HeyGen vs Tavus
A spec-by-spec comparison of HeyGen and Tavus: pricing, free tier, clip length, resolution, watermark, commercial use and API access.
Key differences
- HeyGen is cheaper to start: $29/month vs $59/month for Tavus.
- Free tier: HeyGen — 3 watermarked videos/month, up to 1 min each; Tavus — Developer Basic: 25 min of conversational video and 5 min of video generation.
- Max resolution: HeyGen — 4K (Pro and above); Tavus — 1080p.
| HeyGen | Tavus | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan · from $29/mo | Free plan · from $59/mo |
| Free tier | 3 watermarked videos/month, up to 1 min each | Developer Basic: 25 min of conversational video and 5 min of video generation |
| Max clip length | 30 min (Creator/Pro), 60 min (Business), no limit on Enterprise | |
| Max resolution | 4K (Pro and above) | 1080p |
| Watermark on free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Commercial use | Paid plans | |
| Developer API | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | No | No |
HeyGen turns a typed script into a presenter-led video using stock or custom AI avatars, and can translate and lip-sync existing footage into 175+ languages and dialects. It runs on a shared credit system across its avatar engines (Avatar III/IV/V), its Video Agent, and bundled third-party generators. It suits marketers, creators and L&D teams who want spokesperson videos without filming.
- Free plan includes Avatar IV access and one custom video avatar
- 4K export and 30-minute videos from the $49 Pro plan
- Translation covers 175+ languages and dialects on paid plans
- Free videos capped at 1 minute and watermarked
- Creator plan exports top out at 1080p
- API usage is billed separately from plan credits
Tavus provides APIs for building real-time, face-to-face conversational video agents and for generating videos with digital replicas trained from about two minutes of footage. It bundles the full pipeline (speech recognition, LLM, TTS, rendering over WebRTC). It also runs a consumer 'PALs' companion app, but its main audience is developers and product teams.
- Full real-time pipeline included (STT, LLM, TTS, WebRTC)
- Custom replicas from a short two-minute video
- Transparent per-minute overage pricing ($0.32-0.37/min conversational)
- Free developer tier keeps a Tavus watermark
- Growth plan jumps to $397/month
- Custom replica trainings are capped per month on paid plans
Specs last verified 2026-10-23 (HeyGen) and 2026-10-23 (Tavus). See each tool page for sources.