Synthesys Review 2026: What 3,500 Credits Really Buy
Our verdict
Synthesys is a genuinely broad, well-bundled video agent, and most of what it advertises survives checking: one subscription covers 11 formats from 30-credit faceless stories to TV commercials, commercial rights are included on all four tiers, voiceover, music, scripts and agent chat are free and unlimited on every plan, credit packs never expire, the app quotes each video before you approve it and a failed generation costs nothing, and the yearly discount is a real 31.0% / 30.5% / 30.3% / 30.2% behind a badge that only claims 30%. What decides the purchase is arithmetic on the vendor's own page: the pricing page's credit table lists a 15-second TV commercial at 647 credits under a column headed any resolution, while that same row's note says 1,562 at 1080p and 3,152 at 4K — so Starter's printed coverage of five commercials is two at the row's own 1080p figure, and the Terms separately allow the credits any tool costs to be adjusted at any time at the vendor's discretion. Two more facts sit on top of it: three separate vendor documents give three different answers on refunds, and the operative one is 72 hours with a 25%-of-credits cap, while no free plan and no free trial means the only way to test the product is to pay. The independent record is thin and dated rather than damning — Trustpilot 4.4 from 114 reviews with only 15 in the last 12 months, G2 4.3 from 16 reviews on an unclaimed profile while the pricing page displays 4.7 — and the most substantive recent complaint is about credits being deducted at a rate the buyer did not expect. 3.8 is the score for buyer risk once the four dimensions, which average 4.0, meet a meter that contradicts itself.
- Price basis: Starter $29 a month or $20 billed yearly ($240 a year, 3,500 credits), Pro $59/$41 ($492, 8,000), Agency $119/$83 ($996, 17,000) and Max from $199/$139 (from $1,668, 30,000 to 250,000+). The yearly saving is 31.0% / 30.5% / 30.3% / 30.2% (calculated) against a badge that only claims Save 30%. There is no free plan and no free trial
- The real divide: the credit table's TV commercial row gives the format two prices — 647 credits in the Credits / video column headed any resolution, and 1,562 at 1080p plus 3,152 at 4K in that row's own note — so Starter's 3,500 credits buy five commercials as printed and two at the 1080p figure the row itself supplies
- Three vendor documents answer differently on refunds: the current policy allows 72 hours within a 25%-of-credits cap, help-centre article 164 promises a 30-day guarantee, and article 165 says no refund will be issued for the unused duration. The vendor's Terms also reserve the right to adjust how many credits any tool or model costs at any time
Last updated Pricing verified
Synthesys' pricing page prices a 15-second TV commercial two different ways on the same row: the Credits / video column says 647, under a heading that reads any resolution, while the service column of that very row says 1,562 at 1080p and 3,152 at 4K. The coverage figures beside it are computed from 647 — so the printed 5 videos on Starter is two at the row's own 1080p price. The prices themselves are honest: $29 to $20 is a real 31.0% yearly discount.
What it does well
One subscription replaces a stack, and the formats are not rationed. The comparison table lists
11 formats — UGC ad, TV commercial, animation story, faceless story, TikTok short, app promo,
explainer video, presentation video, YouTube and TikTok video with an AI presenter, sales video
(VSL) and Restyle a video — and marks every one of them Included on all four tiers. Around them
sit image generation, video clips up to 30 seconds, a voiceover studio and MP4 download. In other
words, the cheapest tier is not a cut-down product with the real features held back; what it is
short of is credits, and one unlocking step per tier.
The yearly discount is real, and the badge understates it. 1 − 20 ÷ 29 = 31.0%,
1 − 41 ÷ 59 = 30.5%, 1 − 83 ÷ 119 = 30.3%, 1 − 139 ÷ 199 = 30.2% (all calculated), against a
badge and a navigation item that only claim Save 30%. One division checks it, and it errs in the
buyer’s favour.
Commercial rights are included on every tier, and the contract says you own the output. The
comparison table marks Commercial rights as Included across all four plans, and the Terms state:
“The content produced by the customer will be proprietary information owned by the customer and
there will not be any copyright claims made by Nooveau Media on the content that the customer
creates using Synthesys AI Apps.” The pricing FAQ adds that you can use the videos in paid ads,
client work, product pages, training and social media with no royalties, attribution or per-video
licence fees. For an agency or a course creator that is the difference between a tool and a
liability.
The meter is quote-first, which is the right design for a credit product. The page states that the app shows the exact price before anything is generated and that a failed generation costs nothing. Given how much the published rate card wobbles (see below), quote-before-render is the feature that makes the product usable at all — you are never spending blind, only budget-planning blind.
The cheapest formats are genuinely cheap, and the expensive parts are free. A faceless story is
30 credits, an AI-presenter sales or YouTube video 161, a presentation 172, a TikTok short or app
promo 300 — so Starter’s 3,500 credits a month covers 116 faceless stories. Voiceover, music,
scripts and chatting with the agent are Free and Unlimited on every plan, which removes the
line items most competitors meter separately.
Packs of credits never expire. Plan credits reset at the next monthly grant — that is stated
plainly and it is normal for this category — but pack credits never expire, are consumed only
after plan credits, and at the sale prices on the page ($10 for 1,000, $25 for 2,750, $50 for
6,000, i.e. $1 = 100, 110 and 120 credits) they undercut some plan tiers on unit price.
Output is not artificially capped by tier. Resolution runs 720p to 4K depending on the model
and aspect ratios cover 9:16, 16:9, 1:1, 4:5 on all four tiers, with MP4 download included. That
is unusual: most products in this category clip resolution or aspect ratios to push upgrades.
Pricing: both billing modes, and the tier that changes what you can do
| Plan, 11 Oct 2026 | Monthly | Billed yearly | Yearly total | Discount | Credits / month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $29 | $20 | $240 | 31.0% | 3,500 |
| Pro | $59 | $41 | $492 | 30.5% | 8,000 |
| Agency | $119 | $83 | $996 | 30.3% | 17,000 |
| Max | from $199 | $139 | from $1,668 | 30.2% | 30,000 – 250,000+ |
The page loads with yearly billing already selected, so the number a visitor sees first is the discounted one. Prices are in US dollars and exclude tax; sales tax or VAT is added at checkout.
Agency is the tier that changes what you can do, not just how much. It is the first tier with
the winning video ads library and competitor tracking, and the first that can publish and schedule
finished videos to TikTok, Instagram and Facebook without leaving the product. Pro is the first with
Brand Kit, which applies logos, colours, products and end cards to every video. Max is the only tier
with a dedicated account manager — support is listed as Email on the other three — and the only
one with a credits slider that runs from 30,000 to 250,000+ before the page routes you to sales.
Upgrades apply immediately with a prorated difference; downgrades take effect at the next renewal;
and the FAQ states plainly that There is no contract.
Open the live
pricing page — it opens on the yearly tab, so switch it before you compare.
The credit table contradicts itself on one row
This is the finding that decides the purchase, and it is not a rounding argument.
The Understand your credits table is headed Credits / video — 15 seconds, any resolution*.
Its TV commercial row reads, verbatim:
TV commercial 1,562 at 1080p, 3,152 at 4K 647 5 videos 12 videos 26 videos 46 videosRead that row once, and a 15-second TV commercial costs 647 credits. Read it again — the service
column of the same row — and it costs 1,562 at 1080p and 3,152 at 4K. The coverage figures
next to it (5 videos on Starter, 12 on Pro, 26 on Agency, 46 on Max) are the ones computed
from 647: 3,500 ÷ 647 = 5.4. They are not computed from 1,562, which would give two.
The table knows a distinction exists, because its footnote says so: figures are “the same at 720p
and 1080p for every format except TV commercials.” And other rows show what a consistent entry
looks like. Animation story 627 at 4K | 387 and Restyle a video 600 at 4K | 360 each carry one
base price in the credits column and one 4K figure in the name — a buyer can tell which is which.
The TV commercial row puts two resolutions in the name and a third price in the column headed
any resolution, then builds the coverage table on the smallest of the three.
Take the row’s own 1080p number and the tier changes shape. 3,500 ÷ 1,562 = 2.24 — two
commercials, not five. At 4K, 3,500 ÷ 3,152 = 1.11 — one. For a buyer whose work is TV-style
commercials rather than faceless stories, the difference between “five a month” and “two a month” is
the difference between one tier and the next one up. The same arithmetic moves Pro from 12 to five
and Agency from 26 to ten.
And the rate card is not fixed by the contract either. The Terms reserve: “The number of credits required to use any individual tool, model, or generation type on Synthesys AI Studio may be adjusted at any time at our discretion.” The same Fair Use section states that daily generation limits apply to all plans, Enterprise included, and that processing speeds may be reduced or queued when thresholds are reached.
An independent buyer describes the same gap from the other end. On Trustpilot, Neil Branson (GB, 1 star, 18 January 2026, no reply from the company) writes: “on-page tooltips and pricing language stated that each credit equated to one generated video”, and “In practice, videos were deducted at a significantly higher rate (e.g. 10 credits per video), with no clear or prominent warning prior to generation. The effective cost only became apparent after credits had already been consumed.” That is one person’s account of one plan and it is not proof of a defect — but it is the same failure mode the table itself exhibits, seen from the paying side, and it is the most substantive recent complaint on the profile.
None of this means the numbers are wrong on purpose. It means the only way to know what a tier buys is to measure it, which is why the practical advice below is to buy one month and watch the meter rather than to pick a tier from the coverage column. Check the current credit table against the formats you actually need before you commit to a year.
Three official answers on refunds
The vendor publishes three different refund positions, and only one of them can govern your payment.
| Document | Date printed on it | What it says |
|---|---|---|
synthesys.io/ai-refund-policy/ | In effect: September 27th, 2026 | You can request a refund within 3 days (72 hours) of your purchase, as long as you have used no more than 25% of your plan's credits. |
| Help centre article 164 | Last updated on March 7, 2025 | Yes, we do provide a 30 days refund guarantee for the Synthesys Clone Unlimited product. |
| Help centre article 165 | Last updated on January 19, 2024 | all plans are paid upfront and no refund will be issued for the unused duration of your subscription period. |
The operative policy is the tightest of the three, and it also caps usage: no more than 875 credits on Starter, 2,000 on Pro, 4,250 on Agency or 7,500 on Max 30k within those 72 hours. It also says what happens if a refund is granted — unused credits from that payment are removed and the plan ends, while credits already used are never charged back.
Article 165 has aged out in a second way: it still instructs customers to cancel from a My Plan
section, while the current policy routes cancellation through Manage account → Plans & credits →
Manage billing. Anyone following the older page will look for a screen that no longer exists.
Two practical consequences. First, the 72-hour clock starts at purchase, not at first use — so a buyer who subscribes on Friday and evaluates on Monday has already spent the window. Second, the 25% cap and the 72 hours are both conditions, so a refund request has to be early and light.
Cancellation itself is straightforward once located, and it is written in the buyer’s favour: the plan stays active until the end of the billing period and remaining credits stay usable until then, with no further payments taken.
Who should not buy Synthesys
Where this sits against the alternatives
The closest comparison in the same category is avatar-and-voice video, and on price the field is
tight. A Capterra comparison block read on the same day lists Synthesia from US$29.00 a month
with 4.6 from 314 reviews and HeyGen at 4.7 from 319, and G2 lists Synthesia at 4.6 from 2,843
reviews and HeyGen at 4.8 from 1,973. Synthesys matches those entry prices at $29 monthly, or
$20 billed yearly, and its 11 bundled formats are broader than what a single avatar tool covers —
but its independent sample is an order of magnitude smaller, and the credit-metering ambiguity above
has no equivalent in either competitor’s published pricing.
For a fuller picture of how this category prices the same job, see the AI Studios review and the Zebracat studio breakdown, both of which were verified the same way: first-party pricing pages read in a real browser in both billing modes, then the contract.
What was checked, and what was not
Every figure here was read on 11 October 2026 from the vendor’s own pricing page (both billing modes, in a browser), its Terms and Conditions, its refund and cancellation policy, two help-centre articles, its affiliate page and affiliate kit, and from Trustpilot, G2 and Capterra. The credit table was verified twice — from the rendered page and from the raw HTML — because the finding above turns on it.
What this review does not claim: no account was created, nothing was purchased and no video was generated, so nothing here is a judgement of output quality, render speed or customer support in practice. Reddit was searched and produced no citable first-hand user accounts of this product at all, so no claim about “what users say” on Reddit appears above; the only individual buyer quotation used is the Trustpilot review named in context.
The tool page for Synthesys — pricing tiers, scores and the short version — is at the Synthesys tool page.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Synthesys cost?
$29 a month for Starter, or $20 a month billed yearly at $240 a year. $59 / $41 for Pro
($492, 8,000 credits), $119 / $83 for Agency ($996, 17,000) and from $199 / $139 for Max
(from $1,668, 30,000 credits and up). The page loads on the yearly tab. No free plan, no free
trial, and prices exclude tax.
How many videos do 3,500 credits buy?
It depends which row of the vendor’s own table you read. A faceless story is 30 credits, so
Starter covers 116 of them. A UGC ad is 522, so about six. A TV commercial is printed as 647 in
the Credits / video column but as 1,562 at 1080p in the same row’s own note — five commercials a
month or two, depending on which figure is real.
Do unused credits roll over?
Plan credits do not: they reset at the next monthly grant. Credits bought as a pack never expire, are used after plan credits, and can only be purchased inside the app by an account with an active plan.
Can I get a refund?
Three vendor documents answer differently. The current policy allows 72 hours from purchase if you have used no more than 25% of the plan’s credits; help-centre article 164 promises a 30-day guarantee; article 165 says no refund will be issued for the unused duration. Ask support@synthesys.io which applies to your account, in writing, before paying.
Is there a free trial?
No. The vendor’s own affiliate kit instructs promoters to be accurate that rendering videos needs a
paid plan, from $29 a month or $20 a month billed yearly — although a Capterra listing for the
same product displays Free trial. The cheapest way to evaluate it is one month of Starter.
Who owns what I generate?
You do, on every tier. The comparison table marks commercial rights as included on all four plans, and the Terms state that content produced by the customer is the customer’s proprietary information with no copyright claims made by the vendor. The pricing FAQ adds that videos can be used in paid ads, client work, product pages, training and social media without royalties or attribution.
Which tier should a first-time buyer choose?
Start at Starter monthly if you are measuring, Pro if brand consistency matters, and Agency if you need to publish from inside the product or want the competitor ad library. Max only makes sense once you know your per-video consumption, because a credits slider from 30,000 to 250,000+ is not much help while the per-format rate is still in dispute.
Pros
- The yearly discount is real and slightly better than advertised: $29 to $20 is 31.0% off, $59 to $41 is 30.5%, $119 to $83 is 30.3% and $199 to $139 is 30.2% (calculated), against a badge that only claims Save 30%
- One subscription replaces a stack: 16 sub-products covering 11 video formats, from UGC ads and TikTok shorts to TV commercials, animation stories, faceless stories, explainers, presentations, AI-presenter sales videos and restyling your own footage
- Full commercial rights are included on all four tiers, and the Terms state that the customer owns what they generate — so client work, paid ads and courses need no per-video licence
- The app quotes every video before you approve it and a failed generation costs nothing, which keeps the cost of experimenting low
- The cheapest formats are genuinely cheap: a faceless story is 30 credits, so Starter's 3,500 credits a month covers 116 of them, and voiceover, music, scripts and agent chat are free and unlimited on every plan
- Credit packs never expire, and at the sale prices on the page ($50 for 6,000 credits) they cost less per credit than some plan tiers do
- Output is not artificially capped: resolution runs from 720p to 4K depending on the model, aspect ratios cover 9:16, 16:9, 1:1 and 4:5, and every tier includes MP4 download
- Max is built to scale rather than to renegotiate: a credits slider takes the tier from 30,000 to 250,000+ before sales gets involved, and only Max carries a dedicated account manager
- The entry price is competitive for the category: $29 a month, or $20 a month billed yearly, for the whole agent and all 11 formats, against a Capterra comparison listing Synthesia from US$29 a month
Cons
- The credit table contradicts itself on the same row: TV commercial is listed at 647 credits under a column headed any resolution, while that row's own note says 1,562 at 1080p and 3,152 at 4K — so Starter's 3,500 credits buy 5 commercials by the printed coverage column but only 2 at the 1080p figure the row itself supplies, and 1 at 4K (calculated). Test one video on the cheapest format and read the actual deduction before choosing a tier
- Three official documents give three different answers on refunds, and the current one is the tightest: 72 hours and no more than 25% of the plan's credits used, against a help-centre article promising a 30-day guarantee and another saying no refund will be issued at all. Ask support@synthesys.io which applies to you, in writing, before paying, and keep the reply
- There is no free trial and no free plan: evaluating the product means paying at least $29, or $240 up front on the yearly plan — even though the vendor's own affiliate kit tells promoters to be accurate that rendering videos needs a paid plan
- The Terms reserve the right to change how many credits any tool, model or generation type costs at any time at the vendor's discretion, and plan credits reset at the next monthly grant rather than rolling over
- Useful features sit behind tier walls that are easy to miss: Brand Kit starts at Pro, the competitor ad library and social publishing start at Agency, and a dedicated account manager is Max only, while support is email-only on the other three tiers
- The independent record is thin and dated, and the vendor's own badges run ahead of it: Trustpilot is 4.4 from 114 reviews with only 15 in the last 12 months, and G2 is 4.3 from 16 reviews on an unclaimed profile while the pricing page displays 4.7
The bottom line
Synthesys bundles more into one subscription than almost anything else in this category, and the bundling is real rather than nominal: 11 formats on every tier, commercial rights on every tier, unlimited voiceover and music, credit packs that never expire, a quote before every render, and a yearly discount that is a true 31.0% behind a badge claiming 30%.
What holds the score at 3.8 is not the product’s capability but its arithmetic. The pricing
page’s credit table gives the same 15-second TV commercial two prices on one row — 647 in a column
headed any resolution, and 1,562 at 1080p in that row’s own note — and then computes Starter’s
printed coverage from the smaller one, so five commercials is really two. The Terms let the vendor
change what any tool costs at any time. Three separate documents give three different answers about
refunds, and the operative one is 72 hours from purchase. And there is no free way in at all. The
four dimensions average 4.0; 3.8 is the risk-adjusted score.
- Buy one month of Starter and measure before you commit. Generate the format you actually need, read the credits deducted, and compare that against the table’s own note rather than its coverage column.
- Ask support two questions in writing: which refund policy applies to your account, and what each of your formats currently costs in credits. If either answer is vague, stay on monthly billing.
- Pick the tier by capability, not by credits. Brand Kit starts at Pro; publishing and the competitor ad library start at Agency. If either matters, the entry tier is not the cheaper option — it is just the first payment.
Prices and terms were read on 11 October 2026, and every percentage and per-video figure above is calculated here. Verify the live pages before paying. Check the current Synthesys pricing.