Evaluate Synthesia Starter first if you need a small set of repeatable client-onboarding videos. Consider Pro only when the extra capacity or a specific feature solves a documented need. A higher allowance is not a reason to turn every email into a video. If your instructions change for every client, a written checklist or short personal recording may be easier to keep accurate.
Documentation reviewed October 28 and 29, 2026. Displayed prices still need a regional checkout confirmation; this comparison does not recommend a plan on price alone. No affiliate links are included.
| Allowance | Starter | Pro, formerly Creator |
|---|---|---|
| Free allowance, every plan | 10 minutes of video or dubbing, 3 survey responses, 500 credits | 10 minutes of video or dubbing, 3 survey responses, 500 credits |
| Plan credits, monthly billing | 1,250 a month on the card | 6,000 a month on the card |
| Plan credits, annual billing | 15,000 a year on the card | 72,000 a year on the card |
| Combined balance in the credit guide | 1,750 a month, or 21,000 a year | 6,500 a month, or 78,000 a year |
| Buying question | Does the small recurring workload fit? | Does measured usage justify the larger allowance? |
Sources: the official pricing page and the official credit guide, read October 29, 2026. The two displays are not in conflict; they cover different scopes. The card quotes what the plan adds, which the page labels “On top of the free allowance”, and the guide quotes the balance including the free 500 credits, which is why the annual totals differ by twelve months of them. Reading the two figures as alternatives, or adding the base credits twice, is the easiest mistake to make here. Note also that the ten free minutes are a separate minute allowance, not something the 500 credits buy.
Decide whether onboarding needs video at all
Consider an independent designer repeatedly explaining how to submit brand assets. The current process is an email containing a checklist and a folder link. A reusable video could demonstrate the steps, but it still needs an accessible written version and a clear place to ask questions. This is an editorial scenario, not an observed customer result.
List the questions clients actually repeat. Separate stable instructions, such as how to name an upload, from changing facts such as prices, deadlines and individual folder links. Put the changing facts in the written message. That reduces the amount of video you must replace when the project changes.
If the problem is an unclear process, start with our client-onboarding checklist. Buying video capacity will not resolve missing responsibilities or an ambiguous approval step.
Estimate updates, not just the first set of videos
Suppose you plan three two-minute explanations: preparing assets, reviewing a draft and requesting a change. The first approved set contains six minutes. If every clip later needs a complete replacement, the submitted production workload could double before you add another topic. This arithmetic describes a planning scenario; it is not a claim that Synthesia bills every edit in that way.
Before committing, establish how the current product charges for generation, revisions and your chosen features. Record the allowance before and after a representative sample, if you have an account. Keep its result separate from the official allowance table.
The credit guide explains that credits are shared across features. A balance used for other work is not entirely available for onboarding videos. This is why we do not promise a fixed number of finished videos from either plan.
That guide does publish rates you can plan with. It states that “Video creation uses about 100 credits per minute of finished video”, with more avatar screen time costing slightly more, and that AI dubbing costs 80 credits a minute with lip sync or 40 without, while a survey response costs 350 credits. The pricing page’s own estimator quotes dubbing at 76 credits a minute without stating the lip-sync condition, so take any dubbing figure as rate-dependent rather than fixed. The pricing page also warns that these are “Estimates only. Actual credit use depends on what’s in your videos”, naming avatars, B-roll, motion graphics and dubbing as counting differently.
What the capacity actually looks like
The clearest way to read capacity is to use the vendor’s own conversion rather than ours. On annual billing the pricing page states Starter gives “Up to ~150 minutes of video / year, on top of the free allowance” and Pro “Up to ~720 minutes of video / year, on top of the free allowance”. That is the figure to plan a year of onboarding against, and it is capacity for the whole year, not a monthly quota.
On monthly billing the same rate puts the card’s 1,250 credits at roughly 12 minutes of finished video a month on Starter and 6,000 credits at roughly 60 minutes on Pro, with the ten free minutes on top in either case. Those two figures are our arithmetic from the stated 100-credit average, not a guarantee, and they assume you spend nothing on dubbing, surveys, avatar building or other assets that draw on the same balance.
How the allowance arrives differs by billing period, and this is the detail that catches people out. The credit guide says annual plans “receive the full year’s credits when the plan starts or renews”, so an annual subscriber can spend the year’s capacity in the first month if the work demands it. Monthly subscribers receive a month at a time. Credits “are reset at the start of the billing period and there is no accumulation of unused credit”, which means a monthly plan resets monthly and an annual plan resets annually, not that every subscriber loses an unused balance at the end of each month. Unused credits also do not carry over when you upgrade mid-cycle, and regenerating an edited video recalculates credits for the new version, so the revision cycle described above is a recurring cost rather than a one-off.
Starter: a smaller commitment to validate the format
Starter is the first candidate for a small, stable library. Its practical advantage is that you can define a narrow purpose before expanding production. The constraint is capacity when updates, alternate versions and other uses compete for the same resources.
Use one complete onboarding topic as the evaluation unit. Can a client understand what to do, find the written instructions and identify the next step? Ask a reviewer unfamiliar with your process to describe the action after watching. Their confusion is more useful evidence than a polished-looking avatar.
Pro: more capacity needs a business reason
Pro deserves a closer look when the workload is regular and you can explain why the smaller plan is insufficient. It may be the wrong purchase when you have not yet used the initial videos or when frequent process changes make the library expensive to maintain.
October’s naming change matters: Creator is now called Pro in the official plan-change guidance, which says the price and features stay the same and that subscribers need to do nothing. The allowance did change: it records existing Creator subscribers moving from 3,600 to 6,500 credits a month. Do not assume an older comparison’s credit allowance still applies because it uses a familiar name, and distinguish the one-time signup allowance of interactive avatar minutes from a recurring monthly entitlement. Source: Synthesia’s October 1 plan update
Price verification before purchase
On October 29, 2026 the official pricing page served our request Starter at $19 a month, or $14 a month on annual billing with $168 billed yearly, and Pro at $89 a month, or $59 a month on annual billing with $708 billed yearly, with a cheaper first month of $9 and $49 respectively. The page uses a dollar sign without naming a currency code, and the amounts are region-dependent: a browser session from Japan was served the same plans in yen, at ¥2,980 a month for Starter on annual billing. None of these are a confirmed quote for your country. Third-party summaries we read during research reported different numbers again, which is a good reason to trust the live page and your own basket over any comparison article, including this one.
Put the price beside the capacity above. On annual billing in the view we were served, Starter costs $168 a year for about 150 minutes of finished video plus the free ten minutes a month, and Pro costs $708 a year for about 720 minutes. If a stable onboarding library is six to ten minutes that you refresh a few times a year, Starter is the plan to test and Pro is an answer to a problem you do not have yet.
Record the plan, currency, tax, amount due now, renewal amount, billing period and any promotion expiry. For annual billing, compare the actual annual commitment, not just a displayed monthly equivalent. Do not purchase a larger plan solely because the introductory month looks inexpensive.
Keep approvals and private data out of the experiment
- Start with invented company details and a generic folder diagram rather than a real client’s dashboard.
- Approve a script that describes only an established process. Do not let a writing assistant invent guarantees, deadlines or customer testimonials.
- Confirm rights and consent for the selected presenter, voice and uploaded assets under current vendor terms.
- Review the final video against the approved script and written checklist. Check captions, names and the instruction at the end.
- Choose the sharing audience deliberately. Do not put credentials or client-only links inside a reusable public video.
- Assign a review date and owner. Replace outdated instructions and verify where the previous version was shared.
Frequently asked questions
Is Creator a separate current option?
The October update renames Creator to Pro. Check your account and current quote rather than treating the names as two different tiers.
Can I use the table as a guaranteed video-minute budget?
No. Credits and the free minutes are separate allowances, the credit rate is described as an average, and feature usage matters. Verify the charging rules for the exact task you intend to perform.
Do unused credits roll over?
No. The credit guide says credits reset at the start of the billing period with no accumulation of unused credit, and that unused credits do not carry over when you upgrade mid-cycle. The billing period is the month on a monthly plan and the year on an annual plan, where the full year’s credits arrive at the start or renewal. You can top up from billing if you run out.
Is the capacity monthly or yearly?
It depends on what you buy. The cards quote credits a month on monthly billing and credits a year on annual billing, and the pricing page converts the annual figures to about 150 and about 720 minutes of video a year. The ten free minutes are described as a monthly allowance on every plan.
Should every onboarding message become a video?
No. Keep changing dates, individualized terms and quick reference information in writing. Use video when a demonstration helps the client complete a task.
Best for your situation
| Situation | Next step |
|---|---|
| A few stable explanations | Evaluate Starter, with a written companion checklist |
| Measured recurring demand beyond the smaller allowance | Compare Pro using a verified renewal quote |
| A burst of production in one month | Annual billing releases the year’s credits at the start; price the year, not the month |
| Different instructions for every client | Improve the written process before committing to a video library |
Sources and method
Allowances, credit rates, the allocation and reset rules and the displayed prices were read from Synthesia’s official pricing page and official credit guide on October 29, 2026, and the Creator-to-Pro change from the October 1 plan-update article on October 28, 2026. The onboarding examples and review procedure are editorial guidance. The monthly minute estimates are our arithmetic from the stated 100-credits-per-minute average; the annual minute figures are the pricing page’s own. The currency code, the amount your country’s checkout would charge and real consumption on your own edits remain unverified, as does the difference between the guide’s dubbing rates and the estimator’s 76 credits a minute.
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