan first. It's 3 videos a month, a minute each, and you don't need a card.

Creator is $24 a month on yearly billing, or $29 month to month. You get 600 credits, 1080p, no watermark and voice cloning.

Pro starts at $41 on yearly billing, $49 monthly, with 1,000 credits and 4K. Bigger credit tiers cost more.

Business is $119 on yearly billing, $149 monthly, plus $20 for each extra seat. One thing to know: extra seats don't bring extra credits. Everyone shares the same 1,500.

Should you pay yearly? It's cheaper, and unused credits pile up all year instead of lasting one extra month. But a year is a long time to be tied in, so we'd do a month first.

HeyGen has 4.8 on the App Store from more than 26,000 ratings, so most people come away happy.

What do they like? That it's quick to pick up. One parent who normally hands anything technical to their teenage son got videos made without him. Another reviewer liked that the free plan lets you finish a whole video before it asks for money.

The one-star reviews are a different mood, and most are from this year. Credits running out sooner than expected. Credits lost when a video failed. Emails to support going unanswered.

On Hacker News it's mostly builders. One solo developer made a first product demo with HeyGen's free plan doing the presenter. They also spotted the catch: that on-screen character lives in HeyGen, so switching services means a new face for your videos.