Arcads API with Arcads API pricing, key, docs and an alternative for programmatic UGC ads

Yes. Arcads runs a public REST API it calls the external API, and the documentation is readable without an account. The Swagger page is at external-api.arcads.ai/docs and the machine-readable specification sits next to it at /docs-json, covering more than 80 operations under /v1 and /v2 paths. The base URL is https://external-api.arcads.ai.

Arcads also hosts an MCP server at mcp.arcads.ai, which lets an AI assistant drive an Arcads workspace. Its help centre says the connector needs an active subscription with remaining credits.

The addresses people tend to guess do not work. docs.arcads.ai and developers.arcads.ai do not resolve, and arcads.ai/api returns a 404. Arcads has two marketing pages titled for the API, one for video generation and one for lip sync, and neither links to the documentation, lists an endpoint or states a price. That is probably why Arcads itself was absent from the first page of Google for this search when we checked.

There is no single API key. Arcads uses HTTP Basic authentication with two values, a Client ID and a Client Secret, sent as a base64 pair in the Authorization header. The help centre gives the steps: go to Settings, then Public API, and click Generate credentials. The secret is displayed once. If you lose it you generate a new pair. A request with no credentials returns a 403.

Who can actually see that button is where Arcads contradicts itself. The help centre and its FAQ read as if any workspace can generate credentials. The terms of service say this: "The API is only accessible to the Client if he subscribes to a Customized offer", and they define a Customized offer as one made following a call. Review sites say API access starts on the Pro plan. We could not confirm which is true without a paid account.

If the API is the reason you are buying, do not rely on the plan card. Ask Arcads in writing which plan includes Public API credentials and whether there is a minimum term, before you enter a card for the 72-hour trial, which converts to Starter on its own.

Arcads does not sell the API separately. Calls spend the credits in your plan, at the same rates as the app, and a GET /v1/credits call returns what is left. So the price of the API is the price of an Arcads plan, and Arcads does not publish that in dollars on any public page.

The meter is published. A talking actor on the Arcads 1.0, audio-driven or OmniHuman models costs 800 credits per minute, per actor, and the help centre adds that length is always rounded up. A 15-second hook test and a 60-second ad cost the same 800 credits. Starter includes 8,000 credits a month and Creator 16,000, which is 10 and 20 one-actor videos if nothing needs a second take. Other models have their own rates: Veo 3.1 costs 800 credits, Kling 3.0 from 176 to 560, Seedance 2.0 from 96 to 1,620 depending on resolution, captions 80 and a translation 240.

Starter and Creator accounts are blocked when the month's credits run out and unused credits do not roll over. Pro, Scale and Business keep running and are charged per extra credit, at a rate that is not public. The widely repeated figures of $110 for Starter and $220 for Creator come from review sites. If $110 is right, one actor minute works out to about $11, and so does a 30-second ad. Treat that as an estimate built on an unverified price. More on the plans is in our Arcads pricing breakdown.

The classic flow is three calls: POST /v1/scripts creates a script with the actors and voices you chose, POST /v1/scripts/{scriptId}/generate starts the render, and GET /v1/scripts/{scriptId}/videos returns the status and a download link. A newer endpoint, POST /v2/talking-actors/generate, does it in one request. You can list actors with filters for age and gender, list voices, organise work into brands and folders, generate b-roll in 5 or 10 second clips, and call third-party video models through POST /v2/videos/generate, including Veo 3.1, Kling 2.6 and 3.0, Grok Video and several Seedance versions.

Three limits are worth knowing before you design a pipeline. Completion is by polling only. No generation endpoint accepts a callback address, and the one webhook in the specification is an inbound trigger for Arcads workflows. Rate limits and concurrency are not documented at all. The only ceiling in writing is a clause in the terms that treats more than 40 requests per second as fraudulent. And the maximum script length, video length and output resolution for talking actors are not published in the specification or the help article.

There are no native Arcads apps on the common automation platforms we checked, so most teams call the API from their own code or let an AI coding agent do it. A community repository of agent skills for the Arcads API has over 1,500 stars, which says a lot about how it is used in practice.

Arcads' terms grant "a non-exclusive, personal and non-transferable license on the Video". For a brand running its own ads that is fine. For an agency delivering videos to clients, or a product that passes Arcads output on to its own customers, a non-transferable licence is the clause to raise with Arcads before you sell anything.

Editing is limited to a closed list: cropping, music, text and subtitles, emoji, b-roll, GIFs, sound effects, format changes and adding your name, brand and logo. Anything else needs written approval. You may not use a video to create a business competing with Arcads, or feed it into other AI software that modifies the image, voice or speech. Misuse of an actor-based video carries a lump-sum indemnity of 500,000 euros per breach after 30 days' notice, and Arcads can ask you to delete videos everywhere if a creator withdraws.

The billing clauses matter as much. A subscription must be cancelled no later than 72 hours before the period ends, a started period is due in full, and unused credits are neither refunded nor carried forward when you leave or downgrade. The help centre allows a full refund only if you used zero credits and ask within 30 days of the charge. Our Arcads AI review goes through what buyers say about each of these.

Arcads is the only one of the main ad-video APIs with no public price, so here is what the others publish, read on the same day. Creatify sells API plans at $99 a month for 500 credits and $299 for 2,000, and an avatar video costs 5 credits per 30 seconds: 99 cents on the smaller plan and 75 cents on the larger. Building the video from a product link adds one credit.

HeyGen has no API plan at all. You load a prepaid wallet and pay by the second, which puts a 30-second video at 50 cents with a stock Avatar III presenter, $2.42 with an Avatar IV digital twin and $3.60 on Avatar V. Those rates changed in September and most guides still show the old ones, which we cover in HeyGen API pricing.

Against those, 800 Arcads credits for the same 30 seconds only makes sense if the result is better for your ad, and for realistic talking actors many buyers think it is. Just price it before you commit, and remember that Arcads rounds every clip up to a minute while HeyGen bills the seconds you use. The wider field, including what each API leaves out, is in AI UGC video generator API pricing.

Use the Arcads API if you already know what the ad should say and need it rendered many times by code. An agency with approved scripts for forty clients, an app that produces a talking-actor video for every new product in a catalogue, a media buyer whose AI agent turns winning hooks into fresh variants overnight: these are rendering jobs, and Arcads has the actor library, the model choice and the endpoints for them.

It is also the better choice if you need more than a presenter in a vertical frame. Through one API you can reach Veo, Kling and Seedance for product shots and b-roll, generate music, and pull competitor ads for reference. AdsGen does none of that.

Go in with the open questions answered. Get the plan that includes API credentials named in writing, get a dollar rate for overage credits, and check that a non-transferable licence fits how you deliver work.

AdsGen's API starts one step earlier. You send a product URL, or a one-sentence description, and a single request returns a batch of up to 20 UGC ad scripts across 6 angles, each with its own hook, written from what is on the product page. A second request renders a script you picked as a 720p vertical video with an AI presenter and burned-in captions, and you poll a status endpoint until the file is ready. Authentication is a bearer key you create in the studio.

The price is published. API access is part of the Enterprise plan at $998 a month, or $499 a month billed yearly, bought at checkout like any other plan. It includes 120 script batches and 12 rendered videos a month, with client workspaces, team seats and white-label exports. The plans below it, from $49 a month billed yearly, use the same engine in the browser without the API, and they are on the pricing page.

Now the limits. Twelve renders a month is a small number, and no plan sells more by the piece, so this is the wrong API for bulk video rendering. Output is 9:16 only, there is one presenter format, there is no timeline editor, and the presenters are generated, so they are not customer testimonials. It fits a team that manages many products or clients and wants the angle and script work automated, with a finished video only for the ideas that earn one. If you want that without code, our Arcads alternative page compares the two apps.