HeyGen LiveAvatar: 1 credit is 30 s in FULL mode, 1 min in LITE

HeyGen's LiveAvatar is a streaming avatar: it talks back to a person in real time. Its FAQ, which I read on 2026-10-04, says FULL mode uses 1 credit for each 30 seconds of streaming and comes with HeyGen's own LLM (OpenAI 4o-mini), while LITE mode uses 1 credit per minute, lets you plug in your own LLM, and keeps no data. It also says enterprise plans start at $40,000 or more, and that you can make a custom avatar from a 2-minute video or a single photo.

Those are conversation numbers. A recorded avatar video is a different product with a different bill.

Live minutes vs finished seconds

With a streaming avatar you pay for the time the session is open, whether the avatar talks or waits. With a recorded avatar video you pay for the seconds of finished video, and you can review before you publish. Sume's talking-video route is the second kind: it returns a 720p MP4 for a script, 4 to 60 seconds long.

A fair comparison

If a customer must ask questions and get answers, a script-in MP4 cannot do that. Sume does not ship a real-time conversation avatar, so a LiveAvatar-style use case is outside what it covers. If instead your page needs a spokesperson that says the same thing to every visitor, a recorded clip is cheaper and can be checked first. A 30 second clip costs 30 x $0.184 = $5.52 at standard or 30 x $0.245 = $7.35 at plus.

Creating the avatar is a flat $0.95 with POST /v1/avatar-1.0/generate, using input: photo and a public HTTPS image_url if you have a photo.

Choosing

Count how many viewers need an answer. If the number is zero, record. If it is more than zero, you need a streaming product, and a recorded clip can still serve as the intro before the live part starts.