HeyGen

There is one thing to count: how many videos with the same presenter you need each month. One trial video comes with the free plan; $29 gets you half an hour of talking-head video.

What people come to HeyGen to do and whether they will get it: the six most common requests in a month.

Search volume — Wordstat, Russia region, 06.09.2026; queries “heygen free”, “heygen avatar”, “download heygen”, “heygen in Russian”, “heygen video translation”, “how to pay for heygen in Russia”

Who it is for. For people producing many similar videos with one presenter: course lessons, employee instructions, product updates, client messages as video. Record yourself once, then only change the text. For $29 per month, you get about 37 minutes of finished video with a photo avatar, and translating your own video into another language costs from 29 cents per minute.

Who else. For people assembling videos automatically: an agent turns one sentence into a video plan and shows the price in credits before generation, while connectors for n8n, Make, and Zapier use the same subscription credits as the browser button.

Who it is not for. For people who want it free and ready for work immediately: three one-minute trial videos are watermarked, and the terms allow them only for personal use. For people who need a Russian interface: neither the site nor the app has one. And for those expecting studio-quality Russian speech: practitioners complained about accent and stress in December 2024, there are no recent assessments, and the interactive avatar did not understand spoken Russian in October 2025.

Suitable: section 3 takes you from sign-up to your first video. You choose between it and Synthesia, then the fork is in section 7.

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Two ways into one product: a script in the editor or one sentence to an agent, resulting in a video with a talking person. Everything is counted in credits per minute of finished video.

Three avatar generations. Avatar III launched in September 2024 and remains the cheapest, at 4 credits per minute from a video avatar. Avatar IV, from May 2025, animates one photo, people, drawn characters, and animals, and adds hand gestures. Avatar V, from April 2026, learns from a short video and keeps a person's appearance as clothing, background, and camera angle change; it works only with video avatars and costs 48 credits per minute.

Your own double. Avatar V requires a fifteen-second webcam recording and the “Clone a Real Person” button in the avatars section. Separately, you record a consent video, and the service compares its facial geometry with the face in the recording: you cannot digitize someone else without their recording, while you can request deletion of your own likeness. One avatar can have up to 500 looks under one consent.

Editor like a document. Script on the left, scene on the right, with every line tied to an avatar and voice. There is Voice Director for intonation, ready-made templates, a brand kit, auto subtitles, and collaboration with other people's cursors. Finished videos on Creator and Pro run up to 30 minutes, on Business up to an hour, and since July 2026 the vendor claims a 30-minute talking head in one pass.

Agent. In Video Agent mode, you write one sentence and the agent builds a plan: script, style, avatar, voice, duration, and an estimate in credits. After confirmation, it assembles the video and provides a scene-by-scene storyboard with an “Edit a copy in AI Studio” button. Since July 2026, the agent has used the open HyperFrames graphics engine, which writes animation in code.

Translation and dubbing. Upload a file or YouTube link, choose up to ten languages per pass and one of two engines, Speed or Precision. The result is dubbing with lip sync in the speaker's own voice plus SRT or VTT subtitles; a glossary keeps terminology consistent, and review mode lets you correct the translation before finalizing. The storefront promises 175+ languages, the help list has 85 base languages, and the rest are regional variants.

Russian language. These are three different facts. You can voice an avatar and translate video into Russian: “Russian (Russia)” appears in the official language lists, and the vendor has separate English–Russian and Russian–English language-pair pages. There is no Russian interface: the site has 21 language versions, including Ukrainian but not Russian, while the app is available in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. Russian speech quality was described only by practitioners in December 2024, who complained about accent and stress.

Interactive avatar. Real-time conversations with an avatar are hosted on a separate site, liveavatar.com, with its own plans and credits; a HeyGen subscription does not cover it. A practitioner wrote in October 2025 that such an avatar understands text in any language but cannot recognize spoken Russian.

What the vendor itself shows. The header video is cut from the official AI Studio editor trailer on the vendor's site, uploaded 02.06.2025: document-style script on the left, scene with an avatar on the right, brand-kit and background selection. The interface has since been rebuilt; the screenshots above were made by the vendor for its help center in July 2026 and show the agent screen instead. We did not run videos through the service ourselves; the mechanics and figures come from the vendor's help center, storefront, and terms.

From Russia, the site and app open, but you will need a foreign card to pay: Apple has not processed purchases in Russia since April 2026.

Step 1. Open app.heygen.com and create an account with email; no card is needed. The free plan gives three one-minute videos a month according to the storefront, while the help center clarifies “from one to three depending on the region”; the vendor does not say how many Russia gets. You also get one custom avatar and three agent videos per month.

Step 2. Choose an avatar from the library of more than 500 faces, or record yourself for fifteen seconds and separately record consent. Enter the script in the editor's left column, choose a voice and background, then click Generate. The second route: one sentence in Video Agent, a video plan with an estimate, and confirmation.

Step 3. The video goes to moderation: “Pending” usually ends in approval, “Rejected” is issued for prohibited topics and other people's faces, and support cannot speed up review. You can download a 1080p file with Creator; on the free plan, the vendor promises a 720p viewing link. Finished-video translation is in Apps: file or YouTube link, language, engine.

From Russia. The website and app return code 200 from a Moscow node which, in the same minute, does not open Instagram*, meaning it sees Russian blocks; from a St. Petersburg node in the same minute chatgpt.com returned a 403 refusal while heygen.com opened (test 06.09.2026). The domain is absent from block registries. The vendor geoblocks Iran, not Russia.

Payment. The website checkout runs through Stripe and Chargebee, and a Russian card will not work. Ruble prices in the Russian App Store are listed without a way to pay them: since 01.04.2026 Apple has not accepted new purchases and renewals in Russia without funds in an Apple account, while Google Play has not offered paid services in Russia since 10.03.2022. How to pay from abroad is covered in the guide to paying for AI services from Russia; intermediaries charge 3 161 to 3 649 ₽ for Creator versus 2 511 ₽ at the exchange rate, one of them uses a rate of 113 ₽ per dollar, and cheaper listings, down to 299 ₽ for a discontinued “unlimited” plan, sell someone else's account or a plan that does not exist.

Apps. iPhone: in the Russian App Store, the app is called “HeyGen: Video Generator,” rated 4,70 from 893 ratings, updated 05.09.2026, but it speaks English. Android: Google Play shows over one million downloads. There is no official app in RuStore; an unrelated build with a 2,0 rating appears in search, and the vendor itself warns that other Android listings are unofficial. There is no desktop app, and in Yandex for the query “heygen in Russian,” the official website ranks seventh behind three lookalikes.

Steps verified 06.09.2026 against the heygen.com listing and help center, terms dated 23.07.2026, access tests from Russian nodes with control sites, and the App Store, Google Play, and RuStore listings

There are no arenas or benchmarks for talking heads, so there will be no word “best” here: only vendor figures with dates, two ratings that contradict each other, and demand.

Vendor claims. A press release dated 25.06.2026 cites $200 million in annual revenue, doubled in eight months, 30 million users, and 196 countries; the counter on the company page showed around 162,5 million generated videos on 06.09.2026. The company has raised $74 million in total; its latest $500 million valuation was cited in June 2024, with no newer one announced publicly since.

Two ratings. On G2, it is 4,8 from 1 967 reviews; on Trustpilot, 3,7 from 3 221 with 18 % one-star ratings. In February 2026 it was 2,5 from 1 575 there, and you cannot conclude it got better because the share of five-star ratings fell over that period. The vendor pays for its Trustpilot profile and invites reviews itself; G2 collects opinions from business buyers, Trustpilot from people stuck on credits, charges, and support.

Demand in Russia. “Heygen” is searched 12 371 times per month, with another 1 432 searches for “heygen AI,” and the most common modifiers are free, download, and in Russian (Wordstat, 06.09.2026). In Yandex for the query “heygen in Russian,” the official website ranks seventh, while the first three positions are taken by lookalike domains promising a Russian version the vendor does not offer. HeyGen's place among video tools is shown below the card title; the full tool ranking is on the main page.

You pay with credits for minutes of finished video: entry is $29 per month for 600 credits, and the pricing page honestly shows the monthly price rather than the annual one.

Credit. This is the service's single currency: on Creator, a credit costs about five cents. One minute of a talking head with an Avatar IV photo avatar costs 16 credits, with a video avatar 31, and on Avatar V 48; one minute of translation costs 4 credits without lip sync, 6 in fast mode, and 10 in precise mode; one minute of agent video costs 40. So Creator's 600 credits become 37 minutes of photo-avatar video, 100 minutes of fast translation, or 12 minutes on Avatar V.

Free. The pricing page promises three one-minute videos per month; the vendor help center says “from one to three depending on region,” the free plan has no credits and includes three agent videos. Finished video is delivered as a 720p viewing link, the HeyGen watermark is removed only with Creator, and the terms allow free results only for personal use and internal evaluation.

Three plans. Creator is $29 per month or $24 with annual billing for 600 credits and videos up to 30 minutes. Pro ranges from $49 for 1 000 credits to $4 300 per month for 100 000, across ten tiers, with 4K export. Business is $149 for 1 500 credits plus $20 per seat, with videos up to one hour and the only option to buy extra credits, at five cents each. Annual billing saves 17 %, and a slot for a second personal avatar costs another $29 per month.

Three wallets. Subscription credits are used by the browser, app, connectors for n8n, Make, and Zapier, and MCP integration. The direct API runs on a separate dollar balance from $5, where one minute of Avatar IV costs $3, four times more than the same minute by subscription. The interactive avatar on liveavatar.com uses its own credits, unaffected by a HeyGen subscription.

Traps. Pausing a subscription burns all remaining credits; the vendor states this directly. On monthly plans, the balance survives one more cycle, while cancellation resets everything. Refunds are discretionary within the first 15 days, through Apple within the first 14, and unavailable if credits have already been spent. Unlimited plans were discontinued 15.05.2026; reviews mentioning “unlimited” describe a plan that no longer exists.

Paying from Russia. The website checkout runs through Stripe and Chargebee, a Russian card does not work, and the vendor does not accept cryptocurrency. Ruble prices in the Russian App Store, 2 490 ₽ for Creator, are listed without a way to pay: since 01.04.2026 Apple has not accepted new purchases in Russia without funds in an Apple account, while Google Play has not offered paid services in Russia since 10.03.2022. Intermediaries charge 3 161 to 3 649 ₽ for Creator versus 2 511 ₽ at the Bank of Russia rate, with one of them charging exactly 31 % extra on every plan. Listings cheaper than the official price, down to 299 ₽ for “unlimited,” discontinued in May, sell someone else's account or a plan that does not exist.

Three questions: who owns the finished video, what the service does with your face and voice, and why it has 18 % one-star reviews on Trustpilot.

Who owns the video. On paid plans, it is yours: terms dated 23.07.2026 grant all rights to the result, including commercial use. On the free plan, the result is allowed only for personal use and internal evaluation; it cannot be sold or used in advertising. The same terms grant the vendor a perpetual license to your content, including for training its models, and it survives account deletion; opting out of training requires an email to support.

Face and voice. You cannot create a custom avatar without a consent recording: the service compares face geometry in the submitted video with the face in a separate verification recording, and the vendor says “No verification, no avatar.” Avatars of other people and public figures without their consent are prohibited by the moderation policy, and the vendor promises always to honor requests to remove your likeness. It does not sell biometric data, data may be processed in the United States, and the agreement is governed by California law.

Incidents. In March 2024, The Washington Post reported on Pennsylvania student Olga Loiek, whose clone appeared in thousands of videos on Chinese social media; some videos, judging by scammers' correspondence, were made in HeyGen, and the vendor did not respond to the newspaper's inquiry. In October 2024, a deepfake of HeyGen's CEO appeared in a phishing ad: the publication wrote that the clone was assembled on the HeyGen site itself; the vendor replied that the video was not made on its platform, but removed some avatars from the public library as a precaution. No breaches appear in Have I Been Pwned, and no regulatory lawsuits or fines were found as of 06.09.2026.

Why the one-stars. Trustpilot has 3 221 reviews, with 18 % rated one star (06.09.2026). Three themes recur: credits are deducted at rates different from the price list, “74 credits each” instead of the promised 60 for a Seedance video (31.08.2026); money is charged after cancellation and from people who thought they were on the free plan (04.09.2026); support sells instead of helping (01.09.2026). Russian App Store reviews add their own issues: “all your Unlimited must fit within 600 seconds” (02.09.2025), and deleting an uploaded avatar is offered after six months (22.04.2025).

Who is behind the service. A Los Angeles company founded by Joshua Xu and Wayne Liang, who previously worked at Snapchat and Smule. According to SCMP, it was founded in 2020 in Shenzhen as Surreal, moved to Los Angeles and became Movio in 2022; in spring 2023 the site changed its name to HeyGen, though the vendor does not publish this history. It raised $74 million; its latest round, $60 million at a $500 million valuation, was announced in June 2024, and no newer valuation has been publicly stated since. Headcount ranges from 130 to 200 by different estimates.

The difference is not quality, which nobody has independently measured, but what costs you more: a cheap working minute or free trial minutes.

Synthesia. London corporate video studio with the same $29 monthly entry point, but it gives 10 video minutes a month for that price versus 37 at HeyGen with a photo avatar, making a minute about $2.90. Its free plan does offer 10 minutes a month without a card, though, and it focuses on employee training and internal communications. HeyGen itself chose it as its main competitor: in August 2026, it published «15 Best Synthesia Alternatives» and asks AI assistants to place it alongside Synthesia.

HeyGen. Cheaper to use and broader in entry points: an editor, a one-prompt agent, finished-video translation for 29 cents a minute, and phone apps. The gap depends on the model: a minute costs $0.19 on the older Avatar III, but $2.32 on the flagship Avatar V, nearly as much as Synthesia. The trade-off is the stingiest free plan in the category: three one-minute videos with a watermark and no commercial use.

Who else is nearby. Rask AI only does translation and dubbing of finished videos, at $2.40 per minute monthly versus $0.29 at HeyGen. D-ID charges $29 monthly for 15 avatar minutes or $16 with annual billing, Colossyan offers 20 free minutes a month and focuses on courses. No Russian service with talking avatars and a ruble subscription was found as of 06.09.2026: revideo, which reviews call an alternative, is for sale as a domain.

Three names in three years and four pricing-model changes: according to SCMP, the company started as Surreal in Shenzhen and became Movio in Los Angeles, the website turned into HeyGen in spring 2023, and unlimited plans were closed on 15.05.2026.