Every “Synthesia alternative” list opens with the avatar count, which is the least useful number on the page. Nobody buys 180 faces. They buy the right to put words into one of them and export the result — a minutes question wearing an avatar costume.
Synthesia’s pricing page now says the quiet part out loud: credits are “the shared currency across all AI usage-based features.” Video, dubbing, surveys and Syren drink from one pool. That reorganises the comparison, because an alternative is only cheaper if its minutes survive a revision round.
First, the exchange rate nobody prints
On Synthesia in November 2026, Pro is 6,000 credits, which the page translates to about 60 minutes of video — roughly 100 credits per finished minute. Starter’s 1,250 credits buy about 12 minutes; the free Basic plan’s 500 cover 10 minutes, watermarked, with no download.
Run that on a real job. A 12-module compliance course at four minutes each is 48 finished minutes before anyone asks for a change — four-fifths of Pro, or a Starter plan plus three months of waiting.
HeyGen — the like-for-like swap
HeyGen is the closest drop-in replacement: Avatar III/IV engines, a Video Agent, one custom video avatar even on the $29 Creator plan, 1080p export and branding removed. Instead of a minute allowance it sells credits with one month of rollover and a per-video ceiling — one minute on free, thirty on Pro at $49.
Rollover matters more than it sounds. Training libraries are bursty: nothing for six weeks, then eleven modules. Credits that survive a quiet month fit that shape better than a hard monthly cap.
Colossyan — built for the people who answer to an LMS
Colossyan’s free Starter tier is unusually specific: 20 minutes a month on NEO, half a minute on NEO2, fifteen translations, ten interactive video slots, 300-plus avatars. Professional at about $59 a month on annual billing raises it to 30 NEO minutes plus 10 NEO2, five SCORM exports and three editors.
SCORM is the tell. If output has to report completion inside Workday or Docebo, this is the shortest path — and the omissions look deliberate: minutes never roll over, and a filmed studio avatar is a $1,000-a-year add-on.
D-ID — the cheap talking head
Lowest entry price here: free for three minutes, Lite around $4.70 a month on annual billing, Pro $16, Advanced $108, 30-minute cap per video. It behaves like an API company with a studio attached — fine for one presenter clip in a product tour, thin on course furniture like quizzes, branching and LMS handoff.
Elai — the deck converter
Slides and documents in, narrated video out, aimed squarely at L&D. That start point differs from Synthesia’s script-first editor, which is why people shortlist it. Public rate cards are thin and the site pushes a demo before a price, so get a written quote before planning twenty modules around it.
Staying put is also an answer
Enterprise customers can stop reading: unlimited minutes, 240-plus avatars, 140-plus languages. Below that, the limits that bite are sideways. Starter allows three guests and 125-plus avatars; Pro jumps to five guests, 180-plus avatars and five personal avatars. Guest seats are reviewers, and reviewers are the bottleneck in any course needing sign-off.
Official image from the ElevenLabs website. Narration without a face can be bought separately, usually for less.
Where the pricing pages get cute
Three traps, in the order they cost money.
Credits are not minutes, and the rate moves per feature. On Pro, 6,000 credits buy about 60 minutes of video but 78 of dubbing. Budget the pool per feature.
Annual billing front-loads the risk. Colossyan hands over the year’s minutes at purchase and rolls nothing; HeyGen rolls one month. An annual discount on bursty work is a forecast, not a saving.
The paywall is the export, not the avatar. Free tiers hand you faces and take away the download. Previewing a script read aloud is fine; needing a file means you are already a customer.
A combination that survives a revision round
Write the script in a plain document, not the editor. Render narration-only modules through ElevenLabs where no face is needed — fixing one sentence costs a generation, not a re-render. Save avatar minutes for compliance acknowledgements, onboarding intros, anything with a signature attached. Put screen-recorded walkthroughs in Colossyan when an LMS has to grade them.
Our AI tools for video creation roundup covers the non-avatar half of the pipeline, and Runway alternatives is the next read if generated shots are the gap.
Three questions that arrive after the invoice
Is there a genuinely free Synthesia alternative? Yes, and none exports clean video. Synthesia watermarks and blocks download on free; HeyGen gives three one-minute watermarked videos; D-ID gives three minutes. Budget one paid month per finished module.
Can I use my own face? Synthesia Pro at about $89 includes five personal avatars, HeyGen includes one from Creator at $29, and Colossyan films a studio avatar for $1,000 a year.
Does translation come out of the same minutes? At Synthesia, yes — dubbing draws on the same pool. Colossyan bundles 15 translations a month on Starter, 20 on Professional.
One paid month, one module, then decide. Prices were read off vendor pricing pages in the first week of November 2026; nobody paid for placement.