HeyGen API Pricing 2026 and HeyGen API Cost Per Video

HeyGen API pricing is pay as you go: you load a prepaid wallet in US dollars and each video is billed by the second, from $0.60 a minute for an Avatar III digital twin to $7.20 a minute for Avatar V. A 30-second avatar video costs between $0.30 and $3.60 depending on the engine. There is no monthly API plan and no free API credits, the balance expires after 12 months, and the same video costs roughly three times more through the API than inside the HeyGen web app.

We read HeyGen's API pricing article, its developer documentation, the web app pricing page, the terms of service and archived copies of each on 7 October 2026. This page is for a developer, agency or growth team about to fund a HeyGen API wallet to produce avatar videos or video ads in code. It covers what a video costs per engine, what changed in September, what the web subscription does and does not include, the limits, and the clauses worth reading before you build a product on top of it.

HeyGen API pricing at a glance

How much does the HeyGen API cost?

HeyGen prices the API by what you generate and how long it runs. Its help article says usage "is measured in US dollar amount" and that videos are "charged by actual seconds generated", so a 30-second clip costs half the per-minute rate with no rounding up to a full minute. The table lists the rates in the article stamped 16 September 2026. The 30-second column is the per-minute price divided by two.

A few items are flat fees. A cinematic Avatar Shots clip costs $7.32 at 720p and $17.70 at 1080p per video. Creating a digital twin through the API costs $2.13 per call and a photo avatar $1.32. The article also shows a credit figure next to each price, and every row works out to 5 cents a credit: 144 credits for the $7.20 Avatar V minute, 12 for the 60-cent one. There is one rate for everybody on pay as you go. HeyGen lists discounted rates as an Enterprise feature only.

What that buys in practice: a $100 top-up covers about 41 thirty-second Avatar IV digital twin videos, 86 Avatar IV photo avatar videos, or 27 Avatar V videos. Budget for retakes. An ad that reads well on paper often needs three or four renders before the delivery sounds right, and every render is billed.

HeyGen API prices changed in September 2026

Most pages that rank for this search still quote a price list HeyGen has replaced. Archived copies of HeyGen's own article show one set of rates from April to at least 7 August 2026 and a new set by 21 September, and the developer changelog carries no announcement of the change. Some rates fell. The engines an ad team is most likely to want rose sharply.

Go back further and the model itself was different. Until early 2026 the API was sold as monthly plans: Free with 10 credits, Pro at $99 for 100 credits and Scale at $330 for 660. Those plans are closed to new buyers. If you see "$0.99 per credit" or "1 credit equals one minute of video" in a guide, it describes that retired lineup.

The other thing to know is where the live price list sits. The public page at heygen.com/api-pricing now redirects to a dashboard that needs a login, and the old documentation pricing page returns a 404. The help article is the only public copy of the table. A prepaid wallet also has no price lock. HeyGen's terms protect a subscription's price for the period you have paid for, while usage is charged at the prices in effect when it happens. Money you loaded in August buys fewer Avatar V minutes today.

Is the HeyGen API included in Creator, Pro or Business?

No. The API is a standalone purchase. HeyGen says you can buy API usage "without having Creator, Pro, or Business plans", and that API usage "is deducted from your API dashboard balance, which is separate from web plan credits". A team paying $149 a month for Business cannot spend those credits with an API key.

There is one exception. HeyGen's MCP connector and its OAuth login bill the credits in your web plan instead of the API wallet, and HeyGen describes that route as trial-scale, with API keys getting the higher concurrency. If an AI agent will hold either kind of access and a balance it can spend, it is worth putting guardrails around which tools and data that agent is allowed to touch before it runs unattended.

The same video costs about three times more through the API

HeyGen's web plans and its API both value a credit at roughly 5 cents, but they charge different numbers of credits for the same work. In the web app an Avatar IV video look uses 31 credits a minute. The API charges 97 for an Avatar IV digital twin. Avatar V is 48 in the app and 144 in the API, and Video Agent is 40 against 116.

Two assumptions sit under that table and you should know them. We matched the app's "video look" to the API's "digital twin" and its "photo look" to "photo avatar", which is our reading and not HeyGen's wording. We also assumed the app bills a 30-second video at half its per-minute credits. HeyGen says credit usage can vary and does not publish how the app rounds a short clip.

The gap is the price of automation. The wallet buys an API key, 10 videos rendering at once, webhooks, batch endpoints and a balance that lasts a year. The app buys the same picture for a third of the money, but its credits lapse after one extra month on monthly billing and nothing can drive it with a key. If a person will click the button anyway, the app is the better deal, and our HeyGen pricing breakdown covers which web plan to pick. Business gives 1,500 credits for $149 while the Pro rung at $149 gives 3,000, a point we go through in our HeyGen review.

Do HeyGen API credits expire?

Yes. HeyGen states that pay as you go API credits "expire after 12 months" from purchase, and credits on the old Pro and Scale API plans expire after 30 days. There is no rollover question on the wallet because it is a balance and not a monthly allowance, but a balance you load and forget is gone a year later.

HeyGen also states it "does not offer free API credits starting Feb 2026". Its error codes mention a pay as you go trial balance on some accounts, with no published amount, so plan on paying for your first test. The minimum top-up was $5 on HeyGen's marketing page as archived on 7 September 2026. That page is no longer public, so check the figure in the dashboard. An auto-reload setting exists and its thresholds are not published.

HeyGen API limits you should plan around

Two things are unclear in HeyGen's own pages. The previous price table had a 4K column and the current one does not, so whether a self-serve account can render 4K, and at what price, is not published. And the help article now prices digital twin creation through the API for everyone, while a marketing page captured in early September still listed that feature under Enterprise. Ask before you design around either.

HeyGen interactive avatar pricing is a separate product

Real-time streaming avatars are sold as LiveAvatar, on a separate platform with its own credits that HeyGen says are "independent of HeyGen API credits". Essential costs $99 a month for 1,100 credits and Business $475 for 6,000. A full conversation uses 2 credits a minute, about 18 cents on Essential and 16 cents on Business, and avatar-only mode uses 1. The free tier has 10 credits, sessions capped at two minutes and a watermark. Extra custom avatar slots are $49 a month each.

HeyGen Enterprise API pricing

HeyGen does not publish it. Its documentation says "Enterprise contract pricing is not published" and that an account team explains the billing models. What Enterprise adds is listed: discounted rates, 20 concurrent videos, burst capacity at 1.5 times the contract rate, higher rate limits, dedicated developer support and a 99.9 percent uptime commitment backed by credits. Figures for a typical contract that circulate on review sites are not from HeyGen and we could not verify any of them.

Terms to read before you build on the HeyGen API

We found no separate API terms. The general terms of service, last updated 23 July 2026, apply, and five points matter to anyone building a product or an ad pipeline.

• Refunds. "Payments are non-refundable, except where required by law." The help centre describes case-by-case refunds within 15 days for subscriptions and says nothing about an API wallet.
• Wrappers and white-label. You may not "develop an interface to access the Services without going directly to the Website (e.g., via an API and/or by white-labeling any portion of the Services), unless we explicitly make such functionality available to you". If you plan to resell HeyGen video inside your own product, get that permission in writing.
• Competing products. The terms bar using the service "to build any products or services that are competitive to any portion of the Services".
• Ownership. HeyGen assigns output to you and allows commercial use, in a section titled for users on the Creator, Pro and Business plans. API-only accounts are not named. Free plan output may not be used in advertising at all.
• Disclosure and consent. You may not present output as entirely human made where the law requires disclosure, and an avatar of a real person needs that person's explicit consent. Both matter for UGC-style ads.

Your uploads also carry a broad licence. The terms let HeyGen use your content to improve its services, including to train its models, on a transferable and sublicensable basis. If you upload a founder's face to make a digital twin, that is the clause to show them first.

HeyGen API cost against Creatify, D-ID and Argil

These are the published API rates for one 30-second avatar video at each vendor, read on the same day. They are different products, so treat the table as a price orientation and test the output quality yourself.

Creatify's API charges 5 credits per 30 seconds for an avatar video and one more credit per product link when it builds the video from a URL. D-ID's lower plans leave a watermark on the video and only its Scale plan removes it. Argil's pricing page and its documentation list different plans, so confirm the rate before you rely on it. We compare more of these, including what each API leaves out, in AI UGC video generator API pricing, and Arcads, which publishes no dollar price at all, is covered in our Arcads API page.

When the HeyGen API is the right buy

Buy it if you already have the scripts and need them rendered in volume by code. Localized versions of one message, personalized sales or onboarding videos, a product that needs a talking presenter generated on demand: these are what the API is built for, and at 30 to 50 cents for a 30-second Avatar III clip it is cheap. The per-second billing is fair, the limits are published and the documentation is thorough.

Be more careful if the plan is paid social. The engines that look most like a real creator are the ones that got dearer in September, the API costs three times the app for the same clip, and it renders exactly the script you send. Deciding which hook and angle to test, and writing them, is still your job.

Where AdsGen fits instead

AdsGen is our product, and it solves the step before rendering. You paste a product URL and it writes a batch of up to 20 UGC ad scripts across 6 angles, each with its own hook, then renders the ones you pick as 720p vertical videos with an AI presenter and burned-in captions. It is a subscription and not a per-minute meter: Starter is $99 a month, or $49 a month billed yearly, with 4 script batches and 1 rendered video a month, Growth has 20 batches and 2 videos, and Scale 60 and 6. API access is on the Enterprise plan at $998 a month, or $499 a month billed yearly, with 120 batches and 12 rendered videos a month. The full list is on the pricing page.

That makes it the wrong tool if you need hundreds of rendered avatar minutes from code. Use HeyGen for that. It fits when the bottleneck is knowing what to say: many products or clients, many angles to test, and a handful of finished videos once you know which script deserves one. Output is 9:16 only, there is no timeline editor, and the presenters are generated, so they are not customer testimonials. If you are weighing the two for ads, our HeyGen alternative page sets them side by side.

HeyGen API pricing FAQ

How much does the HeyGen API cost per minute?

Between $0.60 and $7.20 a minute for avatar video, billed by the second. An Avatar III digital twin is $0.60 a minute, a studio or photo avatar on Avatar III $0.99, an Avatar IV photo avatar $2.31, an Avatar IV digital twin or studio avatar $4.83 and Avatar V $7.20. Video Agent costs $5.82 a minute. These are the rates in HeyGen's article stamped 16 September 2026.

How many free API credits do I get each month?

None. HeyGen states it "does not offer free API credits starting Feb 2026". The old free API tier with 10 credits a month is gone. Some accounts appear to get a small pay as you go trial balance, but HeyGen does not publish the amount, so expect to fund the wallet before your first real test.

Can I subscribe to an API plan without a standard HeyGen paid plan?

Yes. The API is a standalone purchase and needs no Creator, Pro or Business subscription. There is also no API plan to subscribe to any more: you top up a prepaid wallet and pay for what you generate. The old $99 Pro and $330 Scale API plans are only honoured for existing subscribers.

Is HeyGen's API included in the web subscription?

No. Web plan credits and the API wallet are separate balances, and an API key cannot spend web credits. The exception is HeyGen's MCP connector and OAuth login, which bill your web plan credits and which HeyGen describes as trial-scale.

Do API credits expire?

Yes. Pay as you go API credits expire 12 months after purchase. Credits on the legacy Pro and Scale API plans expire after 30 days. Payments are non-refundable under HeyGen's terms, so top up in amounts you expect to use.

How many videos can I process simultaneously with the HeyGen API?

Ten at a time on pay as you go and 20 on Enterprise, according to HeyGen's usage limits page. Enterprise accounts can buy burst capacity above that at 1.5 times their contract rate. Requests over the limit return a 429 response with a retry time.

Is the HeyGen API cheaper than the HeyGen app?

No. By our calculation the API costs about three times what the app costs for the same video on Creator or Pro, and about 1.5 times the Business plan. A 30-second Avatar IV digital twin video is $2.42 through the API against roughly 75 cents on the $29 Creator plan. You pay the difference for automation, concurrency and a balance that lasts a year.

Can I use HeyGen API videos in paid ads?

Paid-plan output can be used commercially, and nothing in the terms bans paid advertising. The limits are on how: explicit consent for an avatar of a real person, disclosure that a video is AI made where the law requires it, no political campaigning, and no advertising use of anything made on the Free plan.