First paid AI avatar plan, October 2026: $18 to $59 vs Sume seconds

The cheapest paid avatar plans read on 2026-10-08 run from $18 a month (Synthesia Starter, billed annually) to $59 (Colossyan Professional monthly, Tavus Starter). The same money buys 97 to 320 seconds of Sume Avatar 1.0 on Standard at $0.184 a second. A subscription includes an editor, seats or live minutes that a per-second API does not, so the table is a unit conversion, not a verdict.

Sume has no subscription: the catalog rate card lists per-second video prices and a $0.95 fee per new avatar. The conversion below ignores the avatar fee.

The conversion

Prices come from each vendor's pricing page or, for Synthesia, the pricing page and the October 1 plan article. Seconds are the price divided by $0.184, rounded down.

Reading it

A vendor plan in this range gives you tens of minutes of video, so on pure video-minutes the plans are cheaper than Sume at $11.04 a minute. The conversion shows the other side: if you only need one or two short clips a month, you do not need to hold a plan to get them.

Two of these are not video-minute products at all. Tavus Starter buys conversation minutes with a live avatar. Synthesia credits are shared across video, dubbing and survey responses.

Choosing at this budget

Under about 5 minutes of finished video a month, pay per second. Between 5 and 30 minutes, a plan with an editor is cheaper per minute, as the Colossyan per-minute post works out. For live conversation, only the Tavus row applies, and Sume has no equivalent.